It’s a common seasonal refrain: “Christmas just isn’t like it used to be.”

This is not a new complaint. History shows that Christmas traditions are just as subject to change as any other aspect of human societies, and when customs change, there are always some who wish they could turn back the clock.

In the 1830s, the English solicitor William Sandys compiled a host of examples of Britons bemoaning the transformation of Christmas customs from earlier eras. Sandys himself was especially concerned about the decline of public caroling, noting the practice appeared “to get more neglected every year.” He worried that this “neglect” was indicative of a wider British tendency to observe Christmas with less “hospitality and innocent revelry” in the 19th century than in the past.

Yet the 19th century also produced new holiday customs. In fact, many of the new Christmas practices in Sandy’s time went on to become established traditions themselves—and are now the subject of nostalgia and fretted over by those who fear their decline. Take, for example, the humble Christmas card. My research shows that these printed seasonal greetings borrowed from the customs of the past to move Christmas into a new age.

Annual sales and circulation of Christmas cards have been in decline since the 1990s. Laments over the potential “death” of the Christmas card have been especially vocal in the United Kingdom, where the mailing of Christmas greetings to family and friends via printed cards was long considered to be an essential element of a “British Christmas.”

Indeed, historians Martin Johnes and Mark Connelly both argue that throughout the 20th century the Christmas card was viewed as just as essential a part of Britain’s distinctive blend of holiday traditions as children hanging stockings at the end of their beds, Christmas pantomimes, and the eating of turkey and Brussels sprouts.

Yet, as these same historians are quick to note, at one time Britons did none of these things at Christmas. Each of these traditions became an........

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