It's a change to save money and environment – people are increasingly switching over to the web to dispatch their greetings for the Christmas instead of going for the traditional paper card.According to experts, the number of festive e-cards being sent is growing by more than 200 per cent a year while the number of paper cards is static, largely due to the global financial meltdown."Many people are keen to shave a few pounds off their Christmas budgets this year. Last December, we had sent 1,362,000 e-cards and year-on-year we are probably increasing at about 200 to 250 per cent."I think e-cards will have an impact on paper card sales. It's not cheap to send them. I don't think people have got the money this year. People need to save money and this is a really easy way to do it," Sam Heaton of Britain's biggest e-cards firm, ecards.co.uk, told 'The Daily Telegraph'.Agreed Ray Sangster of Flip Video, a mini-camcorder the size of an iPhone: "Whilst it is still of course special to receive a Christmas card, the impact a personal video message from a granddaughter or grandson has on the recipient can't be underestimated."In fact, more and more organisations have now started sending e-cards for the Christmas year, including Royal Opera House, Cancer Research UK and the Shell Foundation. Many cite environmental reasons for sending them though they're cheaper."We chose it for practical reasons – to save on postage, paper and printing and to try to be environmentally friendly. We think ours is extremely stylish," a Spokesman for the British Royal Opera House said.The paper card was itself invented as a time-saving measure.Finding himself busy to write individual Christmas letters, future Victoria and Albert Museum Director Sir Henry Cole commissioned artist John Calcott Horsley to design a card in 1843, on which he could pen a short message to his friends and colleagues.
