There are two things I hate about this time of year: out-of-tune caroling and bad Christmas cards. Or rather, holiday cards - bad taste isn't limited to Christmas.

Why? I'll get to that. But first: In the winter of 1843, Sir Henry Cole, a well-known English activist who helped reform the British postal system, found himself with a very large stack of letters and very little time. Rather than spend his days laboring over each response, the industrious Cole hit upon a new idea: Why not send a small, decorated card instead? He enlisted the help of a friend to create an illustration for the front of the card and then had a London printer make a thousand copies. Cole simply had to fill in the "to" and "from" lines, and - ta-da! - the first Christmas card was complete.

So there you have it, a tradition born out of laziness. And not much has changed in the roughly 170 years since, which brings us back to my beef with holiday cards.