Online Resource for Best Artistic Animated Christmas Ecards

Do you want to share the joy and magic of Christmas or the wonder of the winter season in a truly memorable way that feels fresh and exciting, yet doesn't break your holiday budget? Sending artistic ecards provides a unique, sophisticated, and very economical opportunity to send your very best season's greetings far and wide.

Colorful electronic greeting cards sent via the Internet have been around and popular since the mid-1990s. Every passing year has seen them become more widely used and increasingly beautiful and elaborate. Today, the many millions of senders worldwide expect not just beautiful but animated ecards that amount to miniature movies on their computer screens.

Not surprisingly, holidays-especially Christmas-are the occasions during which most people send animated ecards, just as they have always done for paper-and-ink greeting cards. Websites of the major players in the bricks-and-mortar greeting card industry, Hallmark and American Greetings (which also owns Blue Mountain), offer a wide range, with the cost of sending their best creations as high as $1.99 apiece from Hallmark or $13.99 for an annual membership from American Greetings.

The animated Christmas ecards you get to send for those prices are beautiful, to be sure. But they can also tend to look like the mass-produced printed Christmas cards people buy by the box load: a little bit bland, lacking in the kind of personal warmth that caring people hope to convey through the greetings they send out during the holiday season.

That's where animated ecards produced by individual artists are creating a unique new niche. Those from Jacquie Lawson have gained a devoted following since the English artist first sent out a Christmas ecard to friends in December 2000. The 16 seasonal selections her website now makes available to paying members share a gentle English charm. Witness "The Christmas Fishbowl," featuring a team of playful goldfish who transform strands of seaweed into a holiday tree; "Robins' Nest," in which two red-breasted birds build a wreath around their treetop home; or the many winter choices featuring Chudleigh, Lawson's beloved Chocolate Labrador-Springer Spaniel mix, such as "Snow Dog," an interactive experience in which he builds a friend to share with him the joys of Christmas in a snowy English village scene.

One of the most impressive newcomers in the category of artistic animated ecards is the Ojolie website, which features the sophisticated creations of Frederikke Tu. With new selections being added every month, Ojolie already features nine exceptionally beautiful choices on Christmas and winter themes. Ojolie's "Snow Globe," for example, enthralls the viewer as a winter scene inside a snow globe magically comes to life. "Nativity" exquisitely presents the Christmas story, as three wise men on camelback follow the Star of Bethlehem to the manger to behold the Christ child. "Origami Crane," an ideal option for those who don't want to send overt Christmas greetings, enchants as a sheet of paper gracefully folds and refolds to become one of a flock of elegant cranes, a universal expression of joy and peace.

That last example bespeaks the influence of Asia, where she currently lives, on Ojolie's Scandinavian-born Frederikke Tu. Among the growing numbers of animated ecard creators, Tu in particular possesses a global sensibility that not only sets her sophisticated work apart while also giving it widespread appeal. And an annual membership fee of only $10, or $15 for two years, gives subscribers to her website the ability to send out an unlimited number of personalized cards. When you consider that such fees are far lower than the cost of a single box of paper-and-ink cards, that makes animated artistic ecards such as those from Ojolie not only a smart aesthetic choice for Christmas or winter greetings but also an economically and ecologically smart decision, too. What a creative way to spread peace on earth and goodwill towards humankind!

Find examples of artistic animated ecards at
http://www.americangreetings.com
http://www.jacquielawson.com
http://www.ojolie.com
http://www.hallmark.com
http://www.bluemountain.com