Greeting card

A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo on its front cover, made of high-quality paper featuring an expression of friendship, love, celebration, or other sentiment. Greeting cards are traditionally given on special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, baptisms, and graduations, or during the holidays, including New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Greeting cards can also be sent to express other feelings, such as giving thanks, sympathy, encouragement, or best wishes to get well from an illness or injury.

Greeting cards are usually packaged using an envelope and come in a variety of styles. There are both mass-produced and handmade versions available and they may be distributed by hundreds of companies large and small. While typically inexpensive, more elaborate cards with die-cuts, pop-ups, sound elements or glued-on decorations may be more expensive.

Hallmark Cards and American Greetings, both U.S.-based companies, are the two most commercially successful producers of greeting cards in the world today.

In Western countries and increasingly in other societies, many people traditionally mail seasonally themed cards to their friends and relatives during holiday seasons, especially in December. Many service businesses also send cards to their customers in this season, typically with a universally acceptable non-religious message such as "happy holidays" or "season's greetings." Many people also usually include money or gift cards that are placed into greeting cards.