As the holiday season has commenced, we've noticed an interesting trend this year in video holiday cards created by YouTube users. Take a look at the search interest chart for "holiday cards" on YouTube spanning back to October of 2008. There's always been a sizeable spike around Christmas, but that spike has nearly doubled this year compared to last. (Searches for "christmas card" are showing a similar pattern.)



First, there's the e-card variety that are meant to be shared with friends and family. Video e-cards posted by comedian/puppeteer Jeff Dunham (example above) have drawn over 700,000 views so far this season, and others by Grolsch and BMW have also been popular.

Then, there are the holiday cards being created and posted by different businesses and other groups. We highlighted one of the more inventive ones by Klick marketing and comms firm on Tuesday's PM 4 @ 4, but there are plenty of others by everyone from the Missouri Department of Conservation to Mr. Peanut. First Round Capital put out an Old Spice-inspired one.

And we've also seen a lot of cards put out by colleges and Universities. Watch a playlist of them here.

Other users, like kwernerdesign, have also posted craft tutorials on how to make pretty impressive versions of those old 20th Century "paper" greeting cards.