It’s been a happy holiday season here at the Casa de Tripler, but I think I missed a memo or something. . .
In the run-up to the holidays, my significant other (SIGO) and I dutifully assembled pictures of us and our pets, and word processed some text in a little mini-update for the back of the card. We settle on the text, some pictures, and upload everything to a commercial site that prints our nice cards and envelopes. Between SIGO and I, we order 110 for friends, family, associates, and a couple ‘o’ spares. We fill 'em out with a short handwritten, personalized note, and drop them en mass into the mail by early December.
Over the course of the weeks’ run-up to Christmas & New Years, we got our expected return correspondence (Cousins Joyce and Zeke are coming off the list next year after three years of non-replies, even though their FaceBook accounts are alive and well with their ‘YOLO!’ lifetyles) but lately, after the first, we’d been getting some dedicated New Years cards. Not “Happy belated Christmas” or tardy “Happy Holidays!” but professional “Happy New Year” cards from enough people that don’t know each other, that makes me think that HNY cards are now a ‘thing.’
Did I miss a press conference or something? Are HNY cards now, in fact, going around regularly?
Tripler
I may be old fashioned and processing my words, but at least I don’t feel tardy.
It may be a cultural thing, but from your description, it doesn’t seem so. I did send out NY cards for 2000, but that was something of a special year. Other than that, I never sent them out at any other time. It might definitely be a new trend.
I didn’t get the memo on Winter Lights, either, which seems to be another new trend. People in my area are keeping their Xmas lights up later this year, and some of them just evolve their decorations into snowflakes and snowmen, white and blue lights, etc.(I have seen this situation all over town). Even the city has yet to remove their lamp post wreaths, they were still in evidence yesterday. Perhaps it is shortage of staff to remove the decorations? In our town, Parks and Rec does this job, with the guidance of a creative person, who is in charge of aesthetics, landscaping, flower planting, Xmas, etc.
And…in a few weeks, it will be Valentine’s Day, red lights and hearts in the windows. I kid you not! And I have seen Mardi Gras stuff too. Oh, and Easter seems to inspire yard frills, with eggs hanging from trees and again, lights in windows (bunnies, etc). It seems some of this began around the Covid Year, and it has just become the norm now.
I think it’s just a way for people who like to send Christmas cards to defer the task until they have more time, or a chance to get everyone in one photo, or to only send them to people from whom they received cards.
I got one this year (and I think last year too). The picture was clearly taken during a Christmas get-together where the family was all dressed smartly in front of a Christmas backdrop. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had made a list of all the cards they received, created the card online, and had them all sent out by the card-creating service directly (that’s a thing you can do).
Christmas is getting ridiculously stressful for everyone. I usually send to a big list every year and this year I just didn’t. I didn’t want to spend the money or take the time. I appreciate my friend’s effort to send me a lovely up-to-the-minute pic of her family with a nice holiday greeting.
I actually use them. I have a box. We never get it together in time to do Christmas cards, but then after the rush I want to reach out and greet some of the people who sent me cards, and others while I’m at it, so Happy New Year it is.
Or, pretty much exactly what Zipper says above. ETA: it also seems like a Christmas card received after Dec. 25 is no good, but the New Year season can last a good few weeks after Jan. 1 if you need it to.
Gosh, I’ve sent New Year’s Cards off and on for a couple decades now. But then I have a diverse crowd of family, friends, acquaintances, etc. of various religions and some non-religions, traditions, and cultures. But I’ve never noticed it as a common thing to do.
A college friend, who lived in Soviet Russia until he emigrated with his parents at the age of 12 or so (around 1980 or so) said New Year’s Day was celebrated more than Christmas, presumably because of the official atheism. Plus he was Jewish (though not religious).
So I can see sending New Year’s cards if you’re not Christian. (I remember my parents would send Christmas cards, though we’d find ones that were non-religious.)
Around here, being still heavily influenced by Spanish Roman Catholic traditions, the farolitos went up around Thanksgiving, and will stay up to around Valentine’s Day. The city has put up wreaths and lit the town park’s trees (around the pond), but I think the Christmas/New Years-specific stuff may be coming down soon, if weather cooperates.
I thought of this too. I also wondered if people were waiting on the ‘After-holiday market deals’ to get some percentage off the dozens of cards, as marketed by the companies now.
I reckoned a few years back to go with ‘Happy Holidays’ for the same reason: the diverse crowd of folks I’ve got. It wasn’t meant to water down the meaning, but when the Happy-Christo-Kwanza-kkah Saturnal-Festivus kicks off every year, its just less stressful on my part to do one set of cards. This is the first year I’d seen dedicated HNY cards though. With all the commercialism of the holidays anymore, as I get older, I think I’m more and more inclined to let the world have it’s jingo-istic Black Fridays, and celebrate each specific holiday with a yule log on the TV, a cat on my lap, coffee on the endtable, and book in my hand.
If I were the type to send annual greetings to a diverse group of people through the mail, it might be New Year’s cards, it might be some other secular occasion, but it would not be “Christmas” cards of any stripe or variety. I have no wish to perpetuate the hell that is Xmas on anyone, even someone who is religious (my born-again sister also eschews Christmas cards because they are too secular). As it happens, I am not the type so I don’t send cards.
I have one friend who sends a New Year’s postcard to her friends as a kind of annual score card for her accomplishments (miles biked and swum, number of street trees pruned (volunteer work), number of copies of her magnum opus photo book sold, and so on. It’s harmless bragging, and I don’t mind getting it.
Whether you’re talking about Christmas cards, Hanukkah cards, New Year’s cards or whatever, they’re much less of a thing than in decades past. Growing up in the 1970s, the mantelpiece of my parents’ home would be covered in holiday cards. They’d get fifty or more and send out that many. Now, they get only a few. And I only get a few as well. Mostly the printed photographic kind, with a photo of the family or their children.
My parents used to send New Year’s cards when i was a kid, maybe in the 70s. They’d spend new Year’s Eve writing them, and mail them January second, when the post office opened after the holidays.
It might be relevant that we’re Jewish, and it was a way for them to do the Christmas card thing without explicitly doing Christmas. But also, they had to stay home with their kids, and they wanted to stay up until midnight, so it was a good time to do it.
I have a box of New Year’s cards I bought a decade ago, after I realized there was no way I’d get Christmas cards out in time. Of course, I didn’t get the NY cards out either. If anyone sold MLK Day cards, I’m sure I’d have a adult of those as well. I thought once I retired, I’d have more time for it, but it turns out that if you don’t send cards out for more than ten years, you no longer have a Christmas card list!
I saw a slight bump in new year greetings, mainly from businesses. They may have decided that there is less religiousness to worry about the type of greeting around the New Year holiday, though, of course that is Christian too.
That was actually my first thought–that it might be popular from Jewish people or others who don’t celebrate Christmas, but want to do the whole pro-social network thing. Or as something people who do celebrate Christmas do when sending cards to people who don’t.
Yup. And you don’t have to worry about which of your family or friends would prefer a “Merry Christmas” card and which would rather have “Happy Holidays” or whatever.
I fake out my recipient list by sending individually written letters in non-holiday-themed cards, but it does take me a while to get through them, so I usually end up making New Year’s greetings the nominal “occasion” of the communication.
I’m sure age and location are significant factors here, but count me in as another person who grew up receiving New Year’s cards mixed in with other holiday greeting cards that were sent to our family. I was born in the 80’s, so I’ve seen New Year’s cards for nearly four decades.
I would guess that the order went Christmas, Happy Holidays, New Year’s, and then Kwanzaa. Although as I got older Kwanzaa cards did increase in frequency.
Now that I receive my own cards the numbers are very different. Nearly all of mine are “Holidays” or “New Year’s” cards. I just checked my pile and the few Christmas cards I received were all from people with kids or relatives.