My mom has a huge list of people she exchanges Christmas cards with, some of whom she hasn’t actually seen in decades. She includes a Christmas letter reflecting on the year with some of the cards. I, on the other hand, only send out a few cards to family members and don’t type up a letter. I also have a friend who emails a Christmas letter to her friends and family, but doesn’t send a physical card (at least not to me). Is there a generational difference in sending out cards? I’m 40 and my mom is getting close to 80 and it seems like people her age are more likely to exchange cards and/or letters than people my age or younger. What has your experience been?
I think that is accurate. The think most card exchangers are Boomers & Before.
I think younger Gen Xers and Millennials don’t do a lot of card exchanges, relying on digital media more.
I stopped sending cards about 20 years ago. I’m on the older side of Gen Xers.
I used to send cards with notes inside (hand-written, not mass produced) because it was one way to keep in touch with relatives I hardly ever saw. But most of them are dead and the ones who aren’t are on Facebook, so they know what’s going on with us. I can’t recall the last time I sent a card - probably as part of an exchange here on the Dope.
It’s a massive thing where we are. Every year I forget to write them and have to look all embarrassed when a friend hands me a card… this year I’m determined to post them. The pack has been bought, we’ll see
I participate in 2 card exchanges with Internet groups. I also send out cards to friends and family. I enjoy creating Christmas cards. I do it year round. I don’t consider digital exchanges (texts, e-cards) to be the same as paper cards. Don’t waste your time sending me a Xmas text…
I send them, and I make my own!
I enjoy making them, people seem to like getting them, and xmas cards are one of exceedingly few family traditions NOT tainted by dysfunction and bad memories.
I agree that the OP is correct as to generational differences.
We are 59/60, and send cards and a letter. I think 78 this year. Siblings/kids/nieces/nephews are more than 1/3 of that number.
My wife is super organized so some time back she made an excel list w/ addresses and SOs. Some people get cards and letters, some just cards. We keep track of who we get cards from as well. We revisit the list yearly and in some cases, if we are on the fence about sending to someone, the fact that we never get one from them may remove them from the list.
One neat thing about the letters is, we’ve kept a copy of each year’s letter, and placed them in an album. They make a nice, concise history of what was important to our family through the years.
My mom makes a christmas card of doom - the envelope includes a card, pictures, and a several-page letter. The thing requires two stamps. I’m both a recipient of it and a participant - I approve the writeup of my life that is in the letter (“nothing changed again this year”) and I sign the thing.
I also get a card-with-way-more-conservative-letter from each of my female siblings.
I don’t send a letter myself, and my brother doesn’t either.
Until this year, I’ve always sent homemade cards, but following the untimely passing of my younger sister a few weeks ago, there’s hardly anyone left to send them to, so I’ll probably skip it.
I don’t send Christmas cards. I don’t even send Christmas presents.
I receive a few Christmas cards (from my mother, one uncle and one aunt).
We don’t send any Christmas cards, and receive less than 5 per year.
My parents sent dozens when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. There’s no one I would even want to send one to if I did want to do cards this year. (maybe because I’ve lost contact with everyone over the years because I don’t send Christmas cards)
Send and receive about a dozen. We recently (last 5 years) got in contact with one of my husband’s high school classmates, so now we’re exchanging cards after no contact the previous 10 years.
I usually buy a few special cards for my parents, his mother and his siblings, but I didn’t buy any last year, so probably this year will be one box of 10 and everybody gets the same card. Need to send them out this week, or they might be too late.
I am a boomer but have always considered Christmas cards a total waste . I used to save any that I received and send them back the next year with the names crossed out and reversed. It was surprising how long it took some people to stop sending them to me. My parents still sent me one every year until they died, despite the fact that I never sent them one.
I send holiday cards to about 40 friends and family, as well as people like my medical team. No letter, but a short personal note. I enjoy the chance to wish people well, and certainly even more this year. I also send notes and postcards throughout the year to widows and other single people I know. This year I sent postcards to children who are stuck inside due to COVID precautions. Several friends and I exchange regular letters.
When USPS was in trouble earlier this year, I bought 100 postcard stamps. I’m working my way through them.
Our holiday card list is about 80 people. I sent out store bought Hanukkah cards most years to family before I was married, but now my wife and I send out photo cards, We’re in our mid-50s.
The farm store by me is selling handmade Christmas cards. Maybe not the ones I would otherwise have chosen, but I’m happy to support my neighborhood and I get better cards.
Two things I feel strongly about:
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NO ONE has a life that is interesting enough that their x-mas letter should exceed one side of paper - in a font large enough to be easily readable. Face it, folk - you just aren’t that interesting, and no one wants that much detail.
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I don’t know how old you are, but by the time our kids were out of college, the reminded us in no uncertain terms that their news is their own - to share or not how they wish. So now, we’ll mention a new grandchild, or maybe a child moving. But other than that, our boring lives are the sole fodder for the letter.
I’m late GenX (‘79) and I send about 60 cards. I get maybe 20.
I have cards printed on Vistaprint with pictures of my dogs from the year.
I like to hand address them all. I like to think I sit down once a year and think about everyone for a couple minutes while I write their address, and then send them some cheer.
I hang the cards I get on the closet door in my living room. I actually end up keeping them up until spring because they make me happy.
I’m 2 years younger than you, and each year we send out a few xmas cards to mostly my wife’s family, who dig that sort of thing. My parents and brother get one also. We usually get cards back from the same folks. So maybe 10 each year, both sending and receiving.
I might send out more this year, I need a bit of cheering up. We don’t do the letter thing, and if we did what would we say this year? “Managed not to run out of toilet paper, kids now in week 37 of online school where they aren’t learning jack, my sanity took a permanent vacation and left me behind. Merry Christmas!”
One year we did a big xmas card thing and sent out like 50 to family scattered hither and yon and got the usual half-dozen back, so that was kind of a one-off: I felt like a spammer. So we only send them to folks who I know like getting them.
I get a couple, and send a couple. I’m definitely going to send one to a couple who were good friends of mine when we lived in the same city, and are now in contact via Facebook, mostly because the husband messaged me recently and told me that his wife has mid-stage Alzheimer’s. 