I don’t write letters anymore; haven’t in 20 years or more. OTOH, my emails are, in fact, letters. They are not written in any sort of email-ese.
For quite a while, I’ve included a handwritten note to the few people I send Xmas cards to. I started doing it to have some communication with people who don’t use email, for one reason or another. I’m gradually dropping that, too, though. Most of the people who responded in kind are now either dead or have Alzheimer’s. Those remaining apparently can’t be bothered. For the most part, I get one line, or I get a typed, generic “newsletter.” Neither are worth the time I put into those notes.
I have a couple of penpals at the moment - one of them lives about an hour’s drive from me although we’ve only met a couple of times. The other one lives in Norway and she writes long but infrequent letters. That’s often the best way, we sometimes only write to each other every 3-4 months but that way we have saved up enough stuff to fill a few pages.
I used to handwrite my letters but these days I type them instead. I find handwriting anything more than a quick note to someone gets to be quite painful. Fortunately most people I “write” to are used to getting a typed/word-processed letter with probably just a handwritten final paragraph.
Probably the only person I physically write a letter to at any time is my mother, but more often than not I’m answering her emails now that she’s discovered teh internets.
Letter writing might even be considered a hobby of mine. I have a few pen-pals and write to relatives. It pleases me to find a nice pen and nice paper, and to sit down with them to compose a letter.
It works much better for me than a phone call to my dad. He gets all the news about his grandson without those awkward pauses.
I still write to my godmother (who’s in her 80s) and to a couple older people at my former church. I really enjoy getting actual letters from them, and I know it makes them happy to hear from me. And as others have said, it’s hard to talk to them on the phone, and they don’t have email.
Like kelly5078, I write notes in my xmas cards, but no one ever responds with more than a line (if that) or a newsletter. Kinda discouraging, but I keep hoping that maybe I’ll set an example and eventually people will write back!
There’s just something really enjoyable about having nice stationery and a good pen and sitting down to write a letter. I wish someone else my age would discover how much fun it is and would actually respond to me!
What zipperjj & gardentraveler and others said. Bday, Condolence, thank you, elderly relatives w/o email.
Amnesty International still asks you to write letters to governments and I do on occasion & and at X-mas they have a campaign to write prisoners directly.
We mostly call, but every now and I then, I write him and he writes me. Sometimes if I find a funny or dirty greeting card, I write in it and send it to him.
Not in this century. The last person I wrote to is my wife, before we married. We each still have a box of dozens of letters that we sent to each other over two years. That’s how we got to know each other. I still send the occasional card to people.
A decade of typing has reduced my once-beautiful handwriting to a terrible scrawl that embarrasses me, so e-mail it is.
I don’t send letters/postcards through the mail to anyone. I hate dealing with the envelope/address/stamp. And stamps keep going up so each time I get a sheet of stamps to send certain bills and documents I only use half of them before the rate increases.
At work when people send letters to us, they often don’t get answered for some time, if at all. Come on people, pick up the phone or send an e-mail. Or they want a catalog. Everything we have is on the web. I can see where they’re coming from, but they really just need to adapt and join the 21st century.
I rarely get letters, but I can usually count on 1-3 postcards a week. I have a few postcard buddies, but only one really good one. The only time I get letters is when my one dependable postcard friend (who is not just a pen pal, we just go to different colleges) types me up a letter on her typewriter. Of course, that usually means I don’t get my weekly postcard from her.
Absolutely (I try for once per month, at least). I do it for birthdays, condolences, thank-you’s, and just because. Handwritten, of course. (No slight, BTW, against those for whom writing poses physical difficulty.) Even if I send a card–for a birthday, say–I’ll often send a handwritten letter under separate cover.
(I even have personalized stationery and lined envelopes for the task. That shit costs a pretty penny, but hey, I love my stationery. And I really like the stuff that I get from Alden Grace.)
The bad thing, as **5-4-Fighting ** touched on, is that no one responds. Well, they *do * respond, actually, but either by sending an e-mail or calling to say (into my voice-mail, usually, as I’m not a phone fan) that they received and enjoyed my letter, and how they wish that they had the time to write back.
The sentiment is nice, mind you, but it does nothing to mitigate the shame that we’ve [del]become[/del] allowed ourselves to become so overburdened that we can’t take the time to write a letter or two to loved ones. Doesn’t have to be every week (hey, third-shift job+school=I’m busy, too), but getting something in the mail other than bills every now and then would sure be nice.
I just went to the post office two days ago to send a package and thought I would buy some stamps.
I asked, “How much for letters and how much for postcards, both domestic and international?”
The postal employee said, “Same price now. Cards and postcards cost the same domestic (41 cents), and they cost the same for international (81 cents) as of May 14th.”
So now it costs the same to send a postcard to Germany as it does to send a birthday card!
And they wonder why people don’t write more.
At any rate, I still send out Christmas cards and birthday cards and other events (anniversary, condolence, etc.) but I sure as hell ain’t sending any more postcards!