When I was a teenager I had an enlarger that my mom bought for me at a flea market for $10, so I printed group photos of my siblings for our annual holiday card, then wrote some calligraphic phrase with a speedball nib on each one, then each sibling signed under their picture. My darkroom was my bedroom with old shirts over the windows so the images were a bit cloudy and the paper tended to curl unpredictably, so I don’t know how my mom managed to send them out, but she did.
When I had kids I was motivated to do something similar, convinced that everyone needed to monitor their annual growth. Sometimes I drew a pen and ink cartoon and sometimes we handcrafted individual artistic covers, but we kept it up for quite a few years.
Now, I really couldn’t give a shit and don’t do jack. I’m not really sure what happened, but I’m perfectly fine with it.
An interesting set of opinions–I hadn’t considered not sending cards. . . more on that in a second.
I now realize that in some ways, I’m living in the past, and you’re absolutely right. Between you, @LSLGuy and a few others, I reckon the holiday card thing is not as wisepread as I’d thought (or that Hallmark’d have me believe…).
Whoa–I hope i didn’t come across as petty! I mean, I genuinely like sending cards to people I know would appreciate them, but I’m not trying to imply that I’m holding grudges.
I dunno, I got a nice Advent “e-card” one year from a friend who went out of her way to find a nice one we’d appreciate. But I don’t do the whole FaceBook message thing though, 'cause I don’t log onto it but maybe twice a year. Any other social media is the same thing.
Theres an old buddy of mine that sends out a hilarious newsletter each year, that I wish I had the dry humor and wit to mimic. Last year’s had the gem of a father-to-son talk where Father shares with Son that, “Son, your’re 15. You play football. You have friends. The occasional shower (with soap) will help keep the latter.”
We used to send and receive 100+ cards in 1998-2000, then it started dropping until we were receiving maybe ten cards by 2012 and they were ALL the commercially produced photo-newsletter variety, bragging about the accomplishments of the year.
We kept sending a few to elderly relatives and friends, but lost motivation after a few years. Haven’t sent any since COVID.
I, too, am Mr. Antisocial. My mother and one stubborn friend now on the other side of the country (couple actually, but I’ve only met the wife twice) were among the last to send me cards and the one died and I think the couple finally gave up a year or three ago when they got distracted by having a kid. Or maybe it was just COVID.
I sorta appreciate the tradition at long distance. But only for others - it really isn’t my bag.
I picked “other” because i am the unresponsive recipient. I get about half a dozen real cards from friends and neighbors every year. And i really enjoy them. But I’ve never really been a card-sender. I do reach out to people in other ways.
Anyway, when friends ask if they should take me off their list, i tell them that i enjoy their cards, but understand if they don’t want to send me one.
I like the newsletters, too. I get a few by email every year, and 2 in the mail.
I picked other because I send cards to groups. I only send cards to people in the U.S.
My relatives
Hubby’s relatives
Close friends with whom we have had contact in the last year. Could be a Christmas card from the previous year, email, getting together, etc.
Friends of my parents who we see when we visit. Just the core group.
The holiday cards are an affirmation that we are still in touch. I’m not worried about them not sending me a card in return. If I haven’t had any interaction with them in the last year, and I didn’t receive a Christmas card from them in the last two years, they are out. But if they are in one of the groups of relatives, they will still get a card, until they die. Or my parents are gone, and won’t know that I didn’t send a card (because they will hear about it). That list is very short.
Some of these people also get postcards. I sent 10 postcards when we were in the U.S. this year, all to people in the U.S. Taking advantage of the cheap postage.
I voted “other” for many of the same reasons as other people. I don’t have any family that I want to send cards to, most of my friends have agreed between ourselves that we don’t need to time and expense of sending a bit of card through the post and would prefer to make donations to charity instead.
I send birthday cards to a specific group of friends, but not with the expectation of reciprocation. If someone wants to send me a card, that’s absolutely fine, and just as fine if they don’t.
We send 70-80 each year, and get back fewer, maybe 30-40. That’s OK, we don’t mind not getting them back from everyone. One thing we discovered was that a few of our addresses were wrong, and someone we thought was ignoring us never received any of our cards. So double check your address list.
No: I was referring to the practice of keeping careful track of who sends you cards and responding in kind. Keeping general track seems reasonable. Probably not an ideal choice of words on my part, as I didn’t mean to insult anyone.
I don’t even carry the knowledge around with me on a day-to-day basis. I just look at the list every year, and think to myself "Hrm, hadn’t heard from Cousin Phil in five years. Aunt Phyllis didn’t say anything was going on when I talked to her last June . . . "
