Late as usual, and left to fend for myself since my wife has no ambition regarding sending Christmas cards, I find myself scrambling at the last possible millisecond to get cards out to at least MY family and friends.
Since I have most of their email addresses already, why the heck not just send a friendly Merry Christmas email? I mean, what’s the point in this hand-written snail-mail equivalent? Well, other than the fact that the “real” cards can be displayed, or saved for posterity?
I’m 44, and think I’m caught right in the middle of the snail-mail/email generation. What thinks the rest of you - and does age group enter into the equation?
I “hand-pick” my cards, and I send out very few of them, but they are all meaningful and usually I will write some kind of explanation of what is depicted and why the card was chosen.
This means that although they are sent at the holidays, they may not be “Christmas cards” per se, and they rarely if ever have one of those sappy lines of poetry or prose.
I send New Year’s cards, as fewer than half my friends celebrate Christmas. I work damn hard on them, too, design them myself. This year’s is a 1914 hand-colored photo of Vernon and Irene Castle dancing, with “A Very Happy New Year from Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle” written below.
I send about 20. I love sending them cause it makes me feel great, so I send em to my family and stuff. I’m only 20 though, and often am caught up in doing things the old fashioned way (plus, half my family doesn’t use email at all…)
This is my first year sending Christmas cards as it is the first year that I have been married and living out of my parents’ house. I sent about 30 and I enjoy getting the real cards. During Christmas, I use them to decorate my refrigerator. After Christmas, I creatively cut them up to make gift tags for next year’s Christmas gifts.
Actually, I do have one – an on-line bud (Deena Warner) who does horror covers. She does an original card for Halloween every year, and they’re excellent.
My wife and I are 41 and we send out between 40 and 60 depending on how the mood strikes us. We’ve sent out about 40 already this year, so I’m guessing we’ll be moved to send another 10 or so before the year is out. We love getting them, just to know some folks we don’t see any more are still well enough to sign a card. There is a guy I haven’t seen since undergrad days in college who ALWAYS sends a card that arrives exactly on December 15th. Every December, it’s almost like I’ve never lost touch with him.
Since they’re about the only personal snail mail I get anymore, I tend to send holiday cards so others can get physical mail as well. I got a few e-cards this holiday so far and I haven’t watched the little animations, just read the “happy holidays!” sentence and deleted them. Granted that actual cards also get recycled when possible, I still think they’re less transient and show evidence of some effort on the sender’s part.
We just spent $140.00 in postage this year for holiday cards!
Granted, we sent 10 calendars overseas (at $5 a pop!), but the rest was just regular postage for Christmas cards here and overseas.
We buy expensive cards, but we buy them during the after Christmas sales - so last year we got some really great cards that normally cost $20 for a box of ten, for $2 a box. Really quite beautiful pieces of art.
I think it is nice to get Christmas cards - many people display them at home in some fashion, and it just seems a nice, traditional way of saying Merry Christmas. I address each card, using a calligraphy pen, and we write a (short) personal message in each card.
We usually receive about the same number of cards we send out - so either our friends are making an effort to write to us back, or our friends also send out lots of cards.
I hate email “holiday cards” - really tacky Flash crap with a dancing Santa and some banner on the side letting me know Amazon is having a Christmas sale. You might as well send me glurge about how Bill Gates will send me $200 if I forward this Christmas card onto 20 orphans.
Christmas cards are a way of reaching out to people who I don’t want to lose touch with but may not otherwise get around to contacting. I love sending and receiving cards and will be sorry if electronic mail replaces the physical items in the future.
I recall writing about letters, notes and cards in this thread where I remarked upon one particular card I’d received:
With the glorious exception of this year, I already spend the holidays with pretty much anybody to whom I’d send one. And since Unicef cards became common it’s become almost impossible to buy them individually - sorry, but I’m not going to buy 20 cards to send one.
My SiL, who sometimes seems to channel a Victorian lady, demanded my addy so she can send one. Home-printed. With a pic of the Nephew. Frankly, I’d much prefer a dozen Nephew-pics I can print 'em myself, after all it was yours truly who taught my Bro how to do cards.
I send cards to my family and will give them to close friends, but other than that I don’t really bother. The whole business of sending cards to work colleagues etc smacks of false sincerity - you end up sending cards to a bunch of people you don’t really know simply because you think you should, then you get to agonise later over the fact that X sent you a card but you hadn’t sent one to them, and if you didn’t, would they be upset about it?
Most years I’ve made donations to two or three charities and have sent an email round our office distribution lists saying that I don’t send cards but have given money instead.
Probably just creeping fuddy-duddyness, but I absolutely loathe E-cards and delete them unread. My sister keeps sending the damn things anyway.
I make my own paper cards at Christmas and send out about 10 or 12 every year. I’ll freely admit that it’s not exactly cost-effective; the homemade ones probably are about five times the material cost of store-bought. I just like doing them.
There is a guy I haven’t seen since undergrad days in college who ALWAYS sends a card that arrives exactly on December 15th. Every December, it’s almost like I’ve never lost touch with him.
I can print 'em myself, after all it was yours truly who taught my Bro how to do cards.