11.12.14

Christmas Cards

If you look around you at this time of year you cannot escape being told it's the season to send cards to everyone you know, actually you may even find you are being told to make cards with your toddlers, to create and to send a Christmas masterpiece.

When I was small I took delight is giving out cards or sending them (via the battered cardboard and cottonwool-adorned school postbox) to all the other kids I knew. I would not enjoy the writing of them so much, you were probably lucky to just get my name scribbled inside, maybe your name too if I really liked you but certainly no personal message of cheer. The choosing of the card design was always important, some years I favoured a mixed box, other years all the cards needed to be the same size and theme. Once written that stack of cards felt magical, and the joy of getting a similar stack of my own with my name on was equally delightful. Decorating the house with cards on ribbons or strings was part of Christmas.

Copyright: markaumark / 123RF Stock Photo
But a lot has changed in the 40 years or so since little me wrote 40 cards a year. For a start I have a smaller circle of friends (I'm not including the thousands of oddballs I chat with on twitter of course - not being a stalker, I don't know where you live) and the friends I do have I see regularly, or if not I chat to via Facebook, twitter, email or text...or even phone! So the urge to send cards is less. Postage is expensive too - sending 40 cards even 2nd class and UK only would cost £21.20 on top of the cost of the cards! Hardly surprising then, that fewer and fewer people send cards.

Many people prefer to spend that sort of money on something more meaningful such as a charity donation or a gift for someone that normally wouldn't get anything.

This year I'm wondering whether to send any cards at all. Part of me feels mean, and how do you tell people? I'm sure to offend someone who won't know why they don't hear from me. I suppose that, like last year, I will restrict my card sending to the extremely tiny number of people and relatives that are not on Facebook, Twitter, Email, Text and that I don't see in person from one year to the next...but a tiny part of me wonders why I bother with a card at all if it's a once a year thing?

Do you send cards? And if so who to?

1 comment:

  1. Very interesting points... As I've been thinking this will be my last year to send out cards due to Environmental reasons. I'm still throwing it about in my mind though... it really is a waste, most people just toss the cards. I reuse mine but I know most people don't! Thought provoking post! Tammy xx

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