Xmas Cards

I didn't send any cards last year.
I had no remorse. I lived to see another Christmas.

I am sending cards this year.

Paper waste is easily recycled.

With the advent of technology like FaceBook and Android, the personal touch of handwriting a card is missing. Why send a card when you can instantly send an e-card?

I always send cards(I custom make photo cards. This year the theme is "Christmas at Baker Street" starring my son as The Great Consulting Detective). I don't have a smart phone, and have ZERO desire to get one. Whether or not I get a single response to them, "I" feel wonderful to send an important memory, and a positive example for my son.

He does ask when certain people don't send a mailed response, but I tell him that some people are very busy, or don't do "snail mail", and that's fine, as most of those folks shoot me an email letting me know they got one, and I show him the emails.

Bottom line, if they are tech folk, an e-card should suffice, if they are used to getting and receiving letters(or don't do tech), send them a card.

Just my 2cp.

I send cards every year, because when I receive them, it always puts a smile on my face. I love when people send photo cards so I can see them (or their children), but even the regular store-bought kind still make me happy. I hope that when my friends and family receive our card, it puts a smile on their faces too.

I do them, and I don't even celebrate Christmas! I do acknowledge important holidays in my friends' lives, however, and I include a letter about my family's doings. I know some people hate the dreaded holiday letter, but it's a way to stay in touch - I pretty much send them to the people who send them to me. I have another friend who sends an on-line letter to save paper and the environment.

When I buy cards, I buy from small independent card companies to put the money in ordinary people's pockets. I do buy on line from companies I know to be independent - like Jewish FunnyBone and the Bible Libel birthday cards.

If I don't hear from people for 2 years, I don't send a card anymore. If, after 2 years, I only hear from them AFTER I write them, I figure it's obligatory on their part, and I wait the following year (3rd year) to see if I hear from them. If they don't send any news or any personal message, then I don't send to them again.

I have another friend who sends New Year's cards any time after Jan 1 and before Jan 31st - and those are fun too. She has the time to include a newsy note, and she wasn't rushed during December to do something she wasn't in the mood for.

I love sending Christmas cards. I think hand written cards show people that you care enough to set aside enough time to make a more personal card than any e-card could ever be. I always include a scripture and several photos on my card. All that is done on the computer. However, on the back of the card I always do a handwritten message that makes each card a little different. Yes, it takes time to do. It shows the person that you took time to write out a message just for them, rather than simply sending a common message to everyone on your list. It makes the card unique to that person. I love displaying the cards I get. Although, sadly people tend to be moving away from this. If you are talking about sending some cheesy Hallmark mass produced card, that is not my thing. However the handmade, handwritten cards really can show someone that you were thinking about them, not just clicking a mouse. It can give you time to slow down during the hustle and bustle of the season, and tap into one of the special meanings of the holidays: to share love with your family and friends. If that is a waste of time, I will gladly waste mine.

As to fading friendships, I used to think that every new stage in my life meant permanently saying goodbye to the friends I had shared that part of my life with. I guess I just never believed you could keep old friends when you made new ones. I totally regretted that I had lost contact with my former close friends. Facebook has been excellent for reconnecting to those lost friendships. I also discovered that although my life had taken a completely different turn from my friends, that they indeed still considered me their friend. How truly stupid I had been! Fortunately my real friends forgave me this stupidity. I have started sending Christmas cards to them again. Yes, our relationship is different, but I know that they are my friends and want to hear from me.

Hi J.,
Sending Christmas cards just for the fact of sending them or because everybody else does it, it is not worth it and it IS a waste of time. If you celebrate Christmas and the coming of a new year, do it the way YOU feel it or like it; do your own special things for yourself, your loved ones and real friends, those who are always there for you no matter what. Embrace holidays and Christmas the way YOU feel it, with a real and nice purpose.
We do send Christmas cards. It has been a tradition in our families for years and years. I enjoy sending them (family and close friends, or someone I know is lonely), and I appreciate those who send cards to me and my family. On another hand, I don't like to send e-cards or getting them.There is not effort in there.

I love seeing Christmas cards from friends I do not see all year, or for years. They know Christmas is a busy time for my business, so I send Jacque Lawson cards from online... And try to call them after the New Year. Calls to me are the best way to keep in touch..of course we have to try to schedule them.

Not sure why you would ever regret doing something that lets people know they are important to you.

Facebook allows me to keep more in touch with people on a regular basis much better than a Christmas card sent once a year. But I still like sending cards - I do a custom-made photo card with pics of everyone, Christmas/winter scenes, and/or highlights of the year, and it goes to friends and family that are both on FB and not on FB. I always save one for ourselves and frame it as part of our family photos.

I send them out every year to family and friends.....even ones I see often. I usually take a pic of my kids...get the photo cards made and then put in our family newsletter with a story about all th kids....more pics....a favorites section. My newsletter is not all braggy. It's more of a story to tell what the kids are into.

I do NOT expect cards back. Everyone has their own opinion of Christmas cards...,some love getting them and don't like sending them out. So they will still get them. It is my small way of keeping in touch .

However last year my mom passed away and we had a holiday vacation....and I didn't care that I sent them out. I don't stress out about it at all.

Do it if you want.....appreciate those you receive....

X says it all. There is no need for you to send cards when you have no desire to do so.

Do what you want. Dont feel obligated to do them. I used to send out 40 or 50 cards, ... cousins, aunts, old freinds, new freinds, relatives of in laws..... One year My mom died and I didn't do any. I noticed I re'c less. Next year I didnt do any, I re'c much less. Now I might get 7 or 8 cards tops.If I feel I cant fit a few in, I mail some out, and anyone who has email gets a simple email christmas letter with a pic attached.

I don't think Christmas cards are meant as a way to "keep in touch" but rather a way to let people know you're thinking of them at the holidays. Last year, my husband lost his job at Thanksgiving so we did not send any cards due to the cost. I'm excited to get them out this year...I think some people on our list may think we forgot about them! In the end, sending them is not imperative so if you don't feel it, skip it. But know that people do enjoy being thought of at Christmastime. It's just a nice gesture to send warm thoughts.

I send one card to my Aunt in Indiana. I put photos of all of us in it and write a letter so she can know us a little bit. She always follows up with a phone call telling me how much she loves that I think of her. So that makes me feel good. She is the only one.

I've always sent cards that had a couple of pictures of our family and daughter on it to relatives. Probably 50 or so cards and I just wish them a Happy New Year!

I do NOT send the yearly family brag letter. I HATE those.

Don't feel obligated to do soemthing you don't want to do. I do not feel slighted at all if I do not received cards from those I sent cards to. I completely umderstand that some people cannot afford the extra cards, postage, etc and are just not into sending cards.

Will you regret it later? I don't know but I don''t see how you would if you are not into it anyway.

For us, it is a family tradition.

Do what is right for you and don't worry about what others do.

We have always sent Christmas cards. I hope we will for many more years.

Will you regret not having done it? Well, maybe not. You sound as if you don't have a need to extend the greetings of the season to people, even if it's your only contact with them. But I look forward to the opportunity. It's not an obligation - not a chore I have to do. At this one point, Christmas, I can get in touch with these people, even if we don't live near each other or have enough in common otherwise.

And, frankly, it helps that I like making the cards - the artwork (well, music in our case right now), the newsletter, even picking the stamp. Call me frivolous! So these folks look at it once and toss it away after all that work? That's *their* problem, just as it would be if I were to say, "Merry Christmas," to them on the street, and they responded, "Bah! Humbug!"

We won't get cards from some people we send them to. But it's not a tit-for-tat deal. On occasion someone has actually said, more or less, what you write - "They're a waste. They offend me. Don't send me any more" - and in that case, I don't. That's just respect.

Unless they're relatives. For some reason, as a new bride I decided we would send cards to EVERY relative we had an address for every year. This included the ones we never saw or heard from, and those we might not have been on the best terms with. A couple of years ago, when my husband's father died, there was a big family meal after the services, and I met some of the inlaw-kinfolk I had NEVER met in forty years of marriage. One old man was introduced to me as my husband's Uncle Charlie. I had only heard about him from other peoples' talk - he lived in the same house he was in when we were first married, his wife had died a couple of years ago - but it was nice to see the fellow in person. After a little conversation, he said, "I have always enjoyed getting your Christmas card every year." Who knew? In over forty years he has never done a card thing himself, but he thought enough to remember ours in July and mention it.

For me they are a great way to keep in touch with elderly relatives who live far away, or who we don't see often. I will send a card, a little newsletter and a picture of the family. I used to send out dozens of cards to far away friends and relatives, but for the most part I am now keeping in touch with those people by email and facebook.

I have Christmas portraits taken of my children every year (I can get a package at a professional studio...NOT WALMART...for 15 bucks) and I cut them up (I usually get 32 wallets) and send those out in Christmas cards to all our family, both sides, and any friends or people in the community I want to think of.

I let my children add pictures they've drawn, sign their names, scribble, whatever they want to do!

It's a bit of drudgery, but I know other people appreciate it and I LOVE getting Christmas cards! I hang all ours up on a closet door in our living room along with some of the fanciest bows off our present, and it's a beautiful decorative display that USUALLY stays up until August of the next year. :) It reminds us of far-away family and friends who we love and miss.

Frankly, I HATE, HATE, HATE doing Christmas cards. I did a lot of them when I was first married, but found that I was doing all of the work and my DH had no desire to be involved eventhough HE is the one with the large family. Eventually, I just decided that if the only time I heard from someone was from a Christmas card that they signed once a year, then I really wasn't close enough to them to make the effort. I just don't do Christmas cards anymore since it's all up to me to do it. I have a million other things to get done that I feel take priority.

Eventually, folks stopped sending me cards and that is fine. I know some folks would find me insensitive that I don't do them, but it is just not my thing.

I used to love to send Christmas cards when the kids still lived at home and I had something to write about. Nowadays I don't send them, HOWEVER I love getting them. I just got one from our niece witha really great pic of her family on it.
I don't get very many because I don't send any, there was a time when I'd get like 50 cards and I used them as part of my Christmas decorating.
You get more if you send them out, but I think a lot of people arent sending them anymore due to our evolved communication technology.
I'll be sending one to my ol' gramps who doesnt get online... and I'm sending a card to my son in Afghanistan, but that's about it.
They are still "special" tho, so if there is ANYone you feel special about, they are deserving of your signature on a card.

ive never sent christmas card, neither did my parents.. my fiances family however is very big on them.. they see eachother all the time but feel the need to all do pictures for christmas cards and send them to eachother.. i dont get it
..on another note neither me or my fiance were really listeneing when his mother asked if we minded if she used some picture (not sure what) as her christmas card photo, my fiance just said yeah sure mom... im dreading seeing it, i honestly dont remember taking anypictures of all of us since our daughter was born.. i sware if its one from like the day i got home from the hospital im going to cry i she sends those out!!
everyyear she sends one out everyone looks good except me&my fiance, his mom stepdad and brother all look great and then it will be something like im not smiling and one of his eyes are closed! not cool

I'm not on Facebook so I really love getting photo holiday cards. My husband and I look forward to them and show our kids how other kids they don't see often are changing etc. We even keep them. That's more my husband's idea but I bet we'll enjoy looking through them someday. I like getting cards without pictures too bc it means someone is still thinking of me. Cards are a way to keep in touch a little. If someone doesn't send a card for a couple of years, I figure they're not into it and stop sending them a card. So you ask if you'll regret not sending cards. I guess only if some old friends stop sending cards bc you never send them and then there's no "tie" at all anymore. To me there is a difference between people I'm not in contact with at all and people I still exchange cards with. But if an old friend who had dropped the cards suddenly reached out with a nice email or something, not like I'd refuse to speak to them bc of cards.

I never, ever started the tradition of sending Christmas cards. My childhood memories include my mother bi7ching and moaning every year about having to send out those things and I vowed never to start.

Now, in the age of email, Skype and Facebook, Christmas cards have even less meaning to me. Of course, I enjoy getting them, but it's like "Cute kids, but they haven't changed since those pics you posted on FB last week". People I keep in touch with, I keep in touch with year round. And EVERYBODY complains about "Oh, I need to get the cards printed and sent out!" I don't understand why anyone bothers, quite frankly. I certainly don't.