The decline of Christmas cards continues. I’m confident I’ve written on this subject before, but given the gradual reduction in Christmas card mailings, it’s worth noting this change in our national character.
We no longer stay in touch through the written word. We don’t use mail. We don’t take time to put pen to paper and write something down to share with friends and family during the end-of-the-year holiday season.
If I did write about this topic last year, I would have pointed out that at the peak for my wife and I, we received 88 holiday greeting cards. I couldn’t pinpoint the peak year. A fairly good guess would put that sometime between 2005-2010.
Our basket overflowed with pictures, notes, and massive explanations that probably included Aunt Betsy’s petunia garden and exotic vacations. Things that you probably didn’t care about.
Maybe that has fueled the reduction in people sending greetings this time of year: they don’t feel they have much to say. Or they feel what they said the year before is pretty much what they’ll say this year.
Or they’ve gotten bored with sending cards. Or they think you might be bored with the annual update. Or they don’t care. Or other forms of communications have supplanted the mailed expression of caring.
You can go on and on regarding what’s caused this change. Social media, certainly, plays a part. Large numbers of people put a family greeting on their most used social media site, so you can get the family update there. That’s cool. Nice to see the picture and read up a bit.
The world has changed. Snail mail is still fun to get, but not many people send something, so you must milk your joy from the technology others choose to use for transmission.
I must say I miss some of it. Back in the day, returning to our parents’ home for the holidays, I always looked forward to perusing who had sent cards, what they had to say, and whether recent photos were included. Our family moved several times, so those cards were an opportunity to stay in touch, see how those friends and relatives were doing. It was like you came home literally and figuratively to catch up.
There is an element of “losing a tradition” as the number of cards coming to our house has gone down and down, to 11 last year and eight this year. I don’t know if some of those friends have passed away. I don’t know if they’ve moved. They may have gotten married or divorced, who knows?
I’m guilty. I only respond now to those friends who continue to send us greetings (unless they are direct family or live nearby, and then I don’t ever send a card; I figure we’ve either seen those people recently or will see them soon, so we can update them live).
I’m nostalgic for those cards, opening the mailbox and seeing three or four personally addressed envelopes with our name on them, knowing I’ve shared something with each of them, and they are staying in touch.
We will move on. Our card tally may drop again next year. We will stay in touch to the best of our ability. And, the tradition slowly eases its way out of our lives.
We no longer stay in touch through the written word. We don’t use mail. We don’t take time to put pen to paper and write something down to share with friends and family during the end-of-the-year holiday season.
If I did write about this topic last year, I would have pointed out that at the peak for my wife and I, we received 88 holiday greeting cards. I couldn’t pinpoint the peak year. A fairly good guess would put that sometime between 2005-2010.
Our basket overflowed with pictures, notes, and massive explanations that probably included Aunt Betsy’s petunia garden and exotic vacations. Things that you probably didn’t care about.
Maybe that has fueled the reduction in people sending greetings this time of year: they don’t feel they have much to say. Or they feel what they said the year before is pretty much what they’ll say this year.
Or they’ve gotten bored with sending cards. Or they think you might be bored with the annual update. Or they don’t care. Or other forms of communications have supplanted the mailed expression of caring.
You can go on and on regarding what’s caused this change. Social media, certainly, plays a part. Large numbers of people put a family greeting on their most used social media site, so you can get the family update there. That’s cool. Nice to see the picture and read up a bit.
The world has changed. Snail mail is still fun to get, but not many people send something, so you must milk your joy from the technology others choose to use for transmission.
I must say I miss some of it. Back in the day, returning to our parents’ home for the holidays, I always looked forward to perusing who had sent cards, what they had to say, and whether recent photos were included. Our family moved several times, so those cards were an opportunity to stay in touch, see how those friends and relatives were doing. It was like you came home literally and figuratively to catch up.
There is an element of “losing a tradition” as the number of cards coming to our house has gone down and down, to 11 last year and eight this year. I don’t know if some of those friends have passed away. I don’t know if they’ve moved. They may have gotten married or divorced, who knows?
I’m guilty. I only respond now to those friends who continue to send us greetings (unless they are direct family or live nearby, and then I don’t ever send a card; I figure we’ve either seen those people recently or will see them soon, so we can update them live).
I’m nostalgic for those cards, opening the mailbox and seeing three or four personally addressed envelopes with our name on them, knowing I’ve shared something with each of them, and they are staying in touch.
We will move on. Our card tally may drop again next year. We will stay in touch to the best of our ability. And, the tradition slowly eases its way out of our lives.