To not send Christmas Cards

[crimbo12]

So I am faced with a list of about 50 family, aquaintances, old colleagues etc. My only communication with these people is by Xmas cards each year. Each year I get increasingly irritated by this process, the cost and waste of paper. Even with close friends and family I can give a personal Greeting (and sometimes even a drink!) so why do I also send them a bit of cardboard to put on a shelf.

So what would you think if you received a card with this message
"Crimbo and Family have decided this will be the last year we send Cards at Christmas. If you would like to send us your email address we will send Seasons Greetings this way in future. If you prefer not to then be assured you will be in our thoughts during the Festive Season"

I may or may not be brave enough to actually do this

I don't send them anymore either. Well, I send about 5 to elderly relatives but I stopped with everyone else.
I started by cutting back first - I just sent one out to everyone who sent me one the day theirs arrived (silly, I know but somehow it made it easier for me and I ended up writing something more interesting) and once last posting day arrived didn't worry about sending more. I think I did that for a couple of years and then just stopped that as well.
I wouldn't announce it, just stop.
The Christmas cards we receive I open, read, think 'that's nice, and put it straight in the recycling bin.

babybythesea if you want to raise the profile of your chosen charity, then by all means do so, send an email round saying "saw this refuge gift list, thought it would be a good idea and thought I'd share it" or post it on facebook - that's a good thing to do

if you want to let people know you haven't forgotten them at christmas, send em an email saying so

donating to charity doesn't take the place of a card, its a totally different thing and IMO it's wanky to say "I'm donating to charity in place of your card". Giving to charity is a personal thing

Just keep em separate, if you want to donate and raise the profile of a charity, then do that! but call a spade a spade IYKWIM!

If you don't want to send christmas cards, then don't! its just as nice to get an email or text or fb or face to face season's greeting, the whole "meh meh meh charity instead" bit spoils that though!

If you don't want to send any cards then don't. I wouldn't announce it either. Might tell parents or DH/DP but that's about it.

For me...I LOVE sending and receiving Christmas/Yuletide cards. And mine are not "factory line"...I hand make them.

I think the message sounds resentful. You are choosing to send the cards, not them and the message sounds like it's a big waste of your time and you're being forced. Just don't send them then if it's that big of a deal.

Yes, the cost is becoming prohibitive.
I don't send that many - I hand deliver to family and friends if I can but the overseas ones and the distant ones have just cost me over £20 in stamps. And that's for less than 30 cards.
Then there is the cost of the cards themselves...I like "nice" ones so spend about £20 on the actual cards.
I don't blame people for thinking its all got too expensive.
I do like getting Xmas cards though :)

p.s. we spent more on our refuge gift list gift than we spent on any of your DNieces or nephews, because we couldn't afford to spend that much on both either, In fact we spent less on DSs christmas presents (all second hand) than we did on our refuge gift, but we wont be writing on their gift tag that "we didn't get you something better because we spent the rest of our gift budget on someone else who we think deserves it more"

I don't like Christmas cards. They're a waste of resources and money imo. I'd happily not send any, none, nadda. We only send to very close family anyway but I still would rather not. DH says its rude and that we have to though...

Send an ecard? If you're really bothered about it. Most of them probably won't notice if you don't anyway.

I don't send cards, but I just stopped and didn't make an announcement. A few people commented (my grandmother mostly - I send her one to keep her happy).

For years, I'd buy them, write them, then never be arsed to give them out or buy stamps to post them, so they'd get binned come the end of January, so I just stopped wasting my time and money

oh bah humbug you lot! what's next? no tree? no christmas pud? no turkey? no presents Can't believe it's such a bother to buy some cards/stamps and then write something in them with a pen (!) and then walk to the postbox with them. You've all got Lazybahhumbugitus

Think of the trees Miss.

I can imagine my DM's face if I said 'no cards this year'. She would think the world has gone mad and would seek advice in the Daily Fail about young MC people turning their back on tradition and the like. It's the fault of all those immigrants and single mothers don't you know.

I am 36 and I have never sent Christmas cards. Not by post anyway. I seem to recall handing out some when I was at school.

Nobody has disowned me and if they talk about me, well I give a wry smile to that.

An email is not the same as getting a card. I email my family/friends throughout the year, sending another one at Christmas doesn't take much effort. I always appreciate the effort someone took to send me a card.

I never open e-cards either because they always look like dodgy viruses!

"I never open e-cards either because they always look like dodgy viruses"
same

I farking love Christmas cards...here in my part of the States it's customary to dress everyone up and get a shot of you playing big happy family to send to everyone. :) I am exhausted and pregnant this year and not appearing in our photo, it will just be of DS. And maybe the dog. :o

But you are NBU to send them if you don't want to. I don't think any explanation is necessary.

Don't do it. Better to send nothing at all than announce it. Maybe your wording could be changed to something that suggests you would love to have their email address to make staying in touch easier? Add your phone number, email and your home address, just in case they have lost these and it they want to they stay in touch they will. That way you can whittle your xmas card list down over time.

I rarely see those that I send cards to (I don't tend to give cards to people I see everyday - as I can just say it to them) but it always feels so nice to get a card from someone you haven't seen in a long while and find out what they have been doing. It takes us a long time to write all our messages in our cards, but I know that my friends and family are pleased to receive them.

I don't know if I missed the point back there in the thread but I thought what baby did with the charity thing was a lovely idea. Surely it is whatever suits you. I wouldn't judge someone if the didn't send me a card as such, but if I never hear from them (through the year) then I will assume that they are no longer interested in maintaining a relationship with me!

And on the E-cards thing. My friend always sends one with her and her family dancing around like elves - it is just brilliant! I am grateful for multi-media!

I was about to suggest something similar to cabbageandbeans.

I personally love getting cards to hang up - and so send them to relatives, neighbours and friends as well, with a letter to those I won't be seeing over Christmas. Seeing cards up around the house reminds me of all the people who have sent them. For me an e-mail or worse a facebook greeting just isn't the same - but then I'm a bit of a dinosaur with technology I suppose. I make my cards and will be roping dd in with the glue and glitter this year... that's part of the fun for me.

I wouldn't send a 'no more cards' message, just make sure you have e-mail addresses/phone numbers and do it that way next year.

I'm another who sends an e-greeting attachment (though a photo I've taken, not a commercial e-card) to friends my own age with my best wishes and saying where I'm sending cheques. Last couple of years it's been the local Hospice plus the Lymphoma Association, which though national is based locally to us.

Family and older folk still get cards, though. Even if the ones DH and I 'send' to each other are recycled from previous years!!

(ps deWe sorry, read your comment after I posted... I figure folks like to know who has benefitted from us not buying actual cards... bit like reading the back of bought charity cards to see who it aids.)

I like cards but am terrible at remembering to do them in time. But I don't think anyone notices whether you send them or not tbh, though I have noticed the gradual decline in numbers over the years possibly related to the years I have not been organised enough to send them.

I only send them to people I don't see regularly though.

Gosh, don't people get in an over complicated self-justifying flap.

I like getting some Christmas cards and reading the ones from family friends at my parents house - especially those that come with a round robin or personal message

But I don't send any. I did used to but then I stopped.
DC's send quite a few though.

The end

I did not send any one year to all the random and distant relatives on my DH's side. It caused ructions.

I was surprised when I got together with DH that he gave me a card on Christmas Day. I also never gave my parents one as I saw them, but now as my ILs get one, my parents get one. The whole thing me.