To think it's Bah Humbug to not send cards and say you're giving card money to charity

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How much does a box of cards cost - £5? I suggest sacrificing a bottle of wine and giving wine money to charity then ..

YABU, I don't 'get' Christmas as it is, why on earth should I send cards? I make an effort to keep in contact with those important to me. Utter waste of time and money.

YANBU. I send and receive about 40 cards- and no, I don't count the ones I receive , just an estimate. My in-laws stopped years ago. I do think it's a bit Bah Humbug/lack of effort/a shame not to do them if you celebrate Christmas- nothing to do with charitable giving as you can do this and not send cards, just about doing Christmas properly. Emails are not the same. No-one gets that much of interest in the post any more and it's lovely to get a card through the door with a bit of chat about what people are up to, let's catch up for a drink etc. Part of the social glue that keeps friends, families and communities together.

Fair enough, there are valid environmental reasons (perhaps) and cost reasons (certainly) for not doing it, and if Christmas is a sad time due to bereavement etc...

But let's face it, the main reason for most people not doing them is they really can't be arsed. I think less of people who don't do them without a valid reason for it.

It's strange, isn't it - I really like sending and receiving Christmas cards, especially from/to people I don't see regularly - it seems (rather than necessarily is) more personal than a generic Facebook message.
I'm not overly keen on the 'work Christmas card' thing though - sending cards to people you see at work every single day, and the politics attached to it - but as a means of keeping in touch. I like to buy them from our local hospice and recycle the ones we receive into gift tags.

What I would dearly love to do though is to cut down on the presents and donate the money I'd have spent on random crap for friends' children I barely see to charity - I am convinced they won't miss it and it's at least double the hassle of a card (and ten times the cost in postage). Presents get out of hand far more easily than cards IMO, and yet people get a lot funnier about 'I'm not sending presents outside the immediate family' as opposed to 'I'm not sending anyone a card this year because I prefer to donate to charity'. One will save a few quid, the other might actually make a more sizeable difference, but guess which offends more people? Harrumph.

Waste of paper to send cards? You miserable gits!

I make an effort to keep in contact with those important to me. Utter waste of time and money

I find the people who send Christmas cards are the ones who do really make an effort with others in general. The people who don't send Christmas cards are the ones you hear about, once in a blue moon, through a friend of a friend. Everyone is busy but you wish they would keep in touch and make an effort to come out once in a while. But eventually everyone stops making the effort with them and they exclude themselves.

What I would dearly love to do though is to cut down on the presents and donate the money I'd have spent on random crap for friends' children I barely see to charity

Yes I've done that with mutual agreement from friends and family. We have enough stuff, but a cheery Christmas card which provokes a nice catch up on the phone or in person is worth much more.

YABU. It's not just the wastage and money- it's the bloody time it takes to write the things. I barely have enough time to do my job properly/spend time with te children/keep the house in a state that's not a health hazard as it is! And don't get me started on fecking thank you cards.

Birdsgottafly makes some excellent points.

However, I will write some to people I haven't seen in ages, elderly relatives etc.

Re. Announcing it on fb- I read that as a general apologetic announcement, to avoid offending anyone.

Announcing on facebook is just wanky attention seeking. By all means don't send the cards but don't bore the world by telling them.

I've always had time to do them even when working full time with two under five...

There seems something a bit disengenuous about saying you are giving your card money to charity ..as if it is some noble thing. Would much rather people be honest and say they don't feel like doing cards this year for whatever reason - or say nothing.

Have noticed this trend on Facebook to say card money is going to charity ...and I am disbelieving of the motive behind it. I think it's bah humbug!

I don't know about the fb thing. I hold up my hands and say I did this last year. The thing is I have a lot of family and dh's family on fb as well as friends. I wanted them to know that it wasn't that I was just not sending them because I couldn't be arsed. On the other hand, some people are offended no matter what you do, or don't do....

After reading the thread title I was going to come and post that YANBU. I like sending cards & I like receiving them. I do buy mine from the two charities linked to my parents though, both of whom have passed away.

And then I read Mrs DV & Angels posts . I can't imagine that I would want to write cards in those circumstances either.

I do totally agree with the whole FB "announcement" though. Like a previous poster said, some of us manage to do both without announcing it to the world!

YABU.

Mostly because this morning I was looking at cards and thought 'sod it, I'm donating the money to charity this year.'

This year the only people getting a card from us will the the Australian relatives, a couple of distant uncles and the man next door as I suspect it's pretty much his only card.

And DS can make one for his grandparents.

And I'll be sending the money I would have spent to BLISS to help premature babies. It's a very good charity, should anyone be wondering who to donate their card money to this year.

MrsDV hugs to you. Christmas is hard. We lost two children within the space of eleven months and have one of their birthdays just before Christmas and the other just after new year. It's a very tough six weeks when we are facing a barrage of cards with pictures of a baby on them and listening to songs about birth and being happy or lonely.

You do what you can to get though the hard parts and I'd rather someone donated to a charity that might help stop another family feeling like us than send us a card, or think we were miserable or selfish for not sending them one.

I'm not being entirely selfless in todays decision though. It takes bloody hours to write all the cards and I can think of many other hours on MN things that I could put that time to use for

So is the FB "Im not sending Christmas cards announcement" about to become the new Mumsnet pearl clutching lowest of the low, along with saying haitch and asking for money for wedding presents, and sometimes even gift lists? Just unspeakably common? :o

YANBU. I love sending and receiving cards. Christmas in your own bubble without reaching out to friends/family far and wide would be different IMHO.

A kind gesture which gives pleasure to someone else is not a "waste" just because it happens to be made of paper or card.

It reminds me of the Bible story where a woman poured perfume on Jesus and people criticised her for "wasting" it.

"Some of the people there became angry. They said to one another, “Why waste this perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s pay. The money could have been given to poor people.” So they found fault with the woman. 6 “Leave her alone,” Jesus said. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 You will always have poor people with you. You can help them any time you want to."

There are so many other things made of paper (or not), which people don't seem to want to give up in order to donate to charity quietly. Newspapers, coffee in a paper cup, magazines, postcards, wine, meals out, sandwich packs in cardboard, etc.

Charity giving should be done privately, not announced to others.

I don't get why people don't sacrifice something of their own in order to donate, rather than someone else's Christmas card.

The same goes for substituting a goat for someone else's present - why not pay for a goat by denying yourself something instead?

An announcement saying 'I'm not sending cards this year' is fine, it's the praise seeking 'I've decided instead to buy a dancing llama for a Northumberland village' proclamations that irritate me.

Hester i also did a fb announcement last year although i simply admitted that i hadn't been arsed to write any cards. Since i hadn't been arsed the year before either, i doubt anyone was bothered!

My Dad died 3 years ago, his final weeks were spent at home with me and I was aided in his care by Douglas MacMillan Nurses. In July this year those same nursed helped my Father in law through his final weeks.

Throughout the year I donate to them through their various campaigns and their local lottery, at Christmas they have a tree and I pay to have my Dad, and this year FIL name on a light on that tree. I also have a tin in the hall into which goes all our change. When Christmas comes I put £10 in that tin, this year it will be £20 for my FIL too.

Friends and family know what we do and why we do it and many of our friends do the same thing for similar reasons. It doesn't get announced on Facebook etc and to be honest those who are close enough to have received a card realise why we stopped sending them.

I begrudge paying Tesco or whomever for a bit of paper that sends my wishes. I can do that verbally and put the money to a better cause.

i am so sorry to those who have lost loved ones, thinking of you x

Should we also abandon Christmas trees, as another wasteful tradition?

Um, yes, we probably should as they are very un eco. OTOH they genuinely bring pleasure in a way that cards don't (speaking personally, my heart sinks when I get one and wonder where to put it and how I will dust and whether I ought to personally explain that I am not sending one back - I would love for the sender to have given money to charity instead but that's not exactly within my control). BTW I agree about sending cards to elderly relatives who would feel forgotten without them - they are my one exception.

Kat, you're probably right, I'm just having delusions of grandeur.

I give the money to charity. A charity that provides finds for research into the disease that killed my little girl. The postage I'd spend is way more than cards, I don't have a lot of Xmas spirit as it is another Xmas without our child and if people find that bah humbug a) I hope they never find out just how bad life is after your child dies b) they can fuck right off.

Yes, why does no-one broadcast on facebook that they're not buying crackers this year .. that no-one will have a cracker to pull on Christmas Day - because cracker money is going to charity?!

We don't do crackers, either. More junk that ends up in the bin. We've had or artificial tree for about 10 years.