To wonder if sending Christmas cards is a dying tradition

[Fallingovercliffs]

A few colleagues were just discussing this and a good few of them said they only send out a handful of cards nowadays and prefer to text or email most people. I have noticed that the number of cards I get, or that I see in people's houses when I visit over Christmas, seem to be a lot less than our parents' generation. My mother always ran out of places to put cards!

Just wondering if, generation by generation, this is becoming a dying tradition and AIBU to secretly think it would be great to not have to bother anymore?

The school has asked this year that every child just gives the whole class one card between them and it gets put up on the shelve. This is turning out really well. 30 cards have been sent out instead of the hundreds before.

I am astounded by the number of people who don't exchange cards. Unless you can't afford to or don't have any friends or family it makes you come across as not only lazy but a bit of a Scrooge too.

Yes that's it I must be lazy or friendless and it is not that I have prioritised a million other things over something I personally consider a bit wasteful and pointless. I have an enormous family and tonnes of friends, thank you very much and I am not a Scrooge either.

Gave up sending them 6 years ago apart from my elderly relatives. Main reason i gave up is the price of stamps.... Cards are cheap, its just the stamps. Agree think its a sadly dying tradition. At present i only have 3 cards and have no room really hoping i dont get any more...

I am not lazy. I do care a bit about the environment though.

I am far from a scrooge. I will happily call friends and family and wish them a merry Xmas. I don't need to send a stupid card to show them I am thinking of them.

A bit of cardboard with a Xmas picture just isn't something I am interesting in receiving or sending.

I have a lot of family, but not many friends.

Maybe this is why :(

I bought some stamps on Monday for my (very reduced number of) cards and it came to £25. Admittedly I send a few to Germany and Australia but I only really send them to aged relatives and friends I don't see these days.

My mother absolutely loves them - sending and receiving. She still sends a postcard whenever she goes anywhere as well - even in the UK.

I just mailed mine. 15 cards from Canada to the UK. $40.

I'm not doing it next year. Price went up nearly 30% on stamps this year.

NoLongerJustAShopGirl Yes, that's another reason for my sending cards. My mother's cousins, my second cousins, steps .....

LOndonrach What about buying ric rac tape in red or green, cut it into 6ft lengths and use a drawing pin to secure it on the top of your sitting room / dining room door. No one will ever see the hole unless they're nosey. As each card arrives, use a dressmaking pin to pin it to the tape. That's what I do and I have none standing on sideboards / shelves / coffee tables etc.

Oh, and when your cards reach the bottom of the tape, use a bit of curled up sticky tape on the back of the bottom card to secure it to the door. Then the cards will not be turning round as you use the door.

We were talking about this at work at it's the price of stamps stopping most people.

I stopped a couple of ears ago when my grandparents died. I used to send them each one and then the year they died it felt very odd sending to lots of family members I don't see all year. I buy just a few personalised ones now, parents and sister cards etc and give those. Kids did a few for their friends. I have hardly any so far so I think it is the same for most, we are all starting to stop sending them.

We've been in our house for 8+ years now. And we are still getting a Christmas card addressed to the old lady who's house it was. She died nine years ago! How many years do you send without receiving before getting the hint?

dailygrowl that's complete rubbish that e-cards aren't better for the environment. How can you possibly say the energy used to open an ecard is comparable to the energy used to chop down the tree, transport it, turn it into paper, print it, send it to the shop, then to address it and post it half way across the country?

I haven't done cards for two years (miserable) but the dc get a lot of pleasure from it so I get them a box each.

I still send and receive cards. I cut them up after Christmas and then use them as tags for next year, so not a massive waste. My spreadsheet list is definitely getting shorter though and I'll post to extended family living further afield and then hand deliver to the people I'll see over Christmas.

Why did I never think about saving them for Xmas tags before?

Now I want people to start sending them to me again!

My mum seems to see 'number of cards received' as a bit of a competition tbh, pointing them all out when we go round. And when she comes over at xmas she goes to great pains to try and read all our cards. Even when half of them are hanging high up! ''oh, this one's from X, this one's from Y, didn't you get one from Z? etc etc ...''. She likes 'religious' looking cards too, not all this ''modern cartoony stuff'', even though she isn't in the slightest bit religious!

This year i'm going to send ours out late, and only to people who have already sent one to us. I am hoping this will cut the number down a lot, as usually i send out quite early - which simply prompts reciprocation cards. We'll see.

Also everyone is sending smaller and smaller and cheaper and cheaper cards every year - understandably so - and it's such a waste of time.

Getting the pinking shears out and making christmas tags is one of our christmas activities for the school holidays.

I just received a handwritten card from a University friend and her 4 children. No email or text beats a few hand written paragraphs. I recognise her writing on the envelope and know it will be a good read.

So why would I not send her a card back after twenty years of exchanges?

I don't send any cards at all, I haven't done for years.

I seem popular if you look at my card display, although the fact that they are all tiny ones with fluffy kittens on and are addressed to "Mrs Reticulum" may give the game away a bit...

Yanbu - the christmas card tradition seems to be mainly for older relatives these days IME

As am probably "an older person" on here I still receive and send Christmas cards. I think the cost of postage will kill the card market off for older people, and younger people will just message each other on whatever medium is "in" at the time.

I send a few mainly to older rellies and include a few photos of the children and a letter. It cost me over £10 to send five cards overseas
I don't see the point in exchanging them with people I see all the time, what does a card achieve that sayng 'Happy Christmas' doesn't?