To think Christmas cards, especially personal ones are a waste of money?

[Coffeerun]

Christmas cards are lovely, and I can understand why it's nice to send people ones out of a pack. But I feel that relation Christmas cards are going too far.

There's four people in my household. Husband, wife, son, mum and dad, brother. That's 5 cards just for our little family. Then two sets of grandparents, who would also receive mum and dad and grandparent cards, and vice verse, numerous aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, even great grandparents. Could spend an absolute fortune.

They only go in the recycling bin after Christmas.

Do you buy personal cards? This year dh and I are sending everyone a card out of a pack and I just know certain family members will be offended.

Lots of things could be considered a waste of money though.
A card costs the same as a coffee from a coffee shop.
The coffee lasts maybe 30 minutes.
The card might be displayed for 2 weeks and bring joy to the recipient.

I buy one card for my Mum - she expects it and would be very upset not to receive it. I don't send anyone else cards.

MIL is weird about cards and they mean a lot to her. They don't mean so much to me; I'm a bit 'meh' about them but let the DCs blu-tack theirs from school to their bedroom doors. I don't know if it's perhaps a generational thing though, because my Mum and older Aunts still do individual ones.

Dh and I don't give each other gifts but we do give each other really nice cards,his are always really lovely,not the typical 'Happy Xmas Wife' cards but really unusual ones. I keep them in a box ,can't bear to throw them away.

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Spot on.

My grand-mother keeps all her cards and enjoy re-reading them occasionally. I will keep the ones I have from my children. We do more than scribbling our name on them, our cards are a fully written letter. I like Christmas cards, but I don't keep the ones with nothing written in them. I can't see anything wrong with personal ones that the sender has taken time to chose.

I have bought two for my dad. One says "Dad" and one says "Grandad". He has advanced Alzheimer's and the words on the front will help him understand they are for him,because otherwise he hasn't got a clue who he is anymore. It's money well spent. So might I suggest the OP pulls her judgy pants up her arse crack and fucks off!

Christmas cards piss me off. I don't display them, don't send them and ask people not to give me them, but they still do. They make all your festive decorations look shit. They make the place look messy. And as a pp said, just end up in the recycle bin.

I love cards and keep all special cards especially from my dp. I send her random cards throughout the year for no reason other than to tell her I am thinking of her and the card I picked I thought she would appreciate.
I am in charge of cards at work though so might be little bit obsessed. People spend crazy amounts of money on relative Xmas cards.
I like receiving cards and with the world being more electronic I think it's nice for our future generations to have something physical to look back on.

I have a metal Xmas tree that you slot the cards into - all meat and tidy

I got one like that Annie and it was nice to have. I like Christmas cards personally.

I can't be bothered with the specific to mother-in-law and step-dad-in-law ones. Dh's family send them every year, but we just send the boxed ones. I think that some of his family stick them in the recycling on Boxing day.

It all seen a bit of a farce sometimes.

*seems

I have made a lovely card display on the mirror in the living room using some stick on command hooks and some wool! Normally have an Over the door hanger thing but that's where I hang the shirts when I'm ironing so it got in the way.

I don't keep any of them so they'll go in the recycling soon

I'm so glad I'm not alone loathing Xmas cards!

My mum sent Xmas cards to friends and family who live far away, but pretty much all the people on the list are people with whom there was no contact outside of a yearly Xmas card. Since she died 4 years ago I do the annual Xmas cards on behalf of the family as it's the right thing to do (helpfully she had a list of recipients and their addresses in the bag of Xmas cards as I'd have been screwed otherwise!)

We don't send to immediate family - although as I was brought up Jewish where Xmas isn't a big deal, I only send cards to the non Jewish side of the family

It annoys me when I receive a card because all it says is 'happy Christmas', it's much more meaningful to send a text or FB message that actually says something throughout the year than just a card because you're supposed to. If we don't speak the rest of the year then it's just a tick box exercise. If we speak regularly then we don't need a card!!

I keep birthday cards but Xmas cards go straight in the recycling.

A Xmas card nearer Xmas really annoys me because then it's like 'oh bollocks now I have to send you one, and we've missed last posting date'

Then again we haven't done Xmas presents in my family since we were kids. Once we became adults we stopped doing presents. Which suits us all fine, as we have enough 'stuff' and would rather focus on time together.

I like getting news from people I've not seen for years. I don't do work Christmas cards though, we all agreed that, and only send 20 or so a year and they are to relatives and friends who I'm still fond of and who I would see a lot of if they were nearer but they live hours away and life is so busy. I know if I was in their area I could stay with them.
I find I'm bad at keeping in touch with friends and would feel more isolated if I stopped sending these cards.
My husband does his own cards. We got together in our late 30s so tend to have different friends.

My dad sent cards to most of the folk my mum sent them to when she died. When he died I won't be taking on those cards as they are his and mum's friends not my friends. I've lived away from my parents for over 30 years though and am currently over 8 hours away so really don't see his contacts as anything to do with me except the mutual relatives.

So much about Xmas is a 'waste' seems odd to get fussy about cards.

Love cards but never do specific ones, they cost enough to count as a present IMO.

This year I've been able to let go of the fact that we get far fewer these days and just enjoy the ones we do get. I really hope that card-haters don't manage to ruin cards the way that Christmas letters have got ruined by Christmas letter haters - I have at least one friend who stopped sending a Christmas letter because they were so sneered at and she thought people would laugh at her. All the sneerers won't be writing to me to tell me what's going on with her life so everyone is the poorer for it.

We don't do cards to each other in the house, I do think that's a waste of money.
I get mum & dad, grandparents, Bro & gf, sister, Bro in law & family (or all of you) one for my auntie (godmother)
For dp's side he will get a mum/grandma card but for the rest of his 3 siblings & ever extending nieces/nephews including the great ones as well, they just get a card from a pack but a posh pack I'll admit! especially as we don't tend to get many back from the adult niece/nephews.

I'm really trying to cut back on cards, but I always need to send one back when we've received.