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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think you don't keep giving a Christmas card to someone that never gives one back?

51 replies

littleredelf · 26/12/2017 10:14

So if you send a Christmas card to say 40 people, and (neighbours/colleagues etc,) and 3 don't send them back, would you send one again next year, and then the next year and the next???

Seems pointless to me, as they are not sending one for a reason; they either don't 'do' Christmas cards, or they don't particularly like you. (Maybe there are other reasons, I don't know....) So why keep sending one?

My cousin keeps sending a neighbour of hers one (a woman around 50-ish who lives alone,) and complains CONSTANTLY that she doesn't send one back, saying 'it's very puzzling, I wonder if I have offended her, she seems ok normally!'

Personally, I would send a card, and if I didn't get one back, I would send another the following year. But if they didn't send one to me again, then I would not send one again, unless I got one first (as they are obviously not bothered about them...)

So AIBU to think it's daft to keep sending one when people don't send one back - ever (and then keep complaining that they never sent you one! )

OP posts:

IglesiasPiggl · 23/12/2021 10:27

I keep a list of people to send cards to because it makes it quicker and easier to write them. I generally take people off the list if they don't send to me two years in a row. I assume they have either stopped doing cards (so probably don't want to receive them) or they don't want to send to me.

Gah81 · 23/12/2021 10:32

Keeping track of things like this sounds exhausting.

The point of sending Christmas cards is surely not to get one in return, but to tell the people you care about that you are thinking of them at this time and wish them well. So whether or not they send one back is irrelevant.

Shinychestnuts · 23/12/2021 10:42

@Gah81

Keeping track of things like this sounds exhausting.

I agree with this if it concerns close friends or close family members.

But there's a "middle" category of people, eg someone you used to work with and were friends with but you've both moved on, where it was appropriate at the time to send a card the Christmas after they left, but a bit silly to continue ad infinitum ifyswim.

And it's not "exhausting" at all to photocopy one list every year!

drpet49 · 23/12/2021 11:07

* I like sending cards so I do. It doesn’t bother me not to get one back, that’s up to other people, I know a lot less people choose to send them these days.*

^I am the same

lanthanum · 23/12/2021 11:20

My parents sent cards to various people they didn't see for many years - decades, even. There were certainly some I'd never met, but the Christmas card went every year. Then when they retired, they started picking up the friendships again, visiting them and telephoning, and in a few cases, supporting them through difficult times.

AdoptedBumpkin · 23/12/2021 11:37

Some time ago I sent the same couple a card 3 or 4 years in a row, and then stopped as I never got one back, and figured they weren't bothered whether I sent one or not.

Luredbyapomegranate · 23/12/2021 11:48

It depends if you like sending cards or not?

Either is fine.

Bluntness100 · 23/12/2021 11:52

I never do Xmas cards and get a ton of them, I like getting them, which is thoroughly hypocritical and everyone knows I just hate doing them so don’t.

My daughter is always astounded I get so many when I’ve not done them for years,😂

If someone stopped becayse I didn’t do the same back I’d be totally fine with it.

JuergenSchwarzwald · 23/12/2021 12:05

I do very few cards these days - mainly to elderly relatives and family friends. I think I sent about 12 and DH probably about the same (he has a larger family than I do). We've had about 20 ourselves, a far cry from years gone by when we might have had 50! They are too expensive these days (and more to the point, stamps are).

My mum loves getting them and usually gets about 70. But even she said she was bored writing them this year.

I don't like it when people I have not seen for years keep sending cards that I never reciprocate. Why do people try to "force" long distance "friendships"? DH always gets a card with one of those round robin letters talking about people he's never heard of from the daughter of a friend of his parents - there really is no point. But then he feels guilty he's not sent her one, sends one back and she thinks he wants to hear from her!

As for not keeping in touch with people you've not seen for years, there are people I would like to see but they live in different countries and kids (and covid) have got in the way but hopefully as the kids grow up we can see each other again more regularly, so there is point keeping in touch.

Gah81 · 23/12/2021 12:17

My point was more to the mental drain of even caring about this, as opposed to the logistics. My life is busy enough so I really have to prioritise the things I care about.

So, for instance, I have only ever sent cards to people who mean something to me and never just out of politeness. The middling category you refer to therefore doesn't exist.

Greydogs123 · 23/12/2021 12:25

My partner has 2 old school friends who send a card every year despite the fact that he has had zero contact with them in the last ten years! He's not friends on facebook with them, never texts them has no idea what is going on in their lives and yet every year here come these two cards. I find it bizarre. People clearly just have a list which they write from each year without any thought whatsoever. It's such a waste of their time, money and paper!

Helpstopthepain · 23/12/2021 12:31

It’s about giving, not receiving. If you like doing it, keep doing it!
I don’t sit and tick off who hasn’t sent cards.

Sceptre86 · 23/12/2021 12:32

We've had one for the last two years from our neighbour (detached house but closest one to us). We are muslim and whilst I'm happy to help the kids write xmas cards for their friends I don't exchange them with adults. We haven't received one so far but think neighbour likes to hand them out on xmas eve and we will be away. Dh thinks it's odd because we celebrate eid but wouldn't give her an Eid card ( she doesn't give us one either) and whilst we do have a yummy dinner on xmas day we don't celebrate in the same way.

Goldbar · 23/12/2021 12:46

I don't do cards every year because I'm disorganised. I haven't done them this year due to a December work deadline but I did do them last year.

I like receiving them but I don't keep track and blacklist those who fail to send us one .

BiBabbles · 23/12/2021 12:55

People not sending cards doesn't mean they don't appreciate getting cards.

It's unreasonable to complain about people who don't send them and I don't get sending them if it really bugs you that some people don't, but if you enjoy sending cards and they haven't told you they don't like them, then keep enjoying it, don't make it a tit for tat game.

Today I received a card from a boss. He has no idea I don't celebrate Christmas, never had that discussion. I thought it was nice that he thought of me, and I'll tell him so when I see him next. My DD2 got lots of cards from her friends, they know she doesn't celebrate but it was just what her friend circle does, she was very thankful and excited by them, and she's unaware of anyone being mad she doesn't do the same. She's been finding her own way to thank and express well wishes to them, some with cards, others with doing things together, some she just told like her teacher who gave all his students cards.

GiantHaystacks2021 · 23/12/2021 13:02

I only send cards to 3 people.
Waste of time and resources, as it is.

User2638483 · 23/12/2021 13:06

I’m living proof that people do! (I wish they wouldn’t really)

Blossom64265 · 23/12/2021 13:10

I don’t keep track of who reciprocates and don’t particularly care. My.card list includes everyone of the same type of relationship. So if I include one cousin, I include them all. If I include one neighbor who I occasionally chat with, I include all neighbors I occasionally chat with.

ESGdance · 23/12/2021 13:26

What about e-cards?!

What’s the point of those - sent sometime on a huge distribution list with one click.

I haven’t sent cards for years.

Used to send to most of my neighbours, all the kids did their whole class at primary (I have 4 - so 130 on that batch) - then work colleagues …. then relatives - aunts etc but not cousins or siblings.

So on reflection it was sort of an social obligation that I had constructed to older generation and acquaintances…..I knew that my close friends etc didn’t want one.

I think it’s a dying trend - I do remember my Mum getting literally hundreds in the 70s but maybe it was because she was an immigrant from a huge family living overseas and culturally (Irish Catholic) Christmas was very important. Also these were religious imagery cards - Merry Xmas would probably be offensive.

My aunt always sends me one with a mass / prayer dedication paid for at some shrine - I am atheist but always touched by her efforts but feel guilty that I don’t send her one…..

Lorriestakingppe · 23/12/2021 13:35

Cheerbear77

This thread is 4 years old, what on earth made you dig it up and reply on it??

Thepineapplemystery · 23/12/2021 13:56

@Cheerbear77

I sick to death of making the effort with friends or family that don't make an effort of sending cards at Christmas so now I don't bother with them ,they get nothing I keep the money that I would have spent on them for myself ,I feel I'm allways the one making the effort,if people can't be arsed to make the effort then neither can I,

We don't send cards for environmental reasons, I'd be horrified if my friends thought it was because I couldn't be bothered!

zingally · 23/12/2021 14:07

I send about 20 a year. Almost all family. Since my dad died 4 years ago, I've taken on a very elderly aunt of his, and a favourite cousin... just because it felt like the right thing to do.
He had quite a lot of cousins, and I believe my mum still sends them cards. But once she stops, I'm not sure I'll pick up the reins on those ones. My older sister certainly won't!

The only strange one I send is a "friend" from university. Mind you, I graduated in 2006. We met up socially maybe twice in the year or 2 following that, and since then have exchanged maybe 5 emails. I did try NOT sending her one about 4 years ago, as I felt like I was always initiating, but then SHE sent me one out of the blue, and that re-set the clock!

Cheerbear77 · 23/12/2021 14:11

Because I bloody felt like it

HideousKinky · 23/12/2021 14:35

I really enjoy sending cards and receiving them - it's one of my favourite bits of Christmas. Gradually I've sent fewer over the years but don't keep a record of who sends one back

Nothingventurednothinggained · 23/12/2021 14:55

Who could be bothered keeping track?
If you want to send someone a card then do it. If you are only sending them a card because you know you will get one in return, then I find that a bit sad.
I don’t do cards, I can’t be bothered with them. I get them from neighbours mostly and they have definitely dwindled since we moved her 7 years ago (obviously because I don’t give them cards back).

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