Sentimental family Christmas cards - does ‘everyone’ do these?!

[Whohashiddenthebiscuits]

Not a serious one but just been having a conversation with DH after opening DMIL’s usual Christmas large card to us with a soppy poem (sorry, showing my bias here!). DD got one too.

My family never give cards to anyone actually in the same house as them and we never give ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’ etc cards on any occasion with the exception of Mother and Fathers Day. DM has definite opinions about ‘twee & faux sentimental’ cards snd while I’m less judgy about them, they do make me squirm a bit.

DH has a very different background to me, big family, working class, big on sentiment and emotion and demonstrating that. He’s just told me that my family are ‘weird’ to send ordinary cards and most families do send/give individual ‘Mum at Christmas’ etc cards. I think he’s wrong & while I didn’t want to say it, think perhaps whether you do or not might depend on your background.

I do for the record give DH a card and have done for years. I wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t married to him but I always get one from him. He gives me a big one (which I usually hate but kind of love him for anyway) and in return he gets a small, discreet one from me!

So - are my family weird?! Is everyone else giving out these cards?!

Why are Christmas cards so decisive? DH family are team named cards. I remember his grandmother moaning for ages after we didn't send her a Great Nanny one from our 4 month old. The crime was it was to Great Grandma. I had better things to be doing than hunting that specific card down.
Not to mention the expense quickly adds up.

No, my mum and dad don't like Christmas cards so have never bothered, I tend not to bother really
But DH will buy special
Cards for everyone with 'son and daughter in law' 'grandchildren' and she will have read every word in the card

Yes we always do

I really can’t get het up about it, tbh. It’s two different camps, that’s all. People are allowed to love it, and people are also allowed to find it cringey. But OP’s family certainly aren’t ‘weird’ not to do cards that way - many people don’t.

It’s certainly not a class issue for me - I’m Danish and sending/giving cards isn’t really a thing there (not on U.K. level anyway) so I’ve taken it up by osmosis living here for so long, and it’s nice to send cards to friends and family that I don’t see much since I don’t live near them.

But it’s just not in my nature to find overly flowery, gushing language and sentiments relatable. It’s not how I express myself. Someone did say on the last thread that cards with lots of emotional poetry and so on are helpful for those who perhaps aren’t articulate or can’t convey what they’d like to, so the wording helps them to express their strength of feeling to the recipient (or something like that). That made sense to me.

My mum always gives soppy big cards and birthday and Christmas, I don't really like them I prefer the funny ones

I'm with your DH on this one, OP. I don't get them for everyone but I do for Mum/PIL, son, husband and a couple of special Aunties.

DH comes from a family where they send 'wordy' cards, he can spend hours in a shop reading all the cards to find the one that sends the right message.

I come from a family where the fewer the words, the better and nothing personalised because (in the past, and even now in some shops) they are just a rip-off.

Different families, different ideas, I guess.

I hate sentimental cards.. I don't send Xmas cards at all, and birthday day cards are from Redbubble or Thortful.
I would never buy a card from Clinton's or Card Factory.

I mean tbf it clearly is (broadly), or seems to be from these threads, anyway, class related. Most things are in some way, I find. But just because it’s class related doesn’t mean one is sneering at the opposite camp. I think it’s just that most people naturally feel very comfortable with things they’re used to and how things are done in their circles is considered the ‘right’ way, and conversely, sometimes quite uncomfortable with things they’re not used to!

Dont send any cards at all. Receive very few.
Seem to have tailed off as a tradition

I don't give cards to people I see regularly. A card (with a letter scribbed inside) is a way to re-confirm bonds with a friend or relative I rarely see. Don't really understand the "special card" thing.

We don't, and we're working class.

Ooooo. God knows what you'll think of me. I take a photo of DD dressed in her Christmas dress and upload them to make cards!
This is instead of the 'Mum and Dad at Christmas" with a picture of two snowpeople kissing on th front. Many people in my family like the latter type of card. My mum especially has problems with multipack cards, something to do with 'cheap'.
Me? I don't think its fair to call people middle/working class as an insult. Everyone has different tastes and for birthdays I try to pander to it- I am in a class all of my very own!

I do find it very odd to exchange cards when you’re going to see each other for Christmas anyway. We got a card posted to us by PIL who live literally five min drive from us! I’m not paying for a stamp to send a card down the road...

But on the other hand, I do keep cards so I’m not entirely devoid of sentimentality (in fact I’m quite sentimental, really), and I suppose if you do exchange cards it means that people have a tangible ‘memory’ or memento of that particular Christmas. Which is nice, so again, it does make sense in way.

@Hbh17

I don't know anybody who would give the sort of sentimental cards you describe. I would imagine that they are very much out of fashion, and very few actually sold these days.

There are whole card shops more or less full of them and they're sold in every supermarket, so I imagine that your imagining is incorrect.

@HollyandIvyandAllThingsYule, yet again completely agree with you.

There’s a Richard Osman quote which I think sums it up ‘The issue of class, of where we all fit, and the boundaries that separate one class from another, are so complex and multi-faceted. But, basically, it all boils down to this. The later you open your presents on Christmas Day, the more middle class you are. #Sociology’

There’s absolutely no rights or wrongs here.. just what we’ve all grown up with. My family open their presents typically mid day/early afternoon and it’s taken in turns. DHs first thing in a mad scramble and everyone opening them at the same time. Me, I prefer my families way of doing things - first thing I’m usually angsting about getting food prep started (I have to cook both Turkey & vegetarian options) and I like to watch my DC open their presents and the look on their faces.

But I think we all compromise and form our own individual families way of doing things. Christmas is far more of a big thing for DH than me, it makes me happy when he’s happy so it’s all a bit over the top here.

@Whohashiddenthebiscuits I always think it’s funny that I get ultimate tastefulness bragging rights in that respect - in my family we opened our presents in the evening, after dinner, and we always took turns as well, including the very little children.

Now we don’t really do gifts anymore - a few little token things - so they just get opened after brunch.

This interesting. I remember a thread a while back about whether it was ok to give close family charity pack cards and the consensus was generally a no. Funny how things change.

(Oh and I should say we did give the PIL a card in return - I’m not a heartless monster - but we hand delivered it because we were going to be there anyway)

MIL loves soppy cards and would be mortally offended if we ever forgot to send one in advance of Christmas day....even if we were seeing them on the actual day itself.

One time DH chose a slightly large soppy card for her birthday and posted it diligently a week before the event. Card was unknowingly to us a "large letter" size, but we only put a normal stamp on it. Drama ensued and MIL ended up having to pay to retrieve the card from the post office. That didn't go down well....at all. Since then it is only small soppy cards.

My family do cards and stuff, but it's not life and death if it gets forgotten or goes wrong.

Slightly off topic but I find the British habit of handing out cards to all and sundry deeply weird. When I lived in the UK everyone at my office gave everyone else a card at Christmas - with just “Dear Gennz- printed message on card - From X”

What is the point?

Friends of mine who are now mums in London says it carries on to the next generation with kids handing out cards? Wtf

We’ve received some true multi page greats this year. I hate them and will never send them. Just not me. But I don’t do sentimental twaddle preferring actions in life rather than a hollow piece of paper twice a year.

@Gennz18 I know what you mean, it took me a long time to get used to it. It’s funny to think how contentious it is here and yet it’s just not a thing in most other countries, at all.

@Gennz18, true. But thankfully with children this does die out by Secondary school. At Primary stage it’s commonplace. Can get quite contentious- one unpleasant child in DD2s class a couple of years who had been bullying her made a point of handing everyone a card bar DD. Children end up with 25/30 tiny cards which end up on their bedroom floors half the time.

My DH and I exchange soppy husband/wife cards on Christmas Day, as well as on our birthdays, anniversary and Valentines Day. We sometimes give each other funny cards too if we see one that seems particularly apt. Also DH got his parents a mum and dad card from both of us for Christmas. And yes we always got a Son and Daughter-in-law card from my PIL. I thought it was nice, never occurred to me to be offended. I always tried to get my mum a card with a nice picture of a dog on it, which was what she liked.

Now our parents are all gone I rather miss looking for cards for them.