To send Christmas cards?

[bipbopdo]

Do any of you send Christmas cards? This year it seems to be treated as a weird anachronism instead of nice thing to do.

I like having ways of checking in with friends that doesn’t rely on my phone, but a friend of mine said it creates a sense of pressure and obligation at a stressful time of year.

YANBU - I love sending and receiving Christmas cards. I get excited choosing my box of them from card factory.
I tend to give them out to work colleagues (saves on postage) and a few close friends who I'll either see in person or post via our local scouts group (they post them for 30p a card in our area)

A couple of years ago I asked on Facebook if any of my distant friends would like to be added to my Christmas card list. I got sent a bunch of addresses.

it may be a bit of a dying tradition, but there are definitely still people who enjoy it.

I like to send and receive them. I really dislike the ‘I’m giving to charity instead’ thing.

Yes, I absolutely despise that. Give to charity if you are going to give to charity. It is not instead of doing cards and your charitable donations do not need to be advertised. The two actions are not linked.

I always have a list of people to send cards to, including people who sent me one the year before. When any of those people don't send me one, I cross them off my list for next year. Not in a grumpy way, just in a practical way, and to avoid making them feel obliged in future.

I actually like it when people don't bother and I can cross them off my list, as each year my list gets smaller. The time and money isn't wasted when you only send to people who actually enjoy the reciprocal tradition

Yes. I love sending and receiving cards, probably send around 80 between my DH & I. I also volunteer in a charity shop and plenty of people are still buying cards.
I understand it is expensive but we don't exchange presents in our family (apart from U 18s) and I am very happy to spend money on cards. It's nice to exchange news via an old fashioned letter and card.

And I always buy charity cards direct from the charities - not those ones in the supermarkets where they give 10p a packet to charity whilst keeping a bigger sum for their shareholders

We still send quite a few, but the list is dwindling, largely because people have died or else it’s people we haven’t seen for years and frankly aren’t bothered about seeing again!
I like receiving them - they form part of our decorations, blu-tacked to various painted surfaces - not in the way of anything - they look very jolly.

I'm not sending any this year and I'm hoping not to receive any. They're meaningless to me tbh.

I only send one to my mum usually but this year I found a card for 'my favourite sister' so sent the same one to each of my 5 sisters.

I think this will be the first year we don't do it. I'm quite sad as I love sending and receiving cards, but it is becoming too stressful for all involved I think - I don't want to put that pressure on my friends by sending them.

It's also getting very expensive.

It'll be emails and a digital card this year I think. Sad times. Truly the end of an era when you think about the history of cards.

We haven’t sent any Christmas cards in the last 10 years at least. We always get a few but I never put them up, they go straight in the recycling.

I must be very old-fashioned, because I love both sending and receiving Christmas cards. It’s always a bit of a challenge to get the cards out before the Europe, Australia, South Africa and South America posting dates, but I do my very best! Our American friends, particularly enjoy the bespoke Christmas cards printed for our village each year, so I buy half a dozen of those. It’s part of my Christmas tradition to choose beautiful cards (I normally order from one of the london galleries, such as the beautiful Tate Modern cards.) Many of our friends live some distance away so we do not see them regularly and none of us is a big user of social media and so it is a nice way to keep in touch with personalised messages and little update.

I’ve never really been a card writer , I love Christmas but not the cards either writing or receiving

I haven't done in years and don't care about receiving them.
More junk for recycling.
More resources to deliver them.
I'm mostly in touch with anyone who sends them.
Pointless.
Bah humbug.

I’m a fundraiser for a charity and I have painstakingly hand written cards (and envelopes) to my very important supporters - all 450 of them (these are the ones I manage) so after 4 weeks of writing them in between all my other work, I don’t send to anyone outside of family I’m afraid. I do love to receive them though! I say go for it - it’s a nice tradition and it means a lot, I don’t think it adds any stress or obligation at all!

I gave most of my friends and family an option last year on social media to carry on or stop and for me to make a donation to a local food bank instead. I got a mixed reaction some people still wanted to exchange cards and people who didn’t want the stress got to opt out and benefit a good cause. I almost halved my cards and the food bank got a hefty donation.

Yes. I love receiving them and displaying them, as someone else already said they are part of the decorations! The list is getting smaller every year and increasingly we'll have people enclosing a note or posting on FB that they're not sending cards anymore and giving to charity instead (I do wonder if they actually do!). Those people come off the list but otherwise I don't really keep a check on who's sent to us, but will delete people I've not seen for years and am not bothered if I never see again.

I don't find it a chore, I created address labels years ago and each year I do a quick edit of the document and reprint. I'm sure the extortionate cost of postage is partly responsible which is why I try to hand deliver all the local ones if possible. I think it's a nice tradition and sad it's dying out.

Yes I do send and I like to receive.

Always

Yes I send and received around 20. I also hand out to friends and neighbours that I see. I send 4 abroad and I'm glad that's all as it's really become expensive but I love receiving mail from overseas 😁

There are people who maybe wouldn't actually think to give to charity instead so if the not writing cards encourages giving to charity is it such a bad thing?
Not saying it needs to be advertised but i definitely think to give more to the food bank at this time if year. I do my shopping online so i don't walk past the trolley or whatever for the foodbank

I send a few but far fewer than we used to.

i sent some second class yesterday and they arrived today!

I love sending and receiving them, especially to people I don’t see much or talk to often. It’s a small way of letting them know that they still mean something to me. Yes you could argue text them then, but life happens. I think it’s nice

My list is getting shorter as elderly family and friends die 😞. I posted about 15 last year, this year will be less. I deliver as many as I can personally and try to post as few as possible - the cost is ridiculous, especially when you are paying more for a stamp than for the actual card! I can definitely see a time when we will just send greetings via text, or email. Sad, because I love to see the bright cards on the mantle, but perfectly understandable due to cost.