Family Christmas Cards

[Fregola]

I love getting my family and friends nice Christmas presents and enjoy getting into the whole Christmas spirit of wrapping them in lovely paper while watching a Christmas film and enjoying an annual sherry but I hate buying the individual Christmas cards for Mum & Dad, Aunties & Uncles, Cousins etc.

It's just so expensive for a piece of flimsy blooming coloured card. I really don't want to seem like a miser, but I just don't want to hand over another £20-30 in somewhere like Hallmark for several bits of card again this year. Especially when I am already buying most of the people (or their kids at least) a present.

I think my Mum will be secretly disgruntled if I don't get something with several verses in it, but I think everyone else will be OK (even though they make an effort themselves).

So, where do you get your "special" Christmas cards from? Is it possible to find something of nice quality for a decent price? Or have you transitioned away from this madness and how did it go - especially with the more "traditional" style recipients?

Go to the card factory and they do particularly soppy cards that are quite cheap 59p etc.

Never done those personalised cards. But the relatives (don't see any of them) get a handwritten letter.

Special cards aren't special really.

They're just manufactured tat with a yucky message. ( I like to think the bloke making up the yucky message is a cynical old geezer with a large whisky and a fag hanging out of his mouth.)

If it matters to your Mum, get one for her and her alone. Everyone else gets the general/obligatory one.

I hate cards full stop. Din't get me wrong i'm not a bah humbug or anything, quite the opposite. I just detest cards, if they're on a string they blow about everything a door is opened, if they're on a sideboard they constantly fall over! Its a total waste of time, money and effort.

Last year I decided to only send a card to people I don't see throughout the year, i managed to whittle my list down to less than 10 people. My MiL however, was aghast at the thought that she wouldn't be getting a card, cos she loves her cards! Of course that means 1 card to mum and step dad and another to granny and grandad, just a bloody carry on!!

So i decided felt pressured that i would still get for the very immediate family but i get them from card factory for about 50p each. She's still miffed that I don't send one to her friend anymore!

I don't and never have sent out special cards.

I'm in complete agreement that they are a waste of money and effort but I don't want to cause upset and like you Heathcliff I feel obliged.

Combining your advice, and thanks for all your comments, I think I'll get the usual for my Mum and Dad (not that Dad will notice!) and then get and then get a pack of nice ones for the rest of the family rather than individual ones and try to put an additional personal note inside.

There, one less think for me to get unnecessarily hung up on!

I used to buy individual family cards as this was what everyone seemed to do in my family. One year when I was working abroad and earning very little in sterling I bought a box from Woolworths to send to all the family instead. My Mum pulled a cat's bum face and relegated my card from the dresser where all the 'special family' cards were kept to the generic hanging on a string area of all the random neighbours' cards. I know it sounds ridiculous but I was surprised at how hurt I felt by the card relegation! My Dad kept trying to move it back 'into the fold' and my Mum kept moving it out again!

So, dutifully the following year I spent the obligatory £40-odd on family cards and muttered away about the ridiculousness of it all. Then, when DD was born, I just stopped as that was an insane amount to spend on just family cards. Now, Mum and Dad still get their special named one to keep my mother happy and I get the DCs to handmake all the other family cards. We buy nice Christmassy templates from Yellow Moon and make an afternoon of it. It still comes quite expensive doing it that way but the DCs love making the cards. And I take a photo every year of them in front of the Christmas tree which I include a copy of for family cards.

Gosh I had no idea people did special 'family' christmas cards! I only send cards to people I don't know very well.

I'd be really surprised to get a card from my parents or my sister!!!