Not sending Christmas cards - how does it work?

[Olderandboulder]

It seems to be the thing now that people are stopping sending Christmas cards. Cost, waste, sheer arse numbing boredom of having to write them all being good valid reasons. I’d like to join the defectors. I’ve got a few old friends and family members that I’d like to keep sending cards to just to keep in touch, but really feel I could get rid of most of the list.
My question is how do people do this? Do you send cards and say “this is the last one you’ll be getting from us, bye”? Or a mass email? Or just stop doing it?
All suggestions very welcome.

Totally agree.

Just stop, No need to announce it - I bet the majority of them won’t even notice. I used to post to quite a few family and friends but now just post a handful to family who don’t live that close and hand give to my closest friends and immediate family - stamps are the expensive bit! About 12 altogether in total so doesn’t take long. My kids like writing them so I don’t mind. My 2 year old got sent out a nursery list for Xmas cards which I do think is pointless!

Just stop sending them, no need to make it a thing.

We do send prints of a newish family pic (or a group pic of the DC) to grandparents, great-grands, aunts & uncles who we know will want to display them in some way, but we send them with short handwritten notes on stationary. It’s less than a dozen total between our families and it feels like less of a chore.

Urgh. I wrestle with this every flipping year. My list gets shorter and shorter…especially for posted cards. It’s such a time wasting occupation on the run up to Christmas.

DM (83) is still well in the swing of sending them, and gets her (falling apart) address book out every November. Sending and receiving them are really important to her.

I do write some local ones and hand deliver.

I still send and enjoy receiving, but I know I'm in the minority with people my age (40s). It's part of the Christmas decorations to display them to me, so anyone who says they don't send them because they go straight in the recycling is wrong in my case (I mean,I do recycle them but not until they've been appreciated for weeks!).

However, I do send less then I used to, partly because of loosing touch with people and partly because we did decide it was pointless delivering to loads of neighbours we barely speak to etc. And we've only ever done kids friends if they are willing to write them themselves, do most years not or not to whole class like some do. We now stick to relatives and friends we don't see often on the whole.

I do understand why people don't, both in terms of time and costs of stamps now. And also feeling if other people aren't perhaps there's no point (which is what I'm starting to wonder). I'm never offended not to receive them from someone. .. But I do find it it irritating when people make a big virtue of it, eg announcing it is so they can donate to charity or for environmental reasons when they don't seem to be so financially hard up that the cost of sending a few cards is the difference between whether they can afford to give to charity or not, and also I don't see them cutting back much else in their life for environmental reasons. I mean, I know for a fact some of the people who do send cards also give to charities around Christmas.

I did feel slightly sad noticing that one of those photo memories of a few years ago today popped up and there were quite a few cards on the shelf on the background, and this year we only have one so far! Interesting to see the change, albeit it's still early.

I just stopped and it felt like such a relief, I send one card to my mother - she only displays cards from her kids/grandkids and they are all a bit big/fancy - it’s her thing. I still get cards and I feel a bit bad for a moment or two that I don’t return the gesture - sometimes people have got a bit shirty about me quitting - that’s on them.

You could ease into it.

I write a list of who I receive cards from that year, then use it as my list for next year. I’ll always send elderly and close relatives, but uncle John who I couldn’t pick out in a line up, no. Every year the list gets shorter and I cull it too.

Ah that's funny - did it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? The card or the oil, both work 😆

Haha yes those posts do my head in! Feel like posting that this year I'll be writing cards and donating to charity! 🤣

One year I didn’t send any, then just waited to see who I received from. It was amazing how few I got, so I quickly sent them one back. Now I only send to those people.

I think I have written 4 this year, all were sent as part of a parcel with gifts. Christmas cards are going the same route as birthday cards here.

DH is the Group Lead Voluneer four out Scout group and wrote one to each of the Scout leaders, he added a chocolate coin into each one.

Lots of cards aren't easy to recycle, everything with glitter on it is bad or you have to ensure you take things like bows, buttons etc off.

I stopped doing them for anyone local years ago. I have a few elderly relatives that are dotted around the country who still appreciate them so I've kept them up for their benefit. I now keep the number to fewer than 10 and usually try and put something personal in there like photos.

If people just CBA to write them, fine, but it might be nice if they’d just admit it, instead of sanctimoniously citing the planet as a reason, or saying that they’re giving the money to charity instead. The two couples I know very well who stopped sending cards some years ago and give the ‘charity’ reason, could easily afford to do both (I do know this).

Our list has dwindled quite a bit over the years, but that’s largely because the older recipients have been dying off. But I still send them, and like receiving them - they form part of our decorations, blu-tacked to a few vertical painted surfaces.

I'd send my DM a physical Christmas card because she would otherwise complain and it seemed a little enough effort for something so important to her.

Other than that, I tend to keep in touch with people by email and have a subscription to Jacquie Lawson so I can send cards that feel a little more special than an email.

For a while I kept a supply of cards with me and wrote one on the spot to anyone foolish enough to give me one. Now I give or send cards to my sisters family who feel as my mother did but know better than to complain

Any I receive end up pinned to a festive ribbon. They can't be seen individually but at least they don't fall over and collect dust.

I send six by post to elderly relatives and do a few for the neighbours. It used to take ages but it’s a nice quick job now.

I just stopped sending them about ten years ago now. No big announcement or fanfare, just didn't do them anymore.

A few neighbours do still drop them in round here and I do write one back, but it's only three or four.

DH was at first horrified when I said I would no longer send Christmas cards. He swore blind that he would do it but he never did - it tended to be wife work, though not for this wife. Not any longer.

Do it. It's liberating.