when do you start sending xmas cards?

[layla]

Has anyone received a christmas card yet?
Do you sometimes just know that auntie so and so's card will arrive first?
Are you like me and just have to buy charity cards at xmas and for which charity?
Am wondering whether to send mine early and get them out of the way

So when do you start sending,early or last minute?

I usually send mine at beginning of dec. Annoying as we have an xmas drinks party usually around mid dec and so I have to fork out for postage for that too, unfortunately I feel it's too early to send out xmas cards at the same time.

I don't.
I just have a party instead, and 'phone or e-mail invites.

Aunt Barbara's always arrives on 1st December. I usually post them when I have got round to writing them - usually first week in December and do a load of hand deliveries to dh's great aunts over the few weeks before Christmas - these sometimes extend to Christmas Eve as we always have to go in and 'have a drink' with each one.
My dd's birthday is on 11 December so we try not to put up Christmas cards until after her birthday.
The kids like to take theirs in to school early but they always take ages to write them.

Was just thinking about this yesterday. I have several to send abroad so really need to get a move on otherwise they tend to get a bit forgotten (all cards not just the abroad ones..lol) and done at the last minute to catch the post!

Jaybee my daughter has her birthday on the 6th and loves to have the xmas tree out in time for this..lol.

T x

Always buy cheap (but not flimsy!) cards and then donate money to charity. The charity I choose then gets between £20 and £50 (whatever we can afford) rather than the 10p per pack of cards.

10p is better than nothing I know but I feel it gives the card manufacturers an excuse to charge a lot.

We're moving house this year so will combine them with the new address cards. Well, that's the plan!

NEVER! I dont send them I am LIBERATED

Oooh, well, I've bought mine already and am about to start writing and addressing them. BUT this is only because the baby is due in 10 days and I'm intending to kill 3 birds with one stone: the cards will have change of address and birth announcements in them too.

I didn't send any last year as I just couldn't be bothered but this year there seems a point!

Ditto codswallop. I am the Christmas scrooge bar humbug etc. Will have to change for dd though, but as she is only 1, I can get away with it this year.

JOIN my campaign - you still get them from other people! I just cant be arsed - its sucha female thing to do - making work for ourselves men would never do it

am trying to get my sister to do it but she is too scared! PIl think its shocking! IMo if the only contact you have with someone is a card then its not a friendship

Message withdrawn

Is a round robin one of those nauseating letters telling everyone what you've been up to all year? I HATE those. If I want to know, I'll ask. They are always from people who I am supremely uninterested in but I have to read them and make myself squirm with embarrasment!

I only send xmas cards cos I like getting them and it's a good way to keep in touch with people you don't see often.

Uh-oh, I think I am in a minority here - I love sending really nice christmas cards, and I also love receiving them - its so nice to get cards in the post. Dh writes his own so I don't have to do them all. And I always put a note in saying what we are up to etc etc, I think that if you're sending a card, you may as well make it interesting by putting a bit of personal stuff in, and dh and I always appreciate other people doing the same. We get about well over a hundred cards and to me, its part of christmas!

Dahlia - Me too, you're not alone!! Are we strange??

I think we must be.

I think my family would agree that I'm strange as well, M2T and Dahlia! I like getting cards and sending them. In fact, I wrote a few last night. I'm panicking a bit because we're having a new kitchen fitted (booked in for 15th Dec but I hope they will start on 10th) and I suspect it's going to be chaos here. I need to get cards out quite early as we've moved back from abroad but haven't told many people.

I'll do a round robin as I can't write 30 or 40 letters by hand. I'll admit, too, that I've got to the stage where I can't be bothered to squint and peer at people's crummy handwriting and prefer a computer effort!!

No - me too! I love sending Christmas cards and catching up with people I don't write to/see much but have known for long enough to pick up from where we left off. It's often the time I do see people like that and we use cards to make the arrangements. I always buy my cards from Tearfund (Christian aid/relief charity working in UK and overseas) and always ensure that the cards include an appropriate bible verse just to remind people that there is more to Christmas than the glitter (much as I like that bit too!)...

Message withdrawn

I'm sad...... Every year I say I will not send xmas cards....Then one by one they come through the letter box, so one by one I send one in return. Then we have niagra falls through the letter box, so we go out and buy a box of fifty. Then the boys need 33 cards each for their classes, then you get that very nice card from someone you thought would not bother, an your cheap box of fifty cards are not good enough.... So you go and buy expensive ones.... and then..... I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT ANYMORE !!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! Xmas cards... who invented them again???????????

What's a round robin? Am I being thick? Is it a photocopied letter or something?

I'm not grumpy, I just hate unsolicited pages of sh*te from people I'm not interested it.

I said I like sending and receiving cards! I love getting them, just not the pages of "we are so important that you need to know every detail of the past year and how many o levels little Tabitha got etc but you are so unimportant that we can't bother to ring you for a chat or write you an email or letter of your own so here's something we've dashed off for everyone printed off with Dear _ at the top and we'll just fill in your name."

OK maybe should get back into coffin