Are Christmas cards dying out?

daisiegg

Firstly, please don't move this thread - I know there is a Christmas board, but by definition the people on there will be Christmas lovers so it won't be a representative discussion!

I was just wondering, do you do Christmas cards? Do you receive any?

I ask because I am mid twenties and I don't know anyone of 'my generation' (friends, colleagues and family members) who do Christmas cards. I do them for the neighbours as it seems to be the done thing on this street but don't exchange them with anyone else. I don't even get them from older relatives (I assume they still write my name on cards they send to my parents).

In a way I think it's a shame if it's a tradition that's dying out, but on the other hand I always remember my mum and dad absolutely hating it when December rolled round and they had to write Christmas cards - they really, really detested it! Now I think they only send them to a few elderly relatives who would be upset not to get one.

So, what's your experience/opinion of this? If you said your rough age too that would be interesting

midnightraven3

i also send the neighbours as its "the done thing"
when we moved in here i tried the homemade small gift thing with a plantable card i had made (i hand made paper and impregnated it with wild flower seeds with a poem what to do with it on the back)

i may as well have been handing out drugs
so i dutifully write cards now:D
same with the elderly aunts

no one else gets cards
and any we get, sit in a pile in a drawer until january and the Brownies start back, then they go to them, and they make gift tags from them for funds

we start getting cards from the beginning of December
all that clutter for a month would tip me over the edge :rotfl:
so in a drawer they go
seems such a waste

Fire_Fox

Hopefully.

Seanymph

I do them to the kids with money in them - to family - and to people who live nearby and send me one.

I'm not a fan I have to admit.

However yesterday I was talking to a work colleague who said they would 'soon have to start printing the christmas card labels off'.

So obviously some people still rely on cards for annual networking.

katiechoc_2

I like Christmas cards (I'm 27). But we only send a few to close friends and family so its not a mammoth task like I seem to remember mum and dad undertaking when I was younger.

Having said that as we received a lot of cards/presses for the birth of our baby son earlier this year from distant relatives I guess they'll have to go on the list this time. Easy to see how the list can start to stack up.

But I like receiving them too, makes the place look Christmassy!

NoAngel

Hmm, I'm surprised at some of the responses here. I'm 26 and definitely have the massive Christmas card list to write each year. It's mainly family - aunties and uncles and I don't bother with my cousins who are similar age to me and fiends don't seem to bother. However I receive lots of cards too and always have them up - wouldn't feel Christmassy without them!!

Skintski

I still send some cards. I tend to find its my girlie mates who also send them. Guys on the whole seem to be anti Xmas card.

gingin_2

Yes. I used to have a lot of elderly relatives, most of who have passed on now, so the list gets shorter and shorter.

My inlaws in New Zealand and Sister-in-law in Australia don't seem to send cards but they will buy a special card for close family ( of the non multi-pack type that I buy ) I wonder if it is just a British thing

I'm 34

Sambucus_Nigra

Close family and neighbours for me.

I usually bake a cake or make savoury biscuits in lieu of cards for work. Nobody seems to mind.

lostinrates

I am early to mid thirties. (how has that happened?) and we (dh and I) have had a very large christams card list, not least because it's a nice way to remember friends and famiY overseas who one sees very rarely. Plus there were business contacts for two of our lines of work (though thankfully dh and his secretary manage his corporate ones) and the neighbours and social things etc etc etc.

Then....

Last year I just did not get to it. I sent maybe a couple of dozen, at the outside......

And the world did not end. None of the business contacts so far as I can tell, even noticed. Apparently some of the relatives did, but ........understood.

I will be keeping it low this year. Cards are wasteful in resources and expensive to send. I would rather spend the money on a phone call to some of the recipients and the time emailing some others


I think cards are beautiful, but since they were inititated as a main form of seasonal correspondence, the way we communicate has changed. Increasingly speaking to peoplle is cheaper, or free thanks to platforms such as Skype, and postage for 'niceties' is becoming a very expensive luxury.

THEMONEYSPIDER_2

I have never understood the need to send cards to people you are going to see over the christmas period anyway. if they live far away and your not seeing them then yes its nice to send a card.

My mum spends approximately £5 per card for 3 grandkids and 4 children, her husband, so £40 on cards, although very nice cards :eek: and yet see sees us all every week and we all have a big family get together at her house every year.

My kids seem obsessed with sending everyone in their school a card !:o

My other half and i dont do cards for each other at all, that includes birthdays and valentines day too.

Oh and im 37