Sending Christmas cards or not ?

Oh it's blued itself. Magic.

Last year it cost me over £12 for family cards by the time I had done all the different connotations. I am not doing it this year as my DGS's just got opened and threw on the floor! I have never seen my daughter put up cards I send her/them. So this year I'm buying cards from a charity and each family will receive one instead of individual ones. At least that way I am doing good also. X

This will be the third year that I have not sent cards to anyone and it will be the third year that an Alzeimers (sp?) charity has benefitted ( I am hoping that if I donate to the charity I will not need it !!). Instead of cards I ring people up which costs nothing in the uk and by using one of those numbers you ring first, it only costs about 1p per minute for international calls. It is lovely catching up with all those people I hardly ever see.

SOON, don"t be worrying your mind about it ! In the scheme of things it will pass ! That is my take on it !!

Just crack open the Bailey"s [might be a bit early though ] I will send over to yours, a bottle !! [tchwine] .

Concentrate your mind on the fact that it is only 21 sleeps till the BIG MAN arrives !!

I haven't sent any for over 20 years and have sent the money to charity instead.

Sorry but I hate getting e cards .I feel they are a waste of time as you cannot put them up and are not to my taste. A couple of years ago we duplicated a little note which said we were cutting down on cards but gave our phone number and e-mail address if the recipient wanted to keep in touch .Nobody did reply . I like the local delivery of cards by the B Bs who charge 20p here. I feel the money is well spent with them .

Thanks Nonu

I must be the exception then! I actually enjoy writing and receiving cards. Wrote them all today and will post them over the next few days. I know they're expensive to send, and an awful lot of mine can't be hand-delivered, but like Eleanorre, I don't get a lot of joy from receiving e-cards, so I don't send them, either.

I am glad to see this thread as I was just beginning to worry about my Mother's cards. For the last few years I have printed off labels for her and she has signed the cards over several days and then I have sent them out.

Last year I felt I was almost bullying her to get them signed. She really didn't know how close to Christmas it was and it was exhausting her just to sign them. Finally, she got a letter after Christmas reminding her that the person she had sent one card to had died a couple of years previously! I should have known but hadn't picked it up .

So, this year I shall check if she wants to send one to the people when cards arrive but otherwise I am not going to put her through that. She does like to get cards though and doesn't want any other decorations up. Has anyone any ideas how to bridge the gap of her getting fewer to enjoy?

Stopped sending cards last year. Money goes to a local homeless charity. We phone and email people now. Feel bad but try and get to people befote they send us one.

I'm to old to change. I still send cards (about 100 each year) and it's just like filling the car with petrol. I may moan about the price, but I still do it.

I also send postcards whenever I travel and recently my daughter told me how much my grandchildren love to get them because it's the only mail they ever recieve.

If we must base all the joys of life on the price, giving up a nice glass of wine or a ticket to a concert because it has become too expensive, then we have given up everything.

I'll choose carefully the things I want to do and the price be damned. I'll do without elsewhere.

Have a Merry Christmas and if you're on my list, you'll get a card.

Travelingman.

I love to display them as part of the decorations.

I used to write loads when working but they were hand delivered of course. DH delivers all the local ones. I only post about 10 and always second class.

One year I donated money to buy a goat in Africa and e mailed everyone to tell them but still felt bad when they sent me a card. It is the postage that costs so much. Today I wrote most of the cards that have to be posted ( very organised for me) and have cut down a lot but I will still feel guilty if I receive one from someone I missed. For me the e mail cards are not the same. Some local friends do give me cards and I do reciprocate as we all feel it is nice to have them on display. Maybe we should ask people to keep the cards and then e mail saying put up my card from last year, the good wishes still apply.

I love the cards and letters- the best part of Christmas!
However the postage is ridiculous now. For the last 2 years I have cut back, doing online and phone calls instead. This year I have gone down the list and emailed anyone that I can to suggest that we do it online- the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
They will die out- the young don't send them.
When you can't even send 2 for £1 it is time to call it a day!

Gracesgran, I always keep my cards, for crafts, if I don't use them I put them up again! so this may be a solution for your mum,

I am getting fewer as the tradition is dying or too expensive, which is a pity, I have been sending postcards to my Granddaughter as it is the only mail she recieves, she loves them.

For her birthday I bought her thank you cards she can make and stamps and postcards too she loved them, I even gave her an address book filled with all her aunties addresses.

Don't let tradition die out I say but actively encourage the next generations.

'Tis the season to be jolly afterall!

Those that do it online, when do you do it? Anytime in December? Or a few days before christmas?
I havent got to that yet. A lot on my list are quite elderly.

I do sometimes wonder whether christmas card giving will end up skipping a generation Geraldine62, like knitting did.

Probably the end of next week. I am not sure what I am doing. I am not keen on the e cards.
I still send to the elderly- I have several who are past sending cards but I send them one with a letter, although several said they much preferred a phone call so I do that instead.

I stopped sending xmas cards years ago and I get very few now...why send xmas cards to someone who you never see and only hear from at xmas...
This year I will get even less as I've moved and no one knows my address...lol.. ��

Can you not print off the ecards? Then prop them up round the room.

I gave to charity on the assumption that I would spend less on cards this year. To find cards that were anyway decent I had to spend rather a lot of money, add to that the cost of postage and we are talking silly sums of money. DH went to post a card to Spain and it cost him £1.47, I was organised and gave my sister her card to carry home in her luggage in October

Yes you can print of jacqui lawson ecards. It is quite a good idea. You could maybe group the ecards together with a bit of holly and tinsel surrounding them.

Yes I still send, though as I get older I try and wait will I receive one from someone who I am not sure will still be here!!! I wish I could tell friends not to send to me, as having recently moved into a Retirement Flat there is nowhere much to put them, just makes the place look smaller than it is already, so I dont display them, and wish I could tell friends not to waste their money on me.

I have done a donation to the Salvation Army instead of sending cards and I have now decided not to send any at all this year. I will try and phone, or see, all the people I care about. The rest, who normally get a card, are people I have not seen or heard from, for years (many years in some cases). We no longer have anything in common, other than past acquaintance so why do we keep up the charade of Christmas cards in those cases?

I shan't be sending any unless DBH remembers to buy some tomorrow. After a knee and foot injury I can walk but not drive yet. Mine have started to trickle in, much to my horror, this morning two arrived. I went to a Christmassy tea and cake and champagne afternoon today at a friend's house (where I received yet more cards), which was lovely, and someone there made some beautiful cards and was selling them for charity. They were expensive so I only bought ten for extra special people, but I need 60 more and DBH needs 30 for school children and staff. I try to cut down on a few cards each year, and actually my card list used to be 120 every year, but that is because we have moved around so often that I have made good friends in most places and managed to hang on to most of them. (DBH has been rather careless with his, most of them have died!)

The postage is a huge deterrent. I feel bad about not sending cards abroad, but the price is ridiculous so daft pictures on facebook have to suffice, to show that I am thinking of them. I shall only send one abroad, to an older and rather lonely friend in France.

Yes, it's the cost of postage isn't it, rather than the actual cards.

And Royal Mail has the nerve to claim it's having to put charges up because it's losing business to rival companies...!