Christmas Cards

Apparently glitter is really, really bad for the environment.

If you avoid ones with glitter, the cards can be recycled and go towards manufacturing next year's cards, keeping more people in work.

I really dislike glitter.

I work in the greeting card industry and many of our cards are made from recycled coffee cups, very lovely, however they are £2.00 each so the price is putting people off.

Family and friends decided years ago to stop sending cards. Nobody misses them and the environment is better for it! I donate a small amount to a homeless charity instead.

we give a donation to charity instead of buying and posting cards We make an effort to phone those family members or friends that we dont see regularily over the christmas holidays and who are maybe living alone. They really appreciate the call.

My mum loved cards, and when she wasn't able, someone would be sent off to buy "to a special couple".
"From my house to yours".
"To the neighbours"
"From our family to yours" and so on.

It was quite lovely to see them all up, though, and see just how many people she had met and stayed in touch with; some for 25 years+.

During Lockdown we had a lot of birthdays and I started using Moonpig but used the card templates that you can upload photos to. They are of good quality and then becomes a memory. The recipients all really appreciated them. With family at Christmas I help the grandchildren make a few cards during half term for their parents to send. But we have cut down hugely over the years. DH has a spreadsheet of who we send to and who we get cards from. After a few years of sending and no card in return they get crossed off!!!

I can vouch for that, Lilyflower. You can drive hundreds of miles in Sweden and see nothing but conifers. Quite tedious!

My DH was a publisher and is very firm on the subject of paper being a crop which is grown, harvested and recycled so there is no need to over-worry about the planet on this one.

Do a quick Google Earth of the middle of Sweden. Hundreds of miles of trees.

Or go down the Jacqui Lawson route. She has some lovely Christmas greetings.

I enjoy the couple of Round Robins I get in with the cards, JaneRn. There are old friends I only usually hear from once or twice a year, and it’s good to hear what they’ve been up to. Christmas is a lovely time for a spot of nostalgia. None of them are boastful (they wouldn’t be friends if they were!).

I know we should all be thinking about the environment and saving the planet and I try to do my best throughout the year but, really, the thought of not sending Christmas cards is a non-starter. I always buy my cards after Christmas when the charities are almost giving them away, but Ido so with a clear conscience as I donate to quite a few charities throughout the year, far more than the price of a few cards. The the greater cost is postage. If I remember I try to buy a few stamps each month so that is not quite so painful!

I know some people don't like them, but I always include a "Round Robin" to friends and family who I may not see for most of the year, and they do the same - and, no, it is not about boasting about our children's/grandchildren's achievements or even ouor own, if we have any!

I think in years to come sending cards will gradually cease. Certainly none of the young people I know send them, preferring to use email for Christmas and birthdays and any other celebration.

Most of my friends live overseas so last year I found a really nice verse and sent them a 'virtual' card and with the money I saved on stamps and purchasing cards I gave to charity. You can also write your own email and attached photos.

Sawsage2 so do I

I really hate those self-satisfied announcements : ‘we are donating to charity xyz and won’t be sending cards this year’
I think this year with so much isolation, it is particularly important to let people know someone cares enough to send a card

I love getting Christmas cards and sending them

I buy cards from the RNLI every year as the proud mother of a volunteer
Well done to your son or daughter LauraNorder
I buy the RNLI cards and usually try to get to their fundraisers which I shall miss this Christmas in all probability.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Dont buy them
Dont write them
Dont post them.
Sorted!

I buy cards from the RNLI every year as the proud mother of a volunteer. I have cut down to only sending to people who live too far away for me to greet in person. This year may be different because there won't be any Christmas get togethers between local friends and neighbours.

I use the jacquard lawson site for my cards. The person receiving one can cut and paste your message to read later on. I also send the advent calendar to several friends as this is goodcvalue too.

A few years ago I realised that most of my Christmas decorations were other peoples choice of cards. So I stopped sending to relations and friends who I had a lot of contact with. I just wished them Happy Christmas. Friends who I don't see often, I phone up, wish them Happy Christmas and have a nice long chat. Sometimes its the only time we catch up, but we don't want to loose touch and now distant friends often phone me first. This has cut down on my Christmas cards to virtually nil!

www.jacquielawson.com some beautiful online cards set to music that you can send. It’s roughly £11 a year to send as many as you like

I don’t see that it’s ‘boasting’ to send charity cards, Grandtante - TBH that’s never occurred to me. If you’re going to send cards anyway, why not?

As for Christmas letters, or round robins as they’re often called, I think they did fall partly out of favour because too many of them turned into brag-fests about children’s achievements, their wonderful lifestyle/holidays, etc. Nobody ever sent one saying that they’d put on 3 stone and their eldest failed most of their GCSEs! (At least, not that I ever saw.).

Another kind we still get is from a far flung Canadian relative of dh who TBH we barely know - 2 x A4 pages in a tiny font, crammed with news of her doings and ailments, and news of a lot of people we either don’t know at all, or hardly at all - and all their doings and ailments.

I’d rather have a few lines scribbled inside the card, but that’s obviously rather more of a faff than the same thing photocopied for everybody.

I take one year off every 5 years. No one seems to notice - I think they presume it got lost in the post . Always charity cards though.

We got messages in cards from 2 people last year informing us they’d not be sending cards again but would be making a donation. As usual, I’ll be sending cards - postage is ridiculous, but buying a book of stamps a month through the year solves the problem.

Trees for cards and Christmas trees are grown as a crop and planted to reach an optimum size to harvest, so as the saying goes ‘every little helps’ to get us get back to ‘normal’.