Do you still send Christmas Cards?

Non at all and it is a great relief it is . At least the round robin letters will not be so boastful this year .

Only I send cards to close friends and family .

Christmas is a chance to contact people I haven't seen all year and wish them well. I buy from the charity I work for, and I know all of that money goes to provide care. I do write a short newsletter to go in some of them, I stopped one year and got complaints 'where is my letter?'! However they are never boastful, just a humorous account of family mishaps and changes in status.

I don't really get the 'sending to charity instead' bit. If you are taking the time to write that email, then instead give me a bit of news? And I would rather money went to the charity of my choice, rather than yours!

I always dread sitting down to write the few cards I still send. I send them to the elderly relatives and neighbours who still send me one!

Still, there are fewer every year!

I send around 40 but this year ive decided to just send to close friends not folk I haven’t seen or spoke to in years.

But how do you know people are actually donating the saved card money to charity. There's always that doubt unfortunately.

I love sending Christmas cards but lately noticed people don’t bother so much or send text or email instead. It saddens me how traditions are easily dropped these days. My husband is not Christian so he never sent cards but calendars relating to our business so he is not sentimental like me. I have stopped sending cards to those who don’t bother.

Yes I still send cards and quite honestly I’m very suspicious of those who decide to stop and give to charity instead. What a cop-out! I agree with Sawsage2, you don’t know that charity is benefitting from the stopped cards or whether people just can’t be bothered. DH and I give monthly to charities but I didn’t stop cards to do that! And the ones I buy are mostly charity cards. I had an email a couple of years ago from a friend that I don’t see as she lives too far away, to say that she was stopping cards and giving to charity instead. Then in another email a long time after, she admitted that she had stopped as she couldn’t be bothered. I don’t mind putting in the effort as I love receiving cards. It’s nice to see them up in the house and I’m delighted to read the wee bit of news that some send. I did decide a few years ago that if I didn’t receive one from someone two years on the go, I would stop theirs, and have stopped a couple. But on the whole, I still send.

I send cards, between thirty and forty, and enjoy receiving them. I think if you wish to make a donation to charity, do so, but not at someone else's expense.
When I was working one Deputy Head was very given to making donations on other people's behalf; he cancelled the Secret Santa without consultation and charged all the staff £5 for a donation, sent in his name, to his favoured charity; he also attempted to forbid the exchange of Christmas cards between the pupils, again demanding a donation in lieu, but the children ignored him and went ahead anyway. This was a school where the generous, fund-raising parents were charged for the children's Christmas Party.

Our list is admittedly somewhat shorter these days. Several which I’ve deleted this year are people we knew well when living abroad, but that was many years ago and a lot of them are very far-flung now, and we’re almost certainly never going to see them again.
It’s still over 50 though.

Dh makes an annual list on the computer, with ‘received’ in yellow, so it’s easy to see who didn’t bother last year. I still send to one or two who’ve stopped, though - Dbro and SiL in particular.

Saddest thing is seeing the names of couples we’ve known for decades, where it’s now just the widow/er. Too many of these lately! ?.

eazybee, your school head reminded me of our headmistress (it was a girls’ grammar school) who one year decided to ban present-giving between pupils.

I was in the lower sixth by then, and we were in the habit of exchanging very little presents, e.g. just a packet of Rolos or similar, wrapped up. I doubt that any of us had the money for anything more.

Well, there was an absolute revolution - everybody ignored what was thought to be an unnecessarily bossy edict - the atmosphere during the last day of term assembly was positively mutinous! Definite rumbling in the massed ranks as the head tried to put on a sad face instead of a thoroughly infuriated one at her authority being so deliberately flouted.

It even made the local paper!
A thoroughly enjoyable last day of term, and needless to say, she didn’t try it again.

I still send cards and love to receive them too. I order Cats Protection cards online and they're mailed to me. Helps the poor cats and the cards are lovely with Christmassy cats on them. I also send e-cards from the Jaquie Lawson site, which are tasteful (no smut) and sometimes interactive, which the recipients seem to like. Sending and receiving cards is all part of Christmas to me.

Last year I had 40 photocards printed and it wasn't quite enough but we had a few odd cheap freebie cards (see below) spare to make up the number.

We don't get that many back - probably about 30 - , but my sister in law says Every Year Without Fail "Haven't you got a lot of cards!"

They're not really a tradition here in Germany, you see. You would never give one to someone you see regularly (although of course this year we haven't seen many people we would otherwise see often) and most of the cards I send go to the UK.

I haven't bought any yet, but many charities send small amounts of free cards asking for a donation in the run-up to Christmas. . I shall certainly send all the usual ones this year as there are still some people on my list who don't have e-mail.

When we married in 1964, we made the decision then not to send out Christmas cards to anyone at all. We were/are both committed atheists. Have never deviated from this.

When our children were small, did get them some cards to distribute amongst their school friends, but as they grew up they all went along with not sending any.

When people give me a card (when I was working, or at group meetings), I thank them and explain that I do not give out any to anybody. I never display those cards that are given to me, usually cut them up to use as labels for pressies.

What does amaze me is how many cards I still receive in the post each year, from people who have never received one back from me. Indeed, from people I do not even know - I lived in my last house for 16 years, and every single year a card was sent there, addressed to former occupiers, no return address or surname. Obviously, some people never even bother to check their christmas card list.

That doesn’t always follow, Franbern. Not everyone sends cards only to people who reciprocate. Why would you assume that people didn’t simply want to wish you well?

Maggiemaybe what did worry me with that card coming annually for sixteen years to an elderly couple who had lived there previously, is that one or both could easily have died during that time, but these senders, obviously never noticed or cared that they were not really in any sort of contact, but just included them on their Xmas card list. Does not sound very caring to me.

All my close friends and relatives know my non-religious views, it is never any of them who send cards, they really wish me well by keeping in touch with me via telephone, emails, etc. Again, I usually feel that the ones who automatically send out cards do not have any real care or good wishes and do not know me very well.

Hopefully, my move to this new address will cut those cards to practically nil this year, last Christmas I was still in the process of having post sent on by Royal Mail, but no longer.