Is Your Christmas Card List Getting Shorter

I have always sent Christmas cards to friends and family far and wide but decided not to do so this year to people I can email, phone or message on Facebook. Money saved has been donated to the Alzheimer’s Society, where it will do far more good. In the few cards I have sent I've asked for an alternative method of contact for the future.

I bought some charity cards this year. They were a painting by a handicapped lady of a fox, a bear and I think, a wolf, anthropomorphised, sitting round a camp fire with scarves, gloves and cups of cocoa. DH thought they were awful and not at all Christmassy, but a couple of people (those Germans who don't "do" cards and who are very surprised to get one, so they phone us up) have commented how they loved them and thought them amusing.

It's interesting to read your different views on the subject. Now that there is only one day left for post I feel rather guilty to say that I've received a card from everyone I sent one to bar 2 and they are relatives of DH. Well that's two less next year..lol

Sent 4 cards this year, received 3, and been told by my best friend she won't be sending me a card this year (so she won't be getting one next year)

I’ve posted only one card this year, to the widow of an old friend who passed away in January, with a totally inadequate message - nothing could possibly be adequate. Now Royal Mail are so expensive and so unreliable, I’m inclined to do what so many people do, and simply put a Christmas greetings message on Facebook.

But after bereavements, illness and broken relationships within the family, how can a light message to more distant friends fail to seem callous when all the wider family will see it?

I hate Christmas and have no happy memories of it, through my own childhood up to now, as an unsociable granny, and I don’t think I can avoid offending more people than I will please.

Having moved into new accommodation this year, I realised that few of my friends and relatives knew where I was. My list has - sadly - shrunk but there are still many I would like to keep in contact with, so a Christmas email went out to as many as I could find. News is now coming back from old friends and even older relatives, but yes - my address book is going to need some revisions.

I still give cards to local friends and neighbours but send far fewer by post than in past decades.

Nicolenet oh dear I fear some of my cards were rather ugly as I bought them from charities. I hope people won’t judge them on their plainness.

We still get a large glossy card from a firm of financial advisers we have used.

Would rather they reduced their fees than send out cards.

I really am shocked by the cost of postage from the UK. £2.20!!!!!!!! A stamp from here in Germany to anywhere in the world for a letter within the given size and up to 20g (which includes most Christmas cards plus a single sheet for an additional letter) is €1.10.

And we still get our post delivered. At the moment it's even coming before lunch for some reason. Up until recently it could take up until 6 pm.

I cut right back on posting cards and only posted 6 all second class. Did post 4 parcels all second class one got to the destination the next day and the other 3 day after. Proves it's not worth sending first class.

The cost of sending cards is getting very high which may be a factor to some people. On top of that the postal service is dire. I recently sent a card with a gift voucher to a friend 10 miles away who told me she had to go to the sorting office to collect her cards as her post office were only delivering parcels! She collected about 20 cards and letters! It could be that your cards are still waiting to be delivered. I must admit I cull my Xmas card list each year.

Cards!

karmalady

I dont like cards, waste of effort, time and money. I don`t send them but give what I would have spent to the man from the salvation army. People still send them to me but that is up to them, I bin them.

I have no intention of adding to landfill

Ours go into the recycling, not landfill, unless they have glitter on them which very few have now.

Buying cars from charities direct helps chosen charities and also the Woodland Trust.

I love getting cards with news in...not the ubiquitous round Robin boasty ones, but a brief few lines to say what they've been doing. When I get a card with "from X & Y", I just think, what's the point?

I used to send a lot of cards, then one year I wrote them all but didn't post until last day of posting, just to see who sent cards because they wanted to and those who only send cards in return. Quite an eye-opener. It seems that very few people can be bothered nowadays. This year I posted 8 and hand delivered 4 to those who we keep regular contact with. Sadly, the older generation are no more, so we have a much smaller card list.
We have received 15 cards, which includes 3 from ladies at a group I recently joined (I made Christmas decorations for the ladies as I haven't learnt all their names and wasn't sure about giving them cards).
I haven't received any Christmas greetings through social media this year; I posted greetings this way a few days ago.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Just the two of us for Christmas again.

I don’t send cards overseas. I’d rather ring or what’s app them. I used to strings and strings of Xmas cards on either side of the fireplace, on the landing. Now, I’ll be lucky if I can fill one string

I posted about 45 including 3 overseas. Hand delivered the local ones (about 15) and gave out about a dozen to friends of local organisations of which I am a member. Hubby (age 77) still sends cards to six people he knew at Uni, only one of which I have ever met about 50 years ago - and didn't like him! Hubby hasn't met any of them for the same time.

As someone said, it is all very expensive now, but only once a year. In the past I was always late sending so had to pay first class, but not any more - I get my act together in time for second class.

Afraid I don't keep a note of who doesn't send me one, but this year got a phone call from the wife of an old friend who moved away 20 years ago to tell me he died 3 years ago. I shall still send her one though - she had a lot to put with when her husband was younger and stuck by him through thick and thin, and I admired her tremendously for that.

No, I don't bother with them anymore, except for one cousin of DH. It seems it isn't a thing anymore. We have a nice phone call over the holidays with far away friends.

Sadly, yes.

I use the same list every year but quite a few have RIP next to them now. DH died earlier this year and I tried to send my cards out in good time so people would know but several crossed in the post. I bought 30 x second classs stamps and I've used them all. Last year and this there are two or three people who haven't sent a card so they must have died.

I don't send cards anymore.

It looks like I receive a card a week after I have sent them one. I will not send any next year and see what happens? Also the cards I get are really ugly... Why bother?

This happened to me as on many occasions, I had included gift cards for nephews and nieces but never got a thank you back or even a card from them, so I decided to ring them and ask if they had received the cards and the gifts I had sent, for security reasons more than anything else, and when they said yes they had, I just said, that is all I wanted to know, asked them how they were and rang off. After that, I never sent them a card or a gift again. If they haven't the courtesy to say thank you I am afraid they are now out of my life.

In many circumstances (I am 81 years old) I have stopped receiving cards and never knew why but a few months later found out that the people I had sent cards to had sadly died. I suppose that when we get to my age people are here one day and gone the next.

I am, from next year, starting to donate the money it costs me to buy cards to a charity.

Yes definitely less each year,getting more expensive to buy & send,getting older,some people are gone & young people don’t post anything,I am sending less & have sent some on line cards