Posting Xmas Cards 1st Class Will Be 1.65p This Year

I love Christmas cards they brighten up the house in the miserable winter. I like to receive them but reduced my list when people said they give the money to charity instead. I don’t like e-cards I like a card it’s only once a year so I do post them to people who I don’t see often.

This looks like the end of another tradition because of the price of stamps. The post office are making us pay for their bad management it’s yet something else we have to tolerate.

We only post - second class - those cards that we cannot hand deliver and I certainly don't send anything 'last minute'. If their names aren't on the Christmas card list they don't get one.

I haven't used 1st class stamps for ever. And I still have a load of 2nd class ones bought before that price rise,
And I get post maybe one or two days a week, all in one big load. And never on a Saturday. So no point in discriminating between 1st and 2nd

I just checked and found that we still have some 2nd class 🎄stamps from last year! 🙂
Not enough though.

I don't post letters very often but recently sent one to a bereaved friend. In the past I would have bought a book of first class stamps but this time,because of the price, I just bought one stamp. As for Christmas cards, I cut back last year and will probably do a bit more trimming this year. Not because of the cost, but just thinking of who sends me those last minute first class post ones. Petty I know but there it is.

I will hope to have all my U.K. cards posted 2nd class during the first week of December.
But we have quite a lot of overseas ones - that’s the (expensive) trouble…

I always send mine 2nd class and do it early.

Last year I sent some cards to people who had sent kind messages when DH died earlier in the year, mainly his contacts, but I am not planning to do the same this year. I already have plenty of stamps from before the last two price rises. Friends with whom I am in touch anyway will get an e-card or letter. I shall still send cards to some people, but second class, as usual.
I definitely think the custom is dying out as younger people don’t do cards.

I can remember when my whole family of 6 had a burger type meal not McDonalds for £2. I’m only 63!
It’s a sign of old age when you start moaning about the cost of everything especially stamps. I definitely don’t send Christmas cards first class.

I remember it was a Wimpy meal. A burger and chips is now £13.50.

I never use first class stamps. It makes sense to post a little sooner.

Using first class is against my religion!! I’ve always posted everything second and in plenty of time. I buy stamps throughout the year and usually have enough to cover Christmas cards - now reduced to a sensible level. I also manage to hand deliver more than I post these days.

I will be sending very few cards this year less than a dozen vastly less than I used to. Second class apart from those sent abroad.

I have cut back, basically people I know I’ll never see again, but still like sending and receiving, it’s only once a year. I don’t like round robins snail or e-mail!

I have cut back - my family and friends who live abroad will get a WhatsApp call - so will those who live in the UK., except my Children and grandchildren.

What I meant is those who live in the UK, will also get a phonecall, during the Christmas week. But my children and grandchildren will get lovely cards and calls and gifts and…..

We hand deliver to family, local friends - whilst walking.

Doesn't explain why it's cheaper in France.

I have just bought postage online from Royal Mail, and printed my own labels, to send Christmas puddings to Australia. As I was disorganised, it was too late to send them by surface mail. The whole parcel, nearly a kilo, which is going airmail, and is expected to arrive in 6 to 7 days, cost me £21.80. I thought this was expensive until I compared it to the price of posting a card in the UK. Now I think it is a bargain. It would however have cost me about £27 to buy postage in an actual post office. A weird system.

Grantanow

Doesn't explain why it's cheaper in France.

La Poste is subsidised and owned by the French Government.

Today I found 10 x 2nd class Christmas stamps leftover from last year - still valid.
I really should clear out drawers more often!

I meet up with four other retired work friends for a lunch about now. We’ve always exchanged cards, but a couple of years ago when I handed out my cards, was met with “I’m not doing any cards this year” from one, so someone else chimed in, “I only give to people who send me one”. “Yes, they just go in the recycling eventually. It’s pointless really”.

“Oh ok” I said. “Well, if we’re not bothering anymore, that’s fine by me”.

So the next year, guess who was the only one not handing out cards?

And this year also.

But why pack up one year, only to start again the next?

Oh well, that’s a few cards fewer for me to write.

I agree the cost of first class postage is too high for many people. I do not buy stamps any more, but do receive them as a perk for doing surveys for royal mail. They give out monthly packs of first class stamps for panel members, which are enough for all my Christmas cards and birthday cards for the year. I used to think anyone using 1st class postage was extravagant- why not just post earlier with 2nd class? The recipients of our cards probably think the same!