Licking the Christmas Card envelopes to close them

We've also had unsealed cards arrive with mangled envelopes this year, inevitable if they're going through sorting machines I expect.
We used a kitchen sponge to seal ours, resorting to sellotape if all the gum came off. None of our cards had the self seal strips.
My frugal mother used to save the stickers from the Spastics Society and then seal her cards with them. She was still using them many years after the more PC "Scope" came into being, my children loved the joke when they received them. After she died there were enough left for me to use them on their cards for a couple more years.

I think you will be ok with your envelope as they have all been sat in a sack at Royal Mail for days waiting to be sorted if they have been posted . I work in a post office and we are handling hundreds of letters and parcels weekly plus notes and coins and so far none of us have had the virus , just make sure you practice good hand hygiene after opening anything you receive

I haven't seen an envelope that needed to be licked for decades, most have a tacky strip to selv-seal.

When we did have the kind you needed to lick I used a sponge, as someone told me when a child that the men making the glue peed in it!

I use a letter opener, or one of my hair-pins for opening letters, so doubt that any virus comes near me.

Never have and never will lick an envelope to seal and try to buy self sealing when sending or I use selotape.
I always have and always will, even before covid, washed my hands after opening my mail.Any ads /circulars pushed through my letterbox go out for recycling without first being opened. If you want to contact me then email or phone (or it can't be that important)

GrandtanteJE65
Love your comment

I used sticker for mine but received ones stuck down just used a knife along the top to open Royal Mail is taking so long to deliver them so it would have been like leaving them for a week
I did wonder why senders didn’t consider it when sealing them YUK!

I tucked mine in and put a Xmas sticker on it to seal it.

I licked all mine - over 50.
If anyone has sickened or died as a result of opening my envelopes - all posted on 2nd December - I have yet to hear of it.

All the cards I sent were stuck down, all the cards I received were also. Oh dear ?

Tucking in the flap of an envelope makes a trap package which the post office can reject.

Personally I wouldn’t dream of licking anything other than food.

Ah ha Witzend perhaps it’s you and me that’s caused the viral upsurge and not the new Covid variant after all ?

Oh for goodness sake. I licked all my envelopes. And all the cards etc I have received have lickable flaps. What are the chances of getting Covid off an envelope. How many of you have been to restaurants and cafes and happily had something to eat and drink. You don't know how the crockery etc has been washed and did the person putting food on your plate wear gloves ? Or sneeze or cough? And you worry about envelopes!

Whiff ?

Don’t any of you have a paper knife?
I don’t use one but if I was worried about my post then I would.
Best tip: if you don’t have a ‘proper’ one then use an ordinary knife, seems to work just as well.

Nope, never had a paper knife and never felt the need for one.
Curiosity has got the better of me now - I wonder what percentage of us own and use one.

I always use a paper knife to open envelopes, but not because of fear of infection. That had not occurred to me, either before coronavirus or now during the pandemic. I am still unworried.

Greeneyedgirl

All the cards I sent were stuck down, all the cards I received were also. Oh dear ?

We’re doomed, we’re doomed, I say!

For Gods sake ''Get a life''. Leaving this, leaving that for days on end, sorry but get on with your life and stop worrying so much. At our time of life you could hole up, see absolutely no-one, be miserable, lonely and then you pop-off. Live you life, enjoy your-self, have fun while you can, you are a long time dead.

And buy some nice soap.

MamaCaz

Nope, never had a paper knife and never felt the need for one.
Curiosity has got the better of me now - I wonder what percentage of us own and use one.

I got one in a cracker one year.

And DH has one, I've just discovered that the other end opens out into a neat little penknife for opening parcels fastened with that awkward but useful brown tape.

I didn't lick the envelope. I lightly glued it with a pritstick.

I rushed to the post on Saturday with my licked envelopes but found the collection time had changed so they're all sitting in the post box until Monday - should be ok by then! I did give a card to a friend by hand when we met up for a walk in the park - the only thing we can do now in tier 4 - so I just tucked that in. Didn't write on the envelope either so she can use it again if she's so inclined.

Lickable flaps Not something you expect to read on GN.
Gave me a giggle ?

Talk of paper knives reminds me that my dad had one, which he kept in his bureau. I can see it in my mind’s eye now!

I expect my mum chucked it out when he died, like everything else of his.

I licked all the envelopes for our cards and opened all the ones we received when we got them. Never gave it a thought, as we open our mail when it arrives anyway.

MamaCaz we have a paperknife, it was a present for OH in his golfing days and has a golf ball on the end . Have used it a couple of times but it generally sits forgotten in a drawer. How come I didn't realise this was the perfect time to use it ???