Birthday cards

I think cards are the last bastion of the days when people gave more than a passing tweet about each other. Yes, if you add up the cost it's going to come to a sum of money, and the charities lose out a bit, but there's nothing to beat a mantelpiece full of cards for reminding you that others cared enough to buy and send something tangible. Stark practicality has to take a back seat when human interaction is at stake.

Pleasebenice

I have a lot of friends and a large family. For my recent birthday I did a rough guess at the cost of the lovely cards. I think the cost must be over £50. I only kept the homemade ones from the children. What a waste. Would it be rude to say please don’t buy me a card in future? If everyone gave a little amount a charity that would be good.

Nobody is going to donate to charity if they don't get you a card.

Fallingstar, I think that's lovely, it's something I would do too

Oh Lord, this post brings Christmas Cards to mind. Well, everyone will have to make do with E-cards this year. Postage is extortionate and the damn things will take weeks to arrive!

The very rich guy who bought Royal Mail must be laughing up both sleeves. He's even richer now and our governnent naively believed him when he "promised" to improve efficiency. Just like the bunch of corporate shysters who bought Cadbury "promised" no redundancies..........

I dislike e cards What’s the point you can’t put them on the mantelpiece or shelf. I think they are a total waste of money and no one send me an e-card thanks
I ve got all my very immediate family cards from way back when all in a drawer they are very special to sometimes look back on and see the grandkids sprawly writing or read the messages from my mum and dad who are no longer alive

I enjoy writing/sending birthday/Easter/Christmas/anniversary cards. I also send cards when people are ill or bereaved. I keep a stock of cards for most occasions and often send pretty blank ones with a longish message inside to my M-i-L who lives at the other end of the country. I know it's unfashionable but it gives me pleasure and recipients do thank me. I also do the much maligned Christmas letter for the same reason.

You could apply the “give to charity instead” rule to anything. Most people do both, surely, just as we might give to charity but still buy a new dress, a book, a coffee, any of the things we enjoy but don’t really need. We had friends who stopped sending Christmas cards. Their choice of course and no one really could have cared less, but they sent out a long and pompous email lecturing us all on how wasteful cards were and how we should all support their particular chosen charity instead. How rude to assume we didn’t already give to charities (of our own choice)!

I’m afraid I agree with others on e-cards as well. I’m sure they’re kindly meant, but I don’t bother opening them. Our cards stay up a full week and we enjoy them and appreciate the thought that goes into sending them. And we always buy charity Christmas cards anyway. I’ve just ordered mine, from the RNLI this year.

I have been very touched to receive sympathy cards this month. An e card would not have been the same.

I posted many fewer cards last Christmas, but will look on the RNLI website for this years choice. Probably only sending very few.

I have a box full of christmas and birthday cards from over the years and will reduce it down this winter to the ones I really want to keep. Do playgroups or infants school use cards for cutting and sticking....do they still do cutting and sticking I wonder? Do the Woodland Trust still collect unwanted cards?

We have massively reduced the number of birthday cards exchanged in our friendship group………jointly we agree we would far sooner meet up for a cuppa around the time of the individual’s birthday.
As for Christmas cards, we used to send to all the neighbours and friends but I put a stop to that some years ago. Very close family get one and we make a donation to charity in lieu of the rest.

SpinDriftCoastal

I would just accept them gracefully. Presents, yes, but cards are nice to leave up for a couple of weeks.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

HelterSkelter1

I have been very touched to receive sympathy cards this month. An e card would not have been the same.

I posted many fewer cards last Christmas, but will look on the RNLI website for this years choice. Probably only sending very few.

I have a box full of christmas and birthday cards from over the years and will reduce it down this winter to the ones I really want to keep. Do playgroups or infants school use cards for cutting and sticking....do they still do cutting and sticking I wonder? Do the Woodland Trust still collect unwanted cards?

I make bookmarks from them.

Unwanted cards can be recycled in your bin, but not with glitter on them.

They have to go in general waste.

I completely agree about the expense of buying and sending cards. I try to economise wherever I can. The cheapest cards are often the “all purpose ones”
but you can write your own message. I’ve found some good value options in Clinton Cards and also Card Factory.

The card factory are excellent value

Don’t be so ungrateful.
I like to send cards to show friends they haven’t been forgotten, I put it down to the cost of having a pot of tea in a cafe.

Pleasebenice

I have a lot of friends and a large family. For my recent birthday I did a rough guess at the cost of the lovely cards. I think the cost must be over £50. I only kept the homemade ones from the children. What a waste. Would it be rude to say please don’t buy me a card in future? If everyone gave a little amount a charity that would be good.

Set an example; send no cards.

I love giving and receiving cards although. my family and friends who live abroad only receive e-cards from me.

M0nica

It sounds a very Gradgrind notion. Never do anything just for the pleasure, make sure that every penny goes to some useful purpose.

I have just had a birthday, I loved receiving cards from people who cared enough about me acknowledge the day. They stand somewhere prominent in the living room, which I see constantly when I am sitting there and passing through it.

Quite a number of them are humorous and each has been chosen to specifically apeal to my sense of humour, showing that the person who sent them knows me well.

The cards have given me so much pleasure over the last fortnight that it is a shame that they are about to come down to make space for DH's cards, whose birthday is imminent.

I really do not think an email card is in anyway comparable or a replacement for a physical card. You only see it if you sit down at a computer and dial it up. There are few cards to chose from so that if two people send you ecards the chances are quite high that they will be identical. As for trying to appreciate it when on the screen on a phone, hopeless.

With you 100%.
I know the email cards are well meant but they've basically just sent you an email , which strikes me as not making any effort. Also as you say it's just on your computer with all the others. I don't feel that I can really keep them.
My elder sister is doing this and its driving me bonkers. I always send proper , specifically chosen to suit her, cardboard cards. She is always delighted to get cards and doesn't seem to see that others would be delighted with proper cards as well. It's difficult to challenge and you're not sure you should.......🤔😘😞