r.i.p. Christmas cards?

I know it's early, but shoulld we let chritmas cards just fade away now that we have excellent electronic messaging available. (Could also add suitable scenes of snowy robins to our message) Or am I being too much of a grinch?

dave8

It is a bit early, but I gave up on them years ago. My Mrs does them all now and I don't get involved. I don't want to know how much she spends on stamps. She even does cards for her family who we see every day. I flick through them when they are taken down just before they go in the bin. So a total waste of time effort and paper. People say bah humbug to me and I had to Google it to see what they were on about. So yeah im with you let them go.

Of course! I should have directed this to the wives -they are probably the ones who do the job. Please ask them. I have to do my own.

dave8

Hi, well personally I think it's every ones choice to send greeting cards or not, so if you don't wish to send any to anyone, then don't, and I don't think there should be any campaign to have them stopped as there are plenty of people who look forward to getting them. Of course the original idea of sending greeting cards, was to send them to those people that they wouldn't be seeing during the festivity to which they relate, but these would just be a hand written greeting on a plain card, but of course it got commercialised, but many people do make their own cards to send, which adds a personal touch, which my elder sister did up to a couple of years ago, when she had developed dementia.

Regards Nick.

Given the cost of even 2nd class postage these days I think more people will use Moonpig or Funky Pigeon, but having never availed myself of these online services I have no idea how much they cost. Also, at our age, some of the friends and acquaintances my wife and I did have in our thoughts at Christmas are no longer with us so the list get shorter every year.

Edited By Chris Crew on 17/07/2023 07:15:40

I was going to say, how many of us actually pulled our finger out and made the effort anyway??

Most guys are a waste of space or too mean to do xmas cards to start with

At the other end of the spectrum we got an American one once and it was about 3 pages of monotone concerning everything they had done during the year and it kind of freaked me out thinking about having to read 20 to 50 of those things, it was more like a diary than a xmas card

Xmas cards are very handy for maintaining relaxed polite social contact between like minded people

Edited By Ady1 on 17/07/2023 09:16:51

I have never sent a Christmas card in my life, my wife has a long list and composes the dreaded news letter which the recipients say they enjoy, they may just be polite though. The present thing is also wasted on me, I can’t think of anything I actually want as anything in the normal range of presents I will already have. My wife insists that presents must be a surprise but I have long ago confirmed my belief that I am useless at choosing a present so don’t bother.
Mike

I maintain an Amazon list for people who insist I need reminding of birthdays & Xmas etc. I can add items I want & even list items Amazon do not stock. My wife does the same so I have no need to ponder the problem at the correct times of the year. Makes it easier for everyone. My wife does the cards so no idea how many go out.

regards

A friend of mine used a website that had a selection of video animations for all occasions, including Christmas. The videos had music to suit the mood, and you could add a personal message. I don't tnink she had to pay anything, but I could be wrong.

I am afraid that mister misery here is very much a fan of the beloved Christmas character, Scrooge. When my sisters ask me what I want for Christmas my reply is.

What I want, you can't afford. And what you can afford, I don't want.

Happy Humbug!

I don't think my 100 year old mother-in-law is too hot on computers, but she can still read a christmas-card if the writing is big enough.

" Bah, Humbug! "

There are at least one ruddy-awful electronic "card" e-post agents about. I have received two of these horrible greetings-by-data-base things, the first making me think it an elaborate scam until I read the names and message somewhat obscured by the surrounding digital artwork.

I don't know their costs. I might reduce the number of cards and can deliver some to friends by hand anyway, but I would not touch these electronic things with a barge-mouse.

I think them tawdry and cheapskate by showing no imagination, little respect and an obvious desire to get the chore done with by the sender.

Yes, postage costs brass you might thing better spent on brass, but to be honest the price of a second-hand stamp is ridiculously low for what it does. It only looks a shock when you post a batch of letters or cards at one go.

I think the Post Office might have something to say about you using second-hand stamps.

Phil

Well spotted, Phil!

Err, I did mean second-class.....

Hi Nigel. I guessed you meant second-class when I first read it. Anyone using second-hand new bar coded ones though, will get caught out straight away, as the bar codes are just like snow flakes, no two are ever exactly the same.

Regards Nick.

Is the idea to remove the need for franking, which itself is designed to mark the stamp as used? Most sorting is now highly automated, and has been for years; but I have occasionally seen stamps that missed being cancelled.

.

"snow flakes"...

Be these the pretty water-crystal types floating softly from the sky over the Norwegian mountains, or the USA sort with "wrong" opinions? Both?

I got caught by single snowflakes at the top of a Munro once, when my eyes could see properly

It was like being showered with hundreds of tiny watch cogs, very memorable

Nowadays I wouldn't see a thing

Bob, what a coincidence! My 102 year old aunt died not long ago, and the train of thought led me to posting this. As I am now the oldest in the family, computers are only a problem for me. By the way, I am in no way calling for a ban, or using websites to compose a message for me. Just the computer version of an old fashioned letter.

dave8

Gosh, what a surprising question and direction this thread went,

And how very depressing. There is still something special, (to me at least), about sending or receiving a physical thing through the post, and the receiver opening and handling what you yourself handled, and wrote in by hand.

Doing it electronically requires about 1/100th of that effort, and to me that cheapens it considerably - because I know that someone can email a list to an E-Card supplier, and the same 'card' will be emailed - with the appropriate name added automatically on the header - to all on that list. That would take about 5 mins to do, but what is the point, if you can't be bothered to buy a set of Christmas cards from the local charity shop and send them yourself? Might as well not bother at all. Good grief.

So, apart from real cards and presents; What else don't people like about Christmas; Snow? Christmas day meal? Decorations? Christmas drinks? Church bells?

How depressing.

I do think the "round robin" letters about what the family have done in the year are questionable though; Very close to showing off, or oneupmanship, some of them.

We just received one of those automated cards through the post to "celebrate" an anniversary. It should be overstamped "untouched by human hand".

And John, I must remember not to send you our family Christmas letter. I tell it like it really is, but with humour. From a purely selfish point of view it saves writing the same thing, or a sub-set of it, multiple times. And, after nearly forty years the collected letters make an interesting family history.

George

Anyone who mentions Christmas before the start of advent should be soundly thrashed.