Question Of The Day, Friday, Oct 13

[Winchester]

Good morning! And Happy Friday!

Our question this morning concerns greeting cards. Do you still send cards for birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions? What about Christmas cards? Do you do emails to people instead of sending cards? How to you commemorate a special day for people?

We don't do much in the way of greeting cards anymore. The days of buying a ton of Christmas cards and mailing them out are gone. As for birthdays, my sister and I will send each other a text wishing the other a Happy Birthday with the appropriate number of cake icons in the text. I like to take my sister out for Chinese for her birthday, too, because she loves Chinese and doesn't get to enjoy it that often. But that's pretty much it. We do send actual birthday cards to our grands, but nobody else anymore.

What about you?

 

[neely]

Call me old fashioned even though I'm not that old but I still like to send and receive cards. However, I have cut back and only send birthday cards to very close friends/relatives. As for the holidays, I do send cards but only to the people who live out of state or country that I do not get to see on a regular basis. My personal pet peeve are those page long notes in holidays cards that go on and on about their vacation(s) in the past year and brags about every child or grandchild.

 

[Kat0121]

I don't care about getting cards but I do send them and give them in person for birthdays and such. I do send Christmas cards but I can't stand them. I only send them because some people expect them. I throw them out within seconds of opening them.

neely I hate those too- the letters that explain every thing a family does from January to December. So annoying.

 

[di and bob]

I do send cards for birthdays, sympathy, anniversaries, and holidays. Oh, and thank you cards too! I think it is much more personal to receive them in the mail, that push a button and your same note goes to everyone, that doesn't cut it with me. Same with those 3 or 4 page long brag letters (you only get one page?) that describe every move they made since January is a big waste of my time, I could truly care less.

 

[Kat0121]

I do send cards for birthdays, sympathy, anniversaries, and holidays. Oh, and thank you cards too! I think it is much more personal to receive them in the mail, that push a button and your same note goes to everyone, that doesn't cut it with me. Same with those 3 or 4 page long brag letters (you only get one page?) that describe every move they made since January is a big waste of my time, I could truly care less.

My late DH's second cousin used to send out those letters and they were LONG. Everyone in the family got one. I can only imagine how long it took her to write that but it included everything every kid and grandkid did. I am so glad she stopped sending them. I don't know anyone who likes getting those.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

I'm really good at remembering to buy cards. And really bad at actually sending them.

I only send to family and close friends though. A few other people get a text.

 

[muffy]

I just send birthday cards and Christmas cards to my brother and his wife, my two nephews and a few friends. My sister stopped sending them last year so I won't be sending her anymore. She says she is too busy but how much time does it take to sent a few cards?

 

[DreamerRose]

I still send out birthday cards, anniversary cards, sympathy cards, and so on. I only send out maybe a half dozen Christmas cards with a short note on the card. I enjoy the letters and hearing how old friends are doing. No one sends Merry Medical Christmas cards or long lists of bragging. Just notes on the highlights.

Oh, and all those unused Christmas cards? No one sells them in packs of six or eight. I save the unused ones and give them to my church the next fall. The women's group collects and sends them to prisons for incarcerated women to use. I took a sack of them just this week to the church.

 

[kashmir64]

I have never sent card, even when I lived in the city. Now, with the post office 20 miles away, just to buy a stamp or drop it in the mail, that is out.
I also find a text or email to be impersonal. I usually call the person to wish them well. I like to hear their voice and it seems more sincere when someone says it in person. (or as close as you can get with a phone call)

 

[cassiopea]

I send Birthday Cards, Christmas Cards, Thank You Cards and Sympathy Cards.

I've sent some wedding cards in the past to my cousins.

Birthday Cards mainly for family, Christmas cards for friends and family, and the rest universal.

I like Thank You Cards and Sympathy cards since they are more intimate and polite. If someone does something really nice for me or I received a lovely gift, or they are dealing with heavy loss/illness, just sending some sort of text or email doesn't really cut it to me. "You are dealing with a so and so/you went out of your way to be great, I shall return this part of the gesture by sending you a 2 second message" is how it feels, for the lack of a better description.

I like receiving cards myself Nice having memento's or theme-y things.


Although I also really dislike those long letter things. I personally never received one (Thank goodness) but my mother used to get them frequently over many years. Ugh. Congratulations for being a special snowflake

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

Yes, I do still send cards. The written word. It is becoming a thing of the past. Yet it is so special. I remember crying all the way to the house when somebody sends me something special in the mail. I love it. Therefore, I try to remember other people with a card, which includes a handwritten note. I have cut back on the number of Christmas cards, but I do still mail some to people I don't see during the year who are special. I also sign our names on a card with a special signature. I write Merry Christmas on the front of the card and pass them out at church. I have a mantle in my living room and it usually holds the cards either of us have received from the most recent holiday. I guess I am just an old fashioned person and I still love mail and cards.

 

[Norachan]

I used to, but I haven't bothered sending out cards for years now. I don't think I even sent a Congratulations card when my brother's last baby was born this year.



I used to keep all the birthday and Christmas cards people sent me when I was first living abroad, but after a while that card box got too big and heavy.

I guess I'm not very sentimental.

 

[Kat0121]

I used to, but I haven't bothered sending out cards for years now. I don't think I even sent a Congratulations card when my brother's last baby was born this year.



I used to keep all the birthday and Christmas cards people sent me when I was first living abroad, but after a while that card box got too big and heavy.

I guess I'm not very sentimental.

I'm not very sentimental either. I send cards because some people expect them. The ones sent to me get looked at for all of 30 seconds and then hit the trash can.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

no, i don't send cards. i used to email birthday wishes to some, but they seemed for the most part to be ignored -- so no more of that, as it's a waste of my time. i also used to call some family members, but no more of that either. circumstances change, so i've adapted.

 

[Winchester]

We used to get a very long Christmas letter from a woman we knew. It was awful. To read the letter, you would have thought that her kids were perfect and her life was absolutely wonderful. The thing is, I talked to her from time to time throughout the year and I knew what was really going on in her life, with her kids, with her husband, with everything. And it wasn't anything like what was in her letter.

 

[debbila]

I send cards for all occasions, birthdays, get well, mother's day and father's day to special friends, holidays, and of course weddings.
I make bookmarks out of the front of cards I especially like, by cutting a shape out of part of the picture.

 

[Kat0121]

We used to get a very long Christmas letter from a woman we knew. It was awful. To read the letter, you would have thought that her kids were perfect and her life was absolutely wonderful. The thing is, I talked to her from time to time throughout the year and I knew what was really going on in her life, with her kids, with her husband, with everything. And it wasn't anything like what was in her letter.

The same second cousin that used to send those awful letters also, at one point, used to send DH videos of her family gathered around a piano singing religious songs. Not Christmas carols, just what DH called, "Jesus songs." I never watched them but he told me about them. I wish I had asked him if they were all holding hands and wearing matching sweaters.

 

[betsygee]

My stepdad and mom sent out a holiday letter every year around Christmas. Rass was so eloquent talking about the year's events and his philosophical musings about life. Everybody so looked forward to getting their holiday letter. It was a neat tradition. He died a few months back and we're sure going to miss those letters.

I don't send birthday or other occasion cards. Some years I send holiday cards at the end of the year, some years I don't get around to it, or am just not in the mood for it.