I ask you to think about your Christmas card list for a moment. I know, I know... it's JULY, for Pete's sake. The reason I have been thinking about ours is twofold; we'll hopefully need to send out change of address cards soon (please, God, let it be soon) and the grand purge of stuff has extended beyond material objects to other life "extras," aka contacts we haven't heard from in years. At 42 cents a stamp, it's now time to cut ties with a few people on the list. Before you cry foul, know that we're not deleting 95-year-old Aunt Mildred or the long, lost cousin who's just a little too self-absorbed these days to send out a holiday greeting. These deletions are people we really are not close to at all anymore, and probably never were. As I have easily and mercilessly removed people from my life with the click of the delete key, I have spent a good deal of time thinking about the whole Christmas card gig in general. Please, your thoughts...
I haven't delved into the real history of Christmas cards, although I should, because I keep asking myself, "Why do we send the cards?" Right off hand, there are a few Christmas-card-sending reasons I can think of, and only a couple of them are good. These days, it seems people send Christmas cards to:
- sincerely and simply wish friends and family health and happiness
- pass along cute photos of their kids and dogs
- prove to the masses what a happy family they are, complete with a photo in matching outfits for all
- maintain professional relationships
- offer the latest family news via a 4-page, single-spaced, extremely pretentious and boooorrring form letter printed on holiday stationery from Office Depot
- send along a little sermon to those they think might be a little spiritually lost
I don't mean to offend anyone here; I'm not at all proud to admit that the Burbanks have definitely fallen into more than one of these categories ourselves. And don't even get me started on this scenario: "Should we send to them this year? We didn't get a card from them last year." Come on, you know you have thought it too. When did it turn into keeping score?
So, again, I ask for your guidance on this. What is your Christmas card philosophy? Thoughtful comments would be FANTASTIC but a poll vote will do, too.
3 comments:
My challenge is my own doing; to be more creative than the prior year in what we send. I find myself being obsessed with thoughts about the "wow" factor. Like anyone cares!!! Every year I think, simple, and it never is, which means cost factor is embarrassing. Perhaps this year! Family always (even the cousins we do not contact outside of the holiday) and friends we only stay in contact with year round (which means they know our family, so why go through all the shabang, right? Argh). :)
It's a secret. And if I told ya, I'd have to kill ya.
Seriously, family, a few friends, those who send cards also. Not everyone does, and honestly, I asked the same questions a few years back and pared my list back, way back.
I try to keep my letters short and funny. The year a car landed on top of mine, and i escaped with narely a scratch was a great year for a letter, complete with pics. I'm such a morbid drama queen.
I can't help it...I love sending and receiving the cards. I love planning out our picture (with matching outfits) and coming up with some clever sentiment. But, I have pared back our list because of the cost. And, every year, someone sends us a card that I don't expect and I always feel bad because I either don't have any fancy cards left or I just don't get one sent to that person in time. But, I have definitely pared back the list to family and close friends.
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