We didn’t get around to sending Christmas cards this year. (We have GOOD REASON for that, believe you me) The Kardashians did, however, and it’s being treated as major international news by the kind of media that treat the Kardashians as important celebrities.
I didn’t get the Kardashian Khristmas Kard, but, then, we aren’t getting the usual haul of holiday cards this year. By December 17th in past years, we’d have gotten dozens of cards, not only from family and friends but from businesses with whom I correspond all year. This year, I don’t think we’re in double figures yet.
Is the Christmas card — the physical kind, the ones you send through the mail — dead? Or is it just us?
I’m not sure, but Hallmark says sales are down, and this article from the London Evening Standard says that in the U.K., sending cards is fast becoming something fewer and fewer people and businesses do. It’s a shame, in some ways, because as much of a chore as it is to “do the cards” every year, there’s something festive about tacking up all the cards you receive, the clever and traditional, the stupid and sincere, on the wall, an affirmation that, yes, you actually know people and they think enough of you to send you a physical representation of Season’s Greetings. This year, the wall’s pretty sparsely populated.
If, indeed, sending cards in the mail is something headed to extinction, why? Did Facebook and e-mail greetings replace cards? Are we so much more in touch on a daily basis that sending a card at holiday time is redundant? Is it the economy? Is it a lack of time to sit down, address and sign a hundred cards, stamp them, and stick them in the mailbox? Or are we alone and our friends and business associates just hate us now? Because I’m open to that possibility.
How about you? What do you send for the holidays? Cards, e-mails, status updates, or nothing? And are you seeing fewer of the cardboard variety this season? Tell us in the comments.
Images: The Kardashian family, Megadeth
It’s been years since I sent out Christmas cards, but I still get a dozen or so every year.
The Kardashian Christmas card nothing like Christmas cheer at all. It looks more like Dynasty meets The Adams Family meets Pasadena
I love e-cards (someecards are the BEST!), but I don’t use them as a replacement. The more technology envelopes me the more I reach out for the tangible and tactile. I sent 11 cards this year.
As my face-to-face interactions continue to lessen, I forget how productive face-to-face interactions are. Greeting cards are the same, they’re a welcome visit from friends who couldn’t otherwise make it. Electronic cards don’t hold the same personal touch for me.
I’m glad to see that the KKK is in circulation this time of year!
I’ve been wondering the last few years when people in my circle of Christmas-card-givers would finally make the jump from phyical cards and photo prints and letters to ecards and blog posts, etc. But, what seems to have happened this year instead is that people aren’t doing either. We’ve gotten three physical cards and no ecards yet.
I know it’s still early. And, there are quite a few people in our circle, like me, who teach and don’t get to the cards until during the break between Christmas and New Years, so I do expect a few more. But I’m thinking this is the transition year from cards to no cards.