The Decline And Fall Of Christmas Cards

 For all of my life, I have lived where we received Christmas cards at Christmas.

My parents, for whatever reason, started send out pictures of my sister and I when we were young - back in the days when you had to take the picture, develop it to verify that it was a good picture, and then provide it to a company to print them on photo paper.  Ever year, the card went out and over time, building a nice picture of us growing up to those far away (my sister for one Christmas collected all of them for me as a picture, which brings me joy).  My mother would spend hours hand signing and then addressing each card.  As I recall as we got older, we got "volunteered" to apply stamps, back in the day when they were not self stick.

In return, we received a plethora of cards from friends and relatives:  some with just a card, some with a card and note or letter, some picture cards, and the best - a card with a gift in it.  This was the annual exchange of greetings and catching up, a sort of analog Social Media before Social Media existed.

The Ravishing Mrs. TB has taken over the task in our house.  The mechanics are different: an electronic picture, sent electronically and then artfully arranged on a computer, printed with soy ink on non-rain-forest-destructive/recycled paper, labeled with printed labels and stamped with self-sticking stamps.  It is fortunate that she does it - I have neither the interest nor the inclination, both from the patience to do it standpoint and the "this all ends up recycled anyway" point of view.

Over time, I have noticed, the cards coming in are less and less.

Part of this is to be expected, of course:  people pass away or move, addresses change, or you do not "make the cut" for this year's list.  At the same time, I would argue over the last two years there has been something more like a precipitous drop.

I do not know that it surprise me, of course.  I suspect that very few over 40 sends out cards anymore, based on a combination of cost, interest, and the fact that Social Media (for a lot of people) fills this update role.  In that sense, we are as "out of touch" as we want to be.

Every year at the end of the season, I hint about the number of cards that we have received, more as an exercise of "are we going to do this next year?"  To date, no such conclusion has been made - and to some sense it is understandable:  especially to older relatives (a large chunk of whom we send to), this may be their update for the year - and it does give them a picture to hang on a refrigerator or wall (and I have seen more than one of them at someone's house).  I suspect none will ever be made and I suppose I am okay with that:  in the course of events it is a minor cost and if it does bring joy to someone that needs it in this (of all) seasons, it is worth it.

As of the date of this writing (09 December) we have a total of 5 cards that we have received. I assume they will continue to trickle in, either as the mail plods along or the sudden reaction of some that "they sent us a card, we need to be polite and send one back".  That seems a little down to me from earlier years, but it is not as if I keep a running log of these things - although I remember when the count was likely 60 or more.

I am not one that cheers the death of traditions, as usually they are let go for reasons that have nothing to do with the tradition or the purpose of it.  But for once, in this case, I am not sure that I would mind if the sending of Christmas Cards simply and inevitably became the unusual and surprise occurrence instead of an expected social necessity.  Perhaps it is the growth of social media with more frequent updates, or perhaps it is simply the sense that a card once a year is not a true substitute for a relationship that in some cases, may simply be a reaction to what comes in the mail.