Traditions of Christmas: Sending Cards
Dec. 29th, 2004 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1(Yes, I know the holiday has come and gone. But by my reckoning, it's still Christmas until Jan. 6th -- the twelfth day of Christmas -- or should I say "after Christmas". This is the last in my "Traditions of Christmas" series.)
My parents sent Christmas cards for as long as I can remember. Their list was primarily relatives, with a few family friends. For some of these people, this was the only contact they had with them during the year. Somewhere along the line, my parents got stingy and would only send cards to people who sent them cards. And so they lost contact with a large contingent of family.
As for me, I started sending/giving out my own cards in college. I always aimed for a nature design on my cards, mostly becaue I liked them better than anything else that was available, and I tried back then to be non-holiday specific.
Then I moved out on my own, and kept sending cards out. There were people I had numerous contacts throughout the year -- the computer group I was in, and my upline of sponsorship with I did the MLM thing -- and sent them cards, but did I get any in return from them? No. I started to notice a correlation -- women seem to care more about sending holiday cards than men.
The year R and I got married -- 1999 -- we didn't get around to sending cards to anyone. Boy, did I hear it from my dad that year. I think I sent him and his sisters -- my aunts -- a card just to placate him.
In 2000, we started including a form letter which detailed the more significant events of our lives in the preceding year. This was a tradition I picked up from my friends Chip and Melissa, who have been doing the same thing before we started copying them.
2002 was the first year we started sending out pictures of the family. That also happened to be the year M was born.
This past year (2004), I sent out a total of 111 cards and newsletters. We added 18 new names/addresses to the list, and removed 13 old names/addresses. (One was my aunt Josephine, who passed away in May.)
I'm a little more generous than my parents. If I don't hear from someone in 3 years, either by card, phone, or email, they fall off my list. I also use a scoring algorithm to help me decide who gets a card and who doesn't. Photo cards are somewhat expensive, and that's the biggest reason to keep my list relatively small.
The addressing part is easy -- it's done via spreadsheet, database, and a label program. Some may say this lacks a personal touch. But my hand tires easily, and it is a tedious job. I use the computer to be more efficient here.
Hopefully those of you who were on my card list have received their cards by now.
My parents sent Christmas cards for as long as I can remember. Their list was primarily relatives, with a few family friends. For some of these people, this was the only contact they had with them during the year. Somewhere along the line, my parents got stingy and would only send cards to people who sent them cards. And so they lost contact with a large contingent of family.
As for me, I started sending/giving out my own cards in college. I always aimed for a nature design on my cards, mostly becaue I liked them better than anything else that was available, and I tried back then to be non-holiday specific.
Then I moved out on my own, and kept sending cards out. There were people I had numerous contacts throughout the year -- the computer group I was in, and my upline of sponsorship with I did the MLM thing -- and sent them cards, but did I get any in return from them? No. I started to notice a correlation -- women seem to care more about sending holiday cards than men.
The year R and I got married -- 1999 -- we didn't get around to sending cards to anyone. Boy, did I hear it from my dad that year. I think I sent him and his sisters -- my aunts -- a card just to placate him.
In 2000, we started including a form letter which detailed the more significant events of our lives in the preceding year. This was a tradition I picked up from my friends Chip and Melissa, who have been doing the same thing before we started copying them.
2002 was the first year we started sending out pictures of the family. That also happened to be the year M was born.
This past year (2004), I sent out a total of 111 cards and newsletters. We added 18 new names/addresses to the list, and removed 13 old names/addresses. (One was my aunt Josephine, who passed away in May.)
I'm a little more generous than my parents. If I don't hear from someone in 3 years, either by card, phone, or email, they fall off my list. I also use a scoring algorithm to help me decide who gets a card and who doesn't. Photo cards are somewhat expensive, and that's the biggest reason to keep my list relatively small.
The addressing part is easy -- it's done via spreadsheet, database, and a label program. Some may say this lacks a personal touch. But my hand tires easily, and it is a tedious job. I use the computer to be more efficient here.
Hopefully those of you who were on my card list have received their cards by now.
