Keep These Points in Mind When Sending Holiday Greeting Cards
As the Holidays approach, there is a lot of fun planning and decoration that is going on. As we get closer and closer to the actual date of celebration, whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the New Year or whatever else you might be celebrating, the tension often starts to mount somewhat. Not only because of the traditional shopping that goes on or because of the travel to and/or from family get-togethers, though those are all contributers to holiday stress... a big part of holiday stress revolves around the sending out of Holiday Greeting Cards. While this is a wonderful tradition that goes back probably as far as anyone can reasonable remember, I have an issue with the direction that this tradition seems to have taken, and I hope my feelings are shared, or will be shared or at least considered, by others. That issue has to do with the actual message being sent out to everyone's 'list of loved-ones'.
I get the distinct impression that for many people these days, sending out holiday cards is like childhood Valentine's cards in reverse. As a child it seemed that the more cards you got, the more 'popular' or accepted you felt. As adults in today's busy society, I get the feeing that many people are trying to replicate those same kinds of feelings by sending out holiday cards because it is accepted and recognized and a 'caring and thoughtful thing to do'. With all due respect, I have to say that it depends a lot on the way in which these cards and/or communications are sent out.
The sad reality is that many people seem to think that simply loading up a database of names (and by database, don't think I'm getting all techie on you... I simply mean an electronic address book of names and addresses), and mail-merging them onto some envelopes that contain a card that says something along the lines of "Season's Greetings" with their name scrawled on the bottom constitutes a 'caring and thoughtful gesture'. I say 'Bull'!
I don't care if it has a photo of you and your kids on the front, if it's you and your dog and cat or if it's a whole collage of friends, family, and places you've visited in the past year... if you don't care to take the time to write some kind of personal note on the holiday card so that I know you were thinking about ME when you put it together as opposed to simply going through the motions of sending one of hundreds of 'warm wishes' in a mass, robotic fashion... save yourself the stamp and the envelope. Send it to someone who cares as much as you do.
If you're my friend or family, whether near or far, I want to keep in touch with some news... not just an, "Oh yeah, remember me. And aren't my photo cute?!" type message. To me, if I'm not worth that kind of effort, that's OK... we all get busy and people drift out of our lives. That's normal. But to pretend that it's something on-going and special with a totally impersonal card with nothing buy your name 'autographed' below the generic message printed on every card... no thanks.
If things are too busy during the holidays to keep in touch with me, or if I'm too busy to keep in touch with you, that's OK. I can send or receive the equivalent of a Merry Christmas Card in the middle of the year, and if it has some kind of personal message from me to you or vice versa, it is worth a million times more than the vacuous excuse for a personal card sent 'when you're supposed to send it'. But hey, that's just me.
Yes
No
Flag
Comments
I agree, what I especially dislike is getting those mass cards from a business you may have dealt with during the year. The signature is duplicated and the envelopes have labels out of their computer. No human hand used a pen here!
Like when your insurance agent sends you one; ....he just wants to keep his name in front of you, so you keep paying the premiums.
I'm happy to get any card at Christmas, but it definitely means more when there's a personal note attached.
You must be logged in and verified to post a comment. Please log in or sign up to comment.