Ok so you’d never call them fashionable. And they’re really time-consuming.
You feel guilty when you get them from people you never see and they’re definitely not good for the environment.
But can we please not get rid of giving Christmas cards? Especially the ones that come with a yearly update and family photo stapled to the inside.
They’re one of the last hand-written traditions we’ve got left. We should hold onto it.
Call it a throwback to my childhood when one of the best parts of Christmas was ripping through the mountain of card-only mail pouring through the letterbox - I just don’t want to believe so many of us aren’t sending them anymore.
But apparently that’s what’s happening. At least in the United States where Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune reports Christmas card sales have hit a record low.
A casualty of a dependence on email, the popularity of Facebook or the fact that we’ve reared an entire generation of people who’ve never used a hardcover address book; Schmich thinks the humble Christmas card is on its last legs.
And if you think that’s sad you should also know that many people also think Christmas cards are insensitive.
According to a recent report by Time magazine not only do many people now consider Christmas cards environmentally wasteful, the impact of the global financial crisis has rendered their upbeat tone entirely insensitive.
But all is not lost. Enter American greeting card giant Hallmark and their recession-themed Christmas card.
The brainchild of a 700 strong design team (who hold more than 60 per cent of the US greeting-card market) the recession range aims to target friends, colleagues and loved ones who’ve had a tough year.
“It was time to put on our economic hats,” Mark Andrews a product manager for Hallmark told The Washington Journal.
You can read all about the cards in the full article but here’s a couple of examples of messages you’ll find inside the new range:
“We can say it: This wasn’t the year that any of us had hoped for”
“We don’t have to have a lot to have everything.”
“Due to high costs, Santa had to cut back on his help this year”
I’m more of a blank card person myself but I like the honesty. Even if it’s a Hallmark kind of honesty.
And if they broadened the range to include recycled paper it might just keep the Christmas cards chugging through my letterbox for another few years.
But what do you think? Would you buy one?
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