For the first time ever, we're considering not sending greeting cards this season. Do you always send them? Are they important to you? How do you like those little newsletters that some people send out? We did one last year, but obviously are not doing one this year. Do you love them? Do you hate them?

 

Hi. At risk of being called the Grinch, I'm finding the holiday season increasingly irritating as I get older. It is more about consumerism than anything, and the zillions of seasonal greeting cards that we must feel obliged to send out (because we have to respond to all the other people who send them to us) is just part of this materialistic frenzy. A frenzy that is taking up a greater and greater part of the year, I might add. Where is it written in the Bible that the birth of Christ has to be celebrated from Hallowe'en on? Yet you can't walk into a store without encountering seasonal decorations and Xmas music from 1 November to 1 Jan. And it is clear that the locus of the observance has shifted from churches to shopping centres. Enough is enough. My dislike of this commercial orgy is just getting worse over the years.

Rant over.

Zeiss

 

I definitely send cards to my closest friends and relatives. But they are holiday cards, not specifically Christmas. I'm not a fan of those "newsy" letters. I find most of them pretentious.

 

-----------> I'm becoming more like this as well. There are things about the season that I enjoy and things about the season I deplore.

 

[QUOTE=valentine,Dec 3 2007, 07:53 AM]

 

I think I'm becoming more like those of you who have said the "season" (being PC here) doesn't mean as much to me as it once did. Actually, I used to be a total Christmas freak -- thousands of outdoor lights, every room in the house decorated, etc. Now it's rare I bother to put up a tree even.

Back OT, I agree most of the newsletters are pretentious. I don't care for them. If you want to tell me about your year, drop me a letter or e-mail DURING the year. Otherwise, you can keep your wonderful year to yourself. If we're close, I should already know what you've been up to. If we're not close, please rest assured that I simply don't care what you've been up to.

I send an extremely small number of cards (and it seems to be getting smaller every year). And each of those has a short personal note in it. I also DESPISE getting cards that are simply printed with your name (how impersonal can you get after all) and think little of those on which the only personal touch has been to sign your name and nothing else (also considered by me to be impersonal because mine was simply plucked from a stack of identical cards that could have gone to anyone from your Vet to your hairdresser). Again, if you want to write me a note I will receive and read it with delight. Otherwise, save your money on the impersonal stuff. Getting basically the same printed card from my insurance agent and a "close" friend leaves me cold.

 

We don't send cards and the only decorating I do is a wreath on the front door. We used to go to my parents for Christmas every year but no more. My Dad died two years ago and Mom has Parkinson's Disease. This year, if I can find a cat sitter, we will go up to LI to visit with my in laws. I am looking forward to that since my MIL is almost 90!

I used to answer the cards we received but that too has gone by the wayside. I will probably send a few naughty ones but that's about it!

 

We always send cards; in fact, my wife seems to find the most expensive ones she can - - normally for a good cause though.

As for newsletters, we don't do it but it totally depends on the writer as far as the ones we like. I have a doctor friend who is a want-a-be writer and he writes the funniest and best ones. They include silly and dumb things that he or his family may have done during the year as well as noting very briefly any accomplishments. I don't mind the normal ones either from people you don't have a lot of contact with but who you've known for a long time.

 

I have always sent Christmas cards out. It was my late wife's idea and I have followed that tradition but I have decided that this is the last year. Next year I will sent a few cards to close family and donate the money that I would have spent to a good charity.

Merry Christmas to all.

 

I send cards ever 2-4 years. The interval has been getting longer. I really don't care if anyone sends cards to me. I read any message included with the card, but then the cards go straight into the trash.

I don't mind most of the newsletters. It's a way to keep up with births and marriages among the cousins I rarely talk to. I do have a former coworker who sends out 10-20 page booklets of his children's political poetry. I could do without that.