christmas cards - do you send them?

I send loads - costs a fortune in stamps! Has to be a religious or at least a very traditional picture though (like a robin or a snowy village church) - can't abide those awful Disney ones!

You can't display a email/Facebook message on your mantelpiece or wall can you? Yuk.

When I was a teenager I helped decorate an old ladies house. She had lots of Christmas cards displayed but they were quite dogeared. We realised they were old cards which she put out year after year. How sad. Of course, we volunteers all sent her individual cards that year.

Personally I hand out cards to people I see. I post about ten, and find that quite expensive. More and more people are sending messages by facebook and email now.

I design my own card ,usually with a picture of our family, which I send as an email attachment to most people. It's not the cost of cards (I too always buy charity cards )but the extortionate postage .I do make an exception for people whose email address I do not have,the elderly and neighbours (hand delivered).The considerable amount of money I save goes as a donation to Cancer Research Uk, a cause dear to my heart .Its perfectly possibly to print off and display such 'cards' as an above poster days .Surely rhe important thing is tgat oeople are remembered at Christmas and know you thought of them ?This way I do not see it as yet another task to be done I do not understand those people who have their cards bought, written and addressed by now. Its hardly a spontaneous, joyful good wishing is it ...
I used to do a Round Robin as I can't see the point of keeping in touch with people you never see unless they know something of your current life (and you of theirs)And individual letters would take time I never had while working. I would type them and add personal bits at the end(I tried not to make them too envy inducing ,despite my perfect life-not!) I no longer do this as am in regular email or Facebook contact with most people I know

Mumofmadboys - I send round robin type letters too. Try not to make them boastful though - just a brief account of how we and th family are getting on. I love receiving them too - hate cards from old friends with no letter. All it conveys is that they are still alive! I like to hear their news. I only send these letters to people who send them to us as I know many people dont like them. I send and receive about 10.Then spend hours writing exactly the same stuff by hand in the card to many others! Seems pointless.
I do agree some go over the top, but only one we get is like that.

I usually make most of my Christmas cards and friends and family really appreciate them. This year I am recovering from a melanoma extraction operation so am using bought charity cards because I can do them sitting down with my leg up. A pack of charity cards I bought in January, with one friend in mind, have a Welsh greeting and the scene is the Snowden Range. I decided to send them to Australian, New Zealand and Canadian family and friends as we live only 8 miles from the border and if we walk up the road can see the first two ranges of Welsh hills and mountains. I love receiving cards but getting less each year as friend die!

I buy Christmas cards which have a Renaissance or Art Nouveau depiction of a religious theme: angels, mother and child, the stable or suchlike. They have to be nice quality thick card and well printed. I enclose a (non boasting) Round Robin family news catch-up and send them second class post with Christmas stamps. I write them with a proper ink pen and I love the whole ritual. They are sent on the nearest Monday after the 10th December.

I have been watching the price of stamps rise (Twelve and sixpence!) always fearing that 'this will be the year' that others give up beacuse of the outrageous cost. However, to my delight, I am getting as many as I usually receive so I guess others are afforded as much pleasure out of the whole exchange as I enjoy. I love to receive 'boastagrams' as they are a means of keeping in touch and I am very amused by the 'water skiing budgerigar' antics. Not being adventurous or inclined to spend large amounts on experiences and holidays I relish seeing what others are up to.

I also send Jacqui Lawson e-cards for Christmas and New Year.

I just love the whole season.

I enjoy receiving cards more than gifts so hope the tradition will go on although I
agree about the cost of postage.
After my mum died I found a folder with all the handmade cards I had given her over the years.

I make my own cards to send, something of a rod for my own back! I love to receive cards too, specially from those I haven't seen for ages and have included wee notes about what's happening with them.

I used to write individual letters to people to put in my cards and it took forever. Nowadays I send round robins and add personal greetings at the end, and using the computer has the advantage that I can include a photo of the grandchildren. And I love receiving them in return, getting news from old friends is one of the highlights of my Christmas, and I think they enjoy it as much as I do. I hope they do anyway!

Over here our postal service does a very cheap rate for the Christmas card, but their are people who take advantage of it, Me for one.

Times are changing the mantel piece has been mentioned, a blast from the past.

I love sending and receiving cards and will never stop.
It's heart warming to read all the lovely greetings inside them, and sometimes this is the only contact I have with old work colleagues, distant friends, etc. We often exchange bits of news inside the cards. Not everyone is online.
I only buy charity cards these days so at least I can feel I am helping charities in some small way.

We send cards by mail if we cannot give them in person but it costs an arm and a leg these days to send by post. No wonder people are turning away from sending them. I send parcels by currier because it is cheaper. Yodel and Hermes are good value.

It's a generational thing I think. I cut down every year but still feel obliged to send cards. I send out a photo news insert, very small, just the size of the card, and the old aunts and uncles lap it up, so I have to continue. Of course there are fewer of the oldies left every year sadly.

I still send them. One year I was upset not to receive one from my mother, and when I mentioned it she said she was only sending them to 'close friends' that year! ( She was suffering from some mental health problems at the time, I must add).

They're a pain to send but I love getting them so I hope the recipients do too. It's a way of maintaining contact from way back when. I like to use charity cards as well

I stopped sending cards a few years ago. Cards that I receive get opened, read then tend to sit on top of the fridge for a few weeks end up in the recycle bin at New Year, such a waste. Thankfully, most people stopped sending me cards when I stopped sending them but there are still about 15 that go through this cycle every year.

I think the Royal Mail have shot themselves in the foot by charging so much for second class stamps at Christmas. The only effect is to make people stop sending cards, which means that they get less revenue, not more. If they introduced a new rate of,say, 25p per second class stamp during December, then probably a lot more people would go back to sending paper cards as opposed to e-cards and they would actually make more money than they would by selling stamps at a more expensive rate. Equally, charities would benefit by cheaper stamps as more people would be buying cards.

The Germans don't do cards, and you would certainly not give a card to someone you are going to see anyway. Having said that, I have a list of 50-60 people in various countries that I post cards to.

Like pollyperkins, I send a round robin and like to receive those from my old school friends telling me their family's news. I have never seen one which boasts of children's achievements - I think that is an invention of columnists and comedians.

When the children were small, I would make all our cards, and then we would all sit round the table and everyone signed the cards, and we were like a little conveyor belt, putting them in the envelopes, sticking them down and stamping them.

I have since learned that they hated that chore!

Since the children got older, I have also bought cards with no words inside, which I put through the printer with a personal seasonal greeting and a short newsletter (I love mail merge), and, especially, with our address and phone number and e-mail addresses clearly printed, which has often meant that I get a reply where I may not have heard from them that year.

My mother tried e-mailing one year, but she said it didn't feel right, so she's reverted to proper cards. I am going over next week to visit her and, as I often visit her in November, when it's her birthday, I shall buy a sheet of stamps for her to send her cards. She is able to do the addresses on the computer, but nowadays she addresses them by hand in her sturdy copperplate handwriting which does her proud at 97!

I got to the stage I was sending about 150 cards. Mostly to people I didn't see and wasn't going to and didn't feel it was necessary to send cards to all the people I see anyway. I usually received more than I sent and had to deal with them. Buying or making all sorts of contraptions to hold them so they weren't on every Windows sill and kept falling over. So one year I just stopped and I don't miss them. Sorry a bit miserable and miserly but it works for me.

Forgot. I do text people on Christmas Day to wish them a happy Christmas.

I assure you JackyB boastful round robin letters are NOT an invention of columnists and comedians - I have had enough of them to know that.

Usually write my cards by 3rd week in November & post them around 1st December, my Christmas starts when cards are posted

I do enclose & short note (hand written) to some of my friends & look forward to receiving cards particularly those with news in

Cost of stamps is a nuisance but I will continue to send cards & hope my friends will continue to send them to me, sadly there are fewer ever year but that's to be expected as we get older

I make my cards and send a letter telling friends what we've been doing, different friends like to know about different things depending on their interests, and I love getting cards and letters from them, I'm interested in their lives though I hope to hear good news but if things aren't going so well hope to give them some support. I make sure I send to people on their own and older people in particular. People I have regular contact with on email or Facebook I do send a home made virtual card to let them know they are not forgotten. It did get ridiculous at one point and I was sending 150 or more cards but now it is more like 80.

The cost of stamps makes me think twice - £19 today for 36 second class but it is a lifetime tradition so will carry on as long as I can. I do think the Post Office should offer a cut price Christmas stamp. They could impose a use by date.

I love sending and receiving Christmas cards. I always feel that Christmas has truly begun when the first card plops on the doormat.

Yes, I send 'round robin' notes in my cards, it's a really good way of catching up with people, especially extended family and like some OPs I feel quite cheated if I don't get one back, or at least a scribble in the card. It's such a good way of not completely losing touch, I've done it for years, at least 25, but I do try really hard to just write a few pertinent lines and vary the words according to who (whom?) is receiving the card.

I have somehow inherited some of Mum's friends as well since she died and I think it would be cruel not to send them a card and let them know how the family is, I know she (Mum) used to really look forward to Christmas cards and the news within, especially as she was very deaf at the end and phone calls had stopped.