christmas cards - do you send them?

Yes I do. I post about 80 and hand deliver another 20 or so. I have bought the cards over the last couple of months from various places.

I write in most of them and certainly in the ones to friends and family who live too far away to see often and also enclose a page of photos for some who I know like to see how the family is growing!

I associate Christmas with friends and family so making a special effort at this time to communicate is my rather insignificant effort to keep in touch.

I send cards, mostly to family and friends but one or two to people I haven't seen in years. I like them to know that I remember them and still think of them occasionally.

Postage costs are high but the cost can be spread by buying stamps throughout the year. I'd be sad to see the tradition dying out.

Well I for one am glad that the greetings card industry in the UK is still thriving, especially as my daughter is one of the 100,000 people whose livelihoods depend on it It always strikes me as odd that so many people are so terribly concerned about the detrimental effect of e-readers on bookshops, and worry about the demise of the printed book, but see cards, which in my opinion bring a lot of pleasure, as a waste of money and paper.

I must admit to buying a bundle of National Trust Christmas cards in the new year. Only one problem: it's now November and I can't remember where I put them.

I would never send an e card. Previously, when my children were at school and my former husband and I worked, we seemed to send hundreds but over the last few years I have been cutting it down to the bare minimum. I always purchase from the British heart foundation and I get my closest family and friends individual cards from there. I also purchase a pack of their cards to send to people who have sent to me. I could never miss someone out who has gone to the trouble of sending me a card. This may sound awful but I just think there's no point sending someone a card once a year if you're not going to have any contact in between. I would much rather wait until I actually see them, probably whilst out shopping, and have a nice catch up chat

I make cards to send to friends and family. Each card can take an hour. (My hobby) I try and hand deliver or hand to friend just before Christmas. One friend gives me a Christmas card she does in cross stitch. I now have five and put them up every year as couldn't bear to throw away as realise how much work has gone into them.

I joined the band of people sending Ecards and donating to charity instead a few years ago, it seemed not only a huge waste of money that could be better used elsewhere but also left lots to recycle after Christmas, a waste all around, and as for all that writing! I got to the stage where whatever I wrote in the cards it didn't seem genuine or heartfelt, it just felt like a pre Christmas chore. I now spend fun time with the children in the run up to Christmas making home made ones for the extra special people in our lives instead. A far more joyful experience. And it doesn't have to involve lots of glitter, the older the dgc get the classier the cards are becoming.

I stopped sending cards years ago and informed my friends i would be making a donation to a charity of my choice which a few of my friends also now do . i do give one to my partner though

Sorry for your loss, sarahellen. It must be very difficult when your life changes so suddenly.

Apparently???the charities mentioned on the cards get but a pittance from the sale of these cards.

Not if you buy directly from the charity, sarahellenwhitney. Or there are organisations such as this one who sell cards for multiple charities - this one gives 70% to the charity.

www.cardsforcharity.co.uk/

Send cards love to receive them I give to charity as well not massive amount

Apparently???the charities mentioned on the cards get but a pittance from the sale of these cards.
When I lost my husband after fifty years of marriage I stopped sending cards as I could not bear the thought his name would not be on them. Receiving them was equally upsetting People were very understanding of this.
I now give a personal donation to the charities of my choice.

Proper cards all the way for me - I love seeing them on the mantelpiece and around the house, they're part of the Christmas decorations. DH's main Christmas task is delivering all the local ones and I post about 20. It's lovely to get a bit of news in them from people you don't see so often. I used to enclose a round robin - they weren't long and they certainly weren't boastful, as I've nowt to boast about! I've stopped doing it now and have noticed I don't get so many of them back either. I think it's a bit of a shame. They were easy prey for sneering journalists though, and nobody would like to think that their friends thought so little of them they'd send their letter with details of their health woes off to a newspaper for everyone to have a good laugh at!

PS I always send charity cards.

I still like to send actual cards - not emails or electronic cards. I also send the dreaded "newsletter" to those we haven't seen over the past year, but then I love to receive those too.

We post about 20 and hand deliver another 20 or so. I send e cards to people who don't send cards any more, just so they get something. Judging by the number of cards we receive, it doesn't seem to be dying out anytime soon.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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 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.