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On one
side of the gold-wrapped chocolate coin in your
Christmas stocking, there’s Kathleen Snider, of
Alameda, Calif., who was simply stunned to get a
detailed, family-update holiday letter in the mail from
a friend last year because she figured everyone is on
Facebook now and no one sends holiday cards or letters
anymore.
“I have
to say, I thought it was archaic. I mean, I’m 53, and
I thought it was something really old people did,”
Snider said while shopping in Cost Plus World Market in
Oakland, Calif., recently. She picked up a small box of
hard-copy Christmas cards she plans to send only to a
few relatives “who still like to get mail.”
On the
flip side, there’s Janice Hitchcock of Albany, who
uses Facebook but still snail-mails 90-plus cards every
holiday season, staying up deep into many a silent night
writing, editing and perfecting her annual holiday
letter as her husband, Steve, adds his own personal
notes in the margins. They even keep all the cards they
received from friends from the year before and reread
them so as to make up-to-date individual comments in
every note.
“I
think people realize a status update on Facebook is not
a greeting,” Hitchcock, 63, said. “An e-card might
be a greeting, but it’s so easy to just delete it. It
feels so cold.”
To be
sure, the ever-increasing use of social media might
someday freeze out the holiday card and letter. E-cards,
apps and online photo sharing offer efficiency and the
possibility of incorporating your own smiling face on a
little animated reindeer doing the cancan, all while
saving forests of trees.
Yet while
such methods may exclusively herald the holidays in the
future, it hasn’t happened yet.
Lots of
folks see the once-a-year Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa
or New Year’s card almost as a small gift, bringing
joy to each friend’s individual world. And with
everyone spending so much time online these days, some
people say they’ve been invigorated to mail even more
real cards and letters. And more personalized ones at
that, often handcrafted with individual designs and
family photos.
Do you
mail what I mail?
It’s
not strictly a generational thing either. Amanda Runion
is 26 and in the process of moving from Eugene, Ore., to
the San Francisco Bay area. She and her five roommates
in Eugene just finished making their own group Christmas
card.
“It’s
intentionally super-tacky,” she said. “We all put on
ugly Christmas sweaters and posed in front of our garish
bright-orange fireplace. Some of us are including actual
letters, I think, and some of us are just signing or
writing quick notes. So it was just for fun, but
obviously we want to say ‘hi’ to our friends and
family as well.”
Michelle
Balletti, of Tracy, Calif., is 36 with a 2-year-old son
and has always mailed out cards.
“Even
my best friend, who I’ve known all my life — she may
already know everything about me, but I still send her
cards,” she said. “She has a glass wall in her
house, and they put them all up on there. It’s part of
her Christmas decorations.”
Conversely,
Elisabeth Seaman, of Los Altos, Calif., who describes
herself as a “youthful great-grandmother,” hasn’t
sent Christmas cards in years, the practice having been
discontinued in her family even before the explosion of
email. For birthdays and some other occasions she’ll
send a decorative, musical e-card with a personal
greeting on each. For graduations and weddings she’ll
send paper cards, and she makes note cards from nature
photos she’s taken.
But at
the holidays “I keep in touch with friends and family
mostly by email, phone and Skype,” she said.
A recent
study by online marketing firm Vistaprint and Zoomerang
Online Surveys and Polls showed that, despite the growth
of social media, holiday cards are still popular, with
63 percent of 1,000 men and women surveyed nationwide
saying they would mail tangible greetings in 2011.
You can
bet Hallmark isn’t sending itself a sympathy card yet.
In fact, while the greeting-card giant’s e-card
business is certainly growing, paper greetings aren’t
going anywhere and “will always be our focus,” said
Hallmark spokeswoman Jaci Twidwell.
“Digital
tools serve a very different purpose than greeting
cards, something that’s apparent in the fact that,
even with the explosive growth of things like Facebook
and Twitter and Foursquare, there has not been a
corresponding decline in greeting cards,” she said,
adding that many of the “friends” you have on social
media sites are not necessarily people you’d send
cards to anyway.
She cited
a nationwide study sponsored by Hallmark in 2010,
conducted by an independent research firm, which asked
more than 4,000 consumers about their preferred method
of conveying holiday greetings (Hallmark was not named
in the queries). Hard-copy cards won hands down over
e-cards, email or even phone calls.
“Electronic
communication is great for sharing information,”
Twidwell said. “Cards are better for sharing
emotions.”
Even the
U.S. Postal Service, which clearly has been hit hard by
online bill paying and communications and now faces
severe cutbacks, still expects healthy holiday volume
this season, said Augustine Ruiz Jr., spokesman for the
Bay-Valley District of the USPS in San Jose, Calif.
“Most
have discovered that email and text greetings don’t
look decorative on the Christmas tree or mantle,” Ruiz
said.
Pam
Pitts, of Danville, Calif., may be single-handedly
keeping the post office in business, planning to send
“tons” of cards this year, handcrafted in six
different designs and personal notes. She works in the
front office of the Oakland A’s and has made hundreds
of friends over the years as players and their families
come and go.
“I love
getting cards and photos from those people every
year,” she said. “It’s really meaningful to me,
and I want to communicate directly to each individual
myself. I figure you can make that effort once a year.
If you can’t think of me more than just a mass posting
on your Facebook page, then no thanks.”
TIPS FOR
GOOD HOLIDAY LETTERS
Keep it
brief. Never more than one page.
Don’t
brag. Share good news, but avoid gloating.
Don’t
embarrass your family. Let them read it before you send.
Proofread
for grammatical errors.
Read it
out loud before sending.
Add a
personal note so it doesn’t feel like a form letter.
Send only
to people you feel will really care about your
family’s news, not to mere acquaintances.
If a
letter is included as an email attachment, send each
message individually rather than mass email.
Above
all, enjoy yourself. If it’s a chore, don’t do it.
That will come through in print.
P.S. Dec.
20 is the last day to mail holiday cards in time for
Christmas.
Source:
About.com
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