Gone are the days of receiving and sending 150 Christmas cards. My list this year, although I intentionally wait until the new year rolls around to get them mailed, has been cut dramatically. I can’t believe how few we received this year and every year I seem to whittle my mailing list down a little bit more. While it makes me sad, I understand.

It’s not cheap to send mail these days. 66 cents to send a first class letter is a lot when you are sending dozens of cards. Add onto that the printing of the traditional photo card and the newsy catch everyone up on the activities of our year letter and it adds up. I totally understand why folks are cutting back on those mailings.

I used to be REALLY organized with a mailing label list that I created and printed labels from. These days I am working from an old copy of that list with addresses and names crossed out along with the envelopes from the cards received this year. It’s kind of a hot mess but it’s my mess and until I create a new mailing list document it works for me.

I have taken to waiting till the new year to send out cards and letters for the past several years due to necessity. While I may have been able to squeeze them in prior to December 25th, I like the idea that they arrive after all of the celebrations. It makes me hope that when they do arrive the recipients will enjoy them a little bit more. I actually waited till this week to open some of our cards and really enjoyed being able to read the letters and be updated on all the news of friends and family before I wrote out their cards.

So what say you? Do you still send holiday cards or are they a thing of the past for you? Social media and the ease of phoning and texting allows us to keep up with folks during the year more often but I still am holding onto this tradition that was one of my childhood. Remember those Brown Daze?