It’s that time of year again. Holiday-Card-Sending Time.
I have always slaved away, sending out Boxed-Set Cards in which I have handwritten the recipients’ names, the names of their children and/or pets, included some sort of personalized sentence like “It was so nice to see you over the summer!” or “Let’s get together after the holidays!” or “Hope everyone is well.” And then I sign them from me and Emil and our pets. (I gave up asking Emil to sign them years ago.) Lastly, I write out all of the envelopes. By hand. 50-75 cards. It’s excruciating.
I try to do them all in one sitting, but after many hours and several glasses of wine, my handwriting is noticeably sloppier, I’m sure I start mixing up children’s names with pets’ names, and the T-Z people probably think I’m dyslexic.
Last year I realized that enough was enough and for the sake of my reputation, I must stop sending handwritten cards.
Christmas Cards are nothing more than a political game we play with our family, friends, and acquaintances. Each year is a new poll that reflects where you rate in their lives and likewise where they rate in yours.
It begins with the editing of last year’s Holiday Card List.
People like me who send Boxed-Set Cards and write them all by hand will delete a few people who have not sent us cards in at least 2 years. After 2 years, we can finally accept that we do not rate high enough in their lives to receive a card from them and so it’s ok not to send them one. Usually, we add at least twice as many as we’ve deleted because we are the martyrs of the card-sending season and really what’s a few more hours and glasses of wine? Boxed-Set people tend to be single, married without kids, or empty-nesters and receiving a card from them means that they really do like you.
The Photo Card people have a little more editing to do because Photo Cards are more expensive. But they can’t be too brutal because those cards come in sets of 25, 50, and 100. Photo Card people are generally newlyweds or people who have young children and no time to write out cards by hand. It is also the least painful way to let the relatives see how big the kids are getting. Getting a Photo Card means that chances are you rate medium-high on their friendship scale. Or that you are a relative they don’t want to visit.
The Newsletter Greeting people simply add more and more recipients to their lists because they truly feel like everyone they have ever met needs to know that their 3-year-old has started wearing big-girl underwear, that they got a pool over the summer, and that so-and-so is singing a solo in their church’s Christmas Eve Service. (Personally, the only “news” I choose to share via my holiday cards is that sometimes my return address is different than the previous year’s.) Newsletter people always have 3 or more kids, all of whom are involved in sports, 4H, and the church youth group. Also, Newsletter People are adept at inserting clipart into Word documents. Getting a Newsletter Greeting doesn’t tell you anything about how you rate with the sender since their mailman probably got one too.
The Form Card people also only add to their list every year because it’s really no more effort one way or the other since their nannies or assistants print out the addresses on labels and stuff the envelopes. And Form Cards come in sets of 100, so they might as well be sent to as many friends and clients as possible. Form Card people can’t possibly waste time even signing the cards themselves because Form Card Husband owns his own business or is the C-something-O of a company and Form Card Wife is busy with charity events and pilates. Receiving an unsigned Form Card tells you nothing about how you rate with the sender. If you receive a Form Card that is actually SIGNED or even better - has a little handwritten sentiment - you know you rate VERY high as the Form Card sender’s friend - somewhere in the 95-98 percentile.
The politics of Holiday Cards are not easy to navigate. You hope and pray that no one ups the ante by sending you a gift instead of a simple card. First of all - that’s just rude because they are forcibly upgrading themselves onto your “gift list” from the “card list” and it takes at least 5 years to subtly downgrade them again. As mentioned above, it takes 2 years of card-silence to remove a person from your card list. So theoretically, once a person is on your “gift list” you are committing to at least 7 years of sending them something unless they do something drastic - like go from sending a gift to card to nothing in 3 years. That would be grounds for deletion from all lists, I guess.
You must always have more cards than recipients. If you receive a card from someone that you didn’t send one to, it’s very important that your turn-around time for sending them a card is less than 2 hours - that way, it will appear as if the cards crossed in the mail - NOT that their card was an obligatory card.
This year, I will be sending Form Cards because I am terribly unphotogenic and no one needs to know that our landscaping has been put off until after the holidays. Besides, I’d rather be labeled as an “insensitive snob” than a “dyslexic drunk.”
