Why you should send people Christmas cards

In the few weeks prior to Christmas the sound of your letter box heralds the possibility of pleasure in the form of a nice card from somebody who wants to wish you a happy Christmas.

It has begun. Landing in my email in-box, popping up on the increasingly unusable Facebook, even on what I guess we should call ex-twitter. The message usually runs something like this:

“We’ve decided not to send Christmas cards this year and instead we will make a donation to <insert charity of choice> because it is really important to us. Happy Christmas”

Sometimes the message is accompanied by a cutesy gif or image - occasionally a photograph of the family sending the message. There are other variations alluding to the cost of living and how sending cards destroys the planet. All of this covers up the real reason - the person or people sending the message simply can’t be bothered to put the effort in to buy cards, write messages in them, add an address to the envelope, stick on a stamp and pop them in the nearest postbox.

We also have the ‘donations in lieu of flowers’ principle. Even with cheap cards it costs at least a pound to send one and most people’s nearest and dearest amount to fifty or so people. How much do people give to that really important charity? When I worked at the Children’s Society in the 1980s we did some analysis on donations in lieu of flowers made at funerals. We found that the average donation made in lieu of flowers was a little less than £5 while a small funeral wreath was typically £12-15. I don’t know the figures for today but I’m prepared to bet that the average is less than £10 whereas the funeral wreath now costs over £50. I’m not saying people who don’t send Christmas cards are cheapskates but most of them, even with a donation, are saving some money by sending you a twee email. But this isn’t why you should send Christmas cards.

You should send Christmas cards because it is the right thing to do. You should put in a little bit of real effort into your relationship with the people in your address book. This isn’t just because sending cards makes you feel good (although it does)but because receiving cards is lovely. For most of the year, when the letter box clatters, it does so to announce the arrival of bills, unwanted letters from the government or local council, and piles of catalogues, flyers for takeaways and appeals for money from charities. In the few weeks prior to Christmas this changes and the sound of your letter box heralds the possibility of pleasure in the form of a nice card from somebody who wants to wish you a happy Christmas. Someone remembering you exist and saying ‘hi’.

Sending cards isn’t hard. We’ll send something like 70 this year, a mix of cards sent in the post and cards delivered by hand to people in the village. And each of those cards, and this matters so much as we get older, represents my wife and I recognising that we like someone enough to send them that short message. I know that when Wendy in Wilsden, who is going to be 90 in 2024, gets the card it will remind her of us and why we know each other. Wendy’s card to us will mostly likely contain, on top of the normal best wishes, a little comment about politics. Another card, from a Baroness too, simply said “I hope you’re enjoying being grandparents”. These little thoughts spark a little surge of happiness, bring up good memories and remind us of the people we know and love.

An email or, worse, a social media post doesn’t provide this little uplift. We know that little or no thought has gone into who receives the message - ‘send all’ does for the idea of sitting and thinking ‘who should I send cards to?’ The old task of going through the address book to write cards is replaced with the efficiency of writing one short message, finding one image and clicking ‘send’. It is the equivalent of giving people money as a present because you choose not to find the time or give any thought to what a person might appreciate as a gift. Nobody turns down money but as a gift it places an onus on the receiver to spend it on something rather than simply using it to reduce the overdraft.

So spread some Christmas cheer and send Christmas cards. You still have time, at least in the UK, to catch the post - second class mail posted on Monday 18th will get there for Christmas and if you’ve forgotten someone, first class mail sent on Wednesday 20th will arrive in time. And right up to the day itself, you can pop a card through the letter boxes of anyone in walking distance! You can also post a message on Facebook, ex-twitter, tic-tok or instagram wishing your myriad followers a happy Christmas and splendid New Year. And, of course, make that fat donation to your favourite charity.