By Eilene Lyon
Did you receive a big haul of cards this holiday season? Yeah, me neither. Of the seven cards gracing our windowsill, only two are from family. The remainder came from organizations we’ve donated to, or companies we’ve done business with.
How many cards did I send, you ask? Well, just five, it turns out. There were some years when we made and received photo-greeting cards (which are nice).
I tried electronic cards one year. And whatever happened to the once-ubiquitous holiday brag letters? The bottom line is that each year we send and receive fewer cards. Is this a general trend?
Part of it is that we have fewer family to exchange cards with (we are getting older, after all). And with friends, it seems that we just avoid getting into the card “trap.” Send a card this year, they don’t. Next year they do, we don’t. Yikes!
In a completely unscientific survey, it appeared to me that this year there were abundant boxed cards on display in every store—cheap! And they collected more dust than buyers. Are holiday cards going the way of the dinosaur?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce stated back in March 2025 that the greeting card business is actually booming. Of the 6.5 billion cards purchased each year, 1.5 billion are for Christmas, followed by Mother’s Day cards (though birthday cards are the biggest non-seasonal seller).
Hallmark and American Greetings dominate, with a combined 80% market share. However, the growth sector is found in the other 20%. Quirky and more personal messages are on the rise.
The BBC recently reported that Christmas card sales in the U.K. are down 22% this year, due to postage costs and the increasing cost of living. Hmm. I suspect that electronic greetings are more likely a factor.
Though Christmas has been around for literally millennia, Christmas cards are a relatively recent phenomenon. Cards arrived on the scene in the mid-19th century as printing processes and industrial papermaking made greeting cards affordable. They streamlined the holiday greeting process, particularly for public persons and businesses.
Do you still send holiday cards? If so, what type do you send? Do you write form letters or insert personal messages, or do you simply write “Dear…” and “Love [or not], …”?
Myricopia 
Timely topic. I sent about 15 which all went to older adults, and I wrote short notes in each one. I’m sitting here looking at the six I received. I remember the days when I couldn’t find enough space to put them all, but then there were also Hallmark card stores at that time too. Yes, I think the idea of sending Christmas cards is dead. It’s kind of sad to see it end, but then again we walk around with a computer in our back pocket all day long where someone just hits a few keys and sends a message out to hundreds. Sign of the times I guess. Merry Christmas!
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I always like to write a short note in each card, too. There may have been a few years in my late 20s or early 30s when I did a letter on Christmas stationery. We’ll get at least a couple more cards this week, but we sure aren’t swimming in them! I suppose there’s that element of wasting resources on short-lived holiday cards, that might bother some folks.
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I remember more as a child, the anticipation of the mail coming each day in December and being the one to go out to the box to retrieve cards. We taped them to the back of the front door and they became a decoration in their own right. When early married in the 80’s I think we still got a significant # of cards and I carried on the tradition of hanging them. Sometimes on doors, but I also crafted a system to hang them from the stair banister since that was visible when you entered the house. Slowly less and less cards came in and less went out until I just stopped sending them in general. We did get one of those “letters” from a friend of my ex husbands for years. My kids as teens found that really funny and had “things” to say about the yearly letter so I guess they were entertained in a rather snarky way. I have no idea the last time I received a card…years ago I’m sure. I did send 2 this year: son/DIL in WA and a previous neighbor who I had a ‘fence chat’ relationship with at my apartment.
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My mom had a lot of creative ways to display cards, too. Since Dad was in the Army and we moved a lot, we always had friends in many places to get cards from. She mostly would hang them from ribbon streamers. Then she would recycle some of the card fronts to use as gift tags in future years.
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Yes, the repurposed fronts! One of my grandmas did that as well.
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Hard times called for reusing everything!
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I love getting cards! I remember we would tape a string to the wall and hang the cards in a line once all the surfaces were full. Like you, I now have half a dozen given to me by colleagues and friends…none of which came by mail. Each year, I have good intentions of sending to family and friends who live far, but before I know it, it’s a few days before Dec. 25th and then I think it is too late. I think the decline comes with the expense to mail cards, what was once maybe a dollar for card and stamp now may cost upwards of 3 or 4 dollars in combination. Plus, families today have so many nights on the go, that the time to sit and write cards is sorely missing.
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Unboxed cards have gotten rather pricey. And then they generally get tossed after the holidays, unless there’s a special message or a something. And busy! Yes, I can’t believe how often I’ve been out in the evenings lately. Not the norm for us.
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Alas, because my health worsened this year, I sent none. None! I used to send around 50, writing notes in all of them. I’ve never been good about sending photos. We’ve gotten several so I may get around to answering some of them (especially ones not on social media) with a New Year greeting.
Our son and daughter-in-law have December birthdays. I did get those cards sent!
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You have reason to skip this year, Joy! That’s a lot of cards. When the numbers get that high, it really becomes a burden, I think.
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I loved doing them!
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Bless you, Joy. For many it’s a real chore.
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We both send and receive far fewer cards than in years past. I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so writing cards is very uncomfortable… Also, postage here just keeps going up and up. I stopped doing my letter after my f-i-l died.
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It seems to be a trend, doesn’t it? I doubt younger generations have even given much thought to the tradition of holiday cards. Mail? What’s that?
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Exactly…a few years ago, my mum asked my 20-something university graduate nephew to post something for her. Him: “So what exactly do I do with it, Nana?”
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Stamp? What’s a stamp? Mailbox?!!🤣
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It would already have a stamp on it!
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We only do ecards from the English company known for their cute greetings plus the yearly newsletter, also via email. Paper cards were mailed to the older generation, but in our family, the last was my uncle, who passed away last January. We’ve gotten four cards.
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We have stopped sending cards. I can’t say why, perhaps just lazy. In talking with our local postmaster they said that Christmas mail is a lot lower than it was when she started years ago. I thjink overall it is a dying trend.
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About 7 years ago, feeling pressured for time, I switched to sending e-newsletter greetings. But since I retired this year, I proudly went retro and switched back to sending cards along with a brag newsletter. (Although I try not to make it too braggy.) As a photographer, I couldn’t resist designing my own card. I’ll feature the photo on my blog soon. We sent out about 40. Only have received 11 cards ourselves so far, but there’s still time. Many of my friends send New Years cards instead. As an aside, yesterday we received a card in our mailbox from someone unknown to us (lived in southern MN), and the card was addressed to someone in Alaska. How it made it to us is a mystery. We put it back in the box for redelivery.
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