This year IS going to be THE year.

In our first year of married life, we received about 50 or so Christmas cards from friends and family who had taken the pains to send one – I presume, to wish us and our new little family a Happy Holiday season.  I threw my hands up and went ‘OMG!!!’ and very reactively, quickly obtained some Christmas cards and stamps and promptly sent cards of our own in reply.  Given that people had been thoughtful enough to send one to us, I felt obliged to reply in kind.  :S

After Christmas… every single one of those cards went straight in the bin – admittedly a recycling bin, but staight into a bin nonetheless.  And as I threw them away I thought “What a waste!” and I still think they are a waste.  Time, money, envelopes, postage, paper, printing… all of it ultimately wasted.  TREES!  Millions of trees being destroyed in the Amazon, people!  And all to make card, paper and pulp for Christmas cards with banal greetings in them and never enough writing space.  *muttermutter climate change, global warming, permafrost melting, non sustainable resource usage etc*

In my second year of married life, I received yet again about 50 Christmas cards – and I sent out NONE, choosing instead to email friends that had sent us well wishes to thank them for their cards and their thoughts during the holidays.

In my third year of married life there was noticably fewer cards…. fourth year – even fewer again… fifth year – even fewer again.  I realized the fewer I sent out the fewer I received (thankfully)…. and the numbers continued to dwindle until one year when I received barely three Christmas cards!  I felt elated and felt it to be quite the achievement!   I thought that my small part in not propagating the unnecessary ritual of exchanging expensive and resource hungry Christmas cards every year was considerable indeed.

In an age when we keep in touch with friends and family around the country and also around the world via Facebook, email, Skype, Twitter, MSN and blogs – do Christmas cards serve ANY purpose anymore???  My Mum used to send them out every year.  She had a list that she’d pull out every December of people ‘she HAD to send a card to’ and she always included inside a personalized handwritten letter telling the recipient how the Cross Famliy had been that year.  This quaint method of keeping touch once a year has become completely redundant in this age of technology when we already know quite a lot of what our friends have been up to – with alarming frequency depending on some people’s Facebook habits!!!  🙂

So year after year my attempt to minimize the Christmas cards has been ever so slowly gaining momentum.  In 2009 I thought that I might have finally pulled it off, as the only Christmas card I had received that year was from Caloundra Suzuki wishing me and my family ‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year of safe motoring in our new Suzuki!!!’ (I decided that promotional material of this nature doesn’t really count as a Christmas card so I was so far in the clear)…. and at the time I thought “YES!!  I’ve finally done it!!!”

But alas a few more turned up around about December 20-22nd.  Last year, 2011… that was going to be THE year.  I spent half of December carefully watching the mail box, dreading the annual invasion of Christmas cards… and with a bare two days to go I thought I had finally made it with no cards arriving…  But there’s this saying about counting your chickens and I last year I found one.  One lonely chicken in my mailbox. Dammit.

So far we are all in the clear, but it’s only the 10th… maybe this year will be the cardless Christmas I’m aiming for…

By all means, Tweet, email, Facebook a cheerful message, SMS your holiday greetings or use any means you can think of… just please don’t waste your time, money and trees on sending Christmas cards!