I vote that we bring back the Christmas card via mail tradition. Though many people still do send them, it’s dying down. I’m here to tell you that I love a good annual Christmas card from an acquaintance or distant relative. I even love the ones that have a little newsletter about the family’s whole year. I live for them.

Let’s all get back into this habit! We will start, to encourage you. Note: Amandoll was always great at this, so I will be joining her for this.

 

Cost

If this part is important to you, let’s break it down! Cards can be anywhere from $0 (write on any paper you have! Break out the construction paper and scissors!) to $4.50 (damn, Hallmark) in USD. Cards at least have the benefit of usually coming with an envelope. Stamps, in my day, were some amount of money *shakes fist* but now a stamp for a card/regular mailer in the US will cost you 50 cents each.

To send 10 cards to friends and family within the US, it will cost you somewhere between $5 and $50+. The choice is yours for where you land on that price. I know for sure that many households have lots of greeting cards saved up that you can send instead of buying new ones.

Our cards for sale are definitely not Hallmark prices if you want to stock up for the holidays. Those are basically the only products anyone ever gets from our store, so we added a few new designs this month! (Cards of the same size are always discounted, whether you buy all from us, or a combo of different cards from us and someone else, like so: 20% off 3 cards, 30% off 10 cards, 35% off 50 cards.)

 

Schedule

One of my favorite things as a kid (I say this phrase a lot), was that my grandparents would send cards or packages to us that would always arrive exactly on-time for Hanukkah. I thought it was magical and mysterious that they could arrange that. It’s not! At least, in the US, you can see a map of how long it takes to ship mail or packages, before you ship it.

My Grandma used to have a big map on the wall of how long packages take via UPS to get from one place to another within the US. As she managed my Uncle’s publishing business and sales, this was important to have in her office. It looked like this, except originating in NYC instead of Sneerland:

Cards sent via first-class mail, aka the standard way, are quick and generally take 1-3 days. If you submit where you live on this USPS site, you can see how long it should probably take.

 

Getting Them Back

Obviously this is one of the highlights of the holiday card tradition. Most people will feel obligated, even panicked, if they receive a card from you and they haven’t sent one to you, either because they don’t have your address, or because they are thoughtless. So be sure that you send your cards early enough to give anyone time to send one back to you in time.

This is also why you are supposed to keep a “Holiday Card List” — in olden times, this was included in the back of something called an Address Book. Even Amandoll doesn’t do this, because what could be more fun than asking everyone, every year, for their address as if they don’t know what you’re up to, then forgetting very important friends or relatives and being the one who gets to panic. But, if you do have that sort of wherewithal, you keep such a list in order to viciously cross out the names of people who did not send to you. They don’t deserve your goodwill!

 

Displaying Them

Like anything, the sport of holiday card sending and receiving is like a game. It is a kind of treasure hunt. When you receive a card in the mail, you read them, and cherish them. You bestow blessings, verbally, upon the house and lives of these sweet people who have thought enough of you to spend pennies or dollars. Therefore, you must show off these cards like they are trophies.

If you have a million mantles like we do, you can set them up across the tops. You can tape them on a big blank wall in a haphazard manner. You can absolutely not bother decorating in any other way and rely just on cards and maybe some tinsel. You can forgo a tree and tape the massive amount of cards you receive into a big tree-shaped triangle! Do whatever you want, it is your beautiful life.

 

If you’d like a specific new holiday card subject from Sneer Campaign, let us know.