How To Politely Stop Sending Christmas Cards

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It is the time of year that then many of us are thinking about Christmas cards. You don't take to send vacation cards. It is fine. So many people wonder how they tin can politely stop sending Christmas cards. The holiday season is fast budgeted and Christmas cards are such a nice sentiment.  Some people love to send and receive Christmas cards.  Some folks dislike the job of sending cards and even resent information technology. I decided years ago that I am not going to send you lot a Christmas card.

Why I stopped Sending Christmas Cards…

At that place are several reasons laid out hither for why I have decided it is OK to not send out Christmas cards. Anyone else hate sending out greeting cards? Y'all are my people. Some people get very angry that this sweet vacation tradition is going abroad for some, but these are my reasons.

If yous like to transport cards, that is awesome, but I am not sending y'all 1! You lot tin yell and exit mean comments, only you lot don't pay my bills so I will not be moved.

Related, look at the amazing lawn display we made because we didn't waste fourth dimension doing something that nosotros found to exist a task.  We made the best Grinch Lawn Brandish EVER if I do say so myself.  Do what brings y'all, your family, and your customs joy this season. For us, that is our cute lawn display; for you lot it may be cards; for some information technology might be neither of those things.

Practice I accept to ship out Christmas Cards?

No, you exercise not need to transport holiday cards. So it is that time of yr once more; the holidays.  I dear the holiday season. Christmas is my favorite.  Here is the matter though, I am not sending you a Christmas card this year.  Information technology's non you, it's me; or rather us.

Nosotros merely decided not to send out Christmas cards this yr if it is all the same to yous. Sending out Christmas cards has never really been my favorite if I am existence honest. Despite not actually enjoying the task, I always sent out Christmas cards every vacation season. I asked for updated addresses, I picked out beautiful pictures, hunted down the best deal on cards, and got as many as I could stamped and on their way by mid December every year.  I typically ordered more cards than our list required. Every year my sub par organizational skills manifested in the course of a Christmas card from a friend that we had accidentally forgotten on our original send out and I would hastily send ane out that afternoon.  Don't go me wrong, I love my friends and family and I understand mail is fun and I mean, who doesn't want a moving picture of my beautiful family with a fancy monogrammed 'H' on it? Rhetorical question, of form everyone wants that.  Be that as it may, I am just non someone who relishes the idea of sending out Christmas cards and this year we are taking a interruption.

Update, this break from Christmas cards is at about seven years correct now.

Last year we had the All-time excuse for dropping the ball in that nosotros had merely moved in mid November.  Not only had we only moved, we didn't move into a 'toothbrush ready' house – nosotros moved into a 'fixer'  <– understatement of the universe my friends.  Half our stuff was in boxes, we didn't have flooring, nosotros were trying to practice fix information technology stuff with my parents during their off days, and on and on.  I didn't ship out Christmas cards last yr.  I posted a cute picture on facebook and I said "Sad guys, we simply moved and so this is your Christmas menu!"   Here's the crazy thing you guys…. the world connected to spin and we saved similar $80.

Will my relatives be mad if I practice not send Christmas cards?

I mean, your relatives might be mad if you lot do not send cards.  But do they pay your bills? Was this role of the arrangement? Is role of the deal for the money they pay you that you send them a vacation carte? If not, then I call back this is a boundary upshot that perhaps you demand to discuss with them.  If you lot don't desire to send cards; don't. You lot are grown. Some people will exist mad.  Yous need to decide if someone looking for a reason to be mad is enough of a reason to exercise something yous don't desire to do. I decided it wasn't and I very much enjoy that liberty.

Why Doesn't Anyone Ship Christmas Cards Anymore?

I get a lot of comments and emails from people who range from curious to sad to mad that they receive less holiday cards equally the years go along.  I recollect this is just a sign of the times.

Decades ago women without jobs perhaps sat down while kids were at school i day and wrote out dozens of vacation cards.  Now women are expected to work during the time kids are at schoolhouse.  And that is of grade bold a ii parent household.  People are working harder than ever merely to continue their heads above water. Many do non have the time, energy, or extra expense (even if they go gratuitous cards at that place are still stamps to buy) to ship out physical cards.

Many people choose to send email cards or even just mail on social media. While vacation cards in the mail practice feel special; please know that some of your loved ones share a curated Christmas flick and terminate of yr message on Social Media with the same care and love.

Frankly; people are done doing things they don't desire to do.  I grew upwardly listening to my parents complain about 'going to Christmas' and spending time with family members they despised. They would vent the whole way habitation.  I cannot think of one nice affair my parents ever said about whatever family members except ONE time when my cousin lost weight. They too talked poorly about those who didn't attend…. I think they were secretly jealous of those who disobeyed the 'obligation'. I remember knowing even before I striking my teens that I wouldn't exist going places where I didn't want to be or wasn't wanted.

I detest to say it, but maybe it is you.  If you oasis't taken the time to reach out to me all yr why on Earth exercise you think I would take the fourth dimension to paw write what my kids have been up to at the busiest time of the year.  The vast majority of my biological family and my married man's biological family do not put in any endeavour to know my husband, myself, or our kids.  Fifty-fifty before we had a major boundary set in identify our kids didn't become many altogether cards, much less us – no calls that they were thinking of us. Sorry Aunt so and so merely if y'all don't take the fourth dimension all year to reach out I don't know why that is 1 more matter to put on the list.

How do I politely Stop Sending Christmas Cards?

You may politely denote on social media that y'all are overwhelmed this year and volition be taking a break from sending physical cards.  Yous tin can easily cut your large listing down to a smaller list of the closest family or older folks.  Sending a digital card to the emails you lot have is another polite way to cease sending vacation cards.

Want to transport a Digital Bill of fare?  We have an crawly Schitt'south Creek Digital Bill of fare yous tin Download!

We shared this "Bebe, it's common cold outside!" card on a previous postal service – you tin can grab one there and print out to give a physical copy or merely send digitally!

Fast forward to this year (none of these updates are this twelvemonth, this post is a couple years old) – Our house is still articulatio genus deep in fixer projects, but much more stable.  It would be easier this yr than information technology was last year to carve out time to ship out holiday cards, but I still am not going to send them out.  I kinda feel similar I need to plead my case for why I am not sending them out. I do not know why I can't only say  "I detest sending Christmas cards and would rather purchase cute Disney toys on ShopDisney.", merely evidently I am defending myself against the invisible army of Christmas menu sending defenders.  And so here are my top 3 reasons why I decided to not send out Christmas cards this twelvemonth. (In 2018 we ignored projects since we are just at the 'noodling' phase and while it goes against everything we were taught, we would rather work on our relationships with one another than create unnecessary projects on our house. I can't even use that as an excuse anymore.)

Christmas Cards are expensive (even if they are free!)

1. Toll – We aren't exactly loaded, we aren't exactly broke either, just I simply didn't want to spend $50 on cards and and so 33 cents  (scratch that 49 cents – what?!) a piece on stamps.  When all is said and done nosotros often spend about $100 on Christmas cards. Before anyone loses their bananas with "I get gratuitous cards" or "I become 99 cent store cards"  – bravo for yous, I've done that as well.  I've washed the complimentary fifteen cards from three different places life, I have rescued free boxed cards from Estate sales, I know I can practice free or really cheap cards, but those pesky stamps are never free. Also, information technology doesn't matter considering I am not asking you to pay for them. I even plant yous Christmas Cards are Too Time Consuming

2. Time is Precious – So we are always complaining virtually how we demand to slow down and savour the holiday season correct?  We keep saying we need to edit our schedules and so nosotros can spend time with these kids that simply keep getting bigger and this twelvemonth we actually did remove a lot of 'un necessity' then we could focus on what is really important to us during this season – Faith & Family unit.

We shut downward our child's crazy Christmas lists, we decided one Christmas parade and community tree lighting was enough, we turned downward several holiday media events, we turned downwards a agglomeration of opportunity for toy and techy production reviews considering I just didn't want to be that busy.  And here is the matter, I still think nosotros are as well decorated.  Betwixt work, schoolhouse, iii kid's schedules, and firm projects we are merely nevertheless very busy.

I wish I was someone who loved to have an afternoon to sit down with a stack of cards, write personal notes on each, address, postage stamp, and drop in the mailbox, but I merely am not; for me it just seemed like ane more thing that I actually 'should' do. I always feel good when I get them out, but if I am being honest; completely removing it from my list and sitting on my barrel watching Elf with my family was way more fun. #sorrynotsorry

In the digital historic period information technology is easy to go on in impact, not everyone does.

three. Y'all already know what we have been doing all twelvemonth –this is the nail in the coffin friends.  Pretty much anybody on our Christmas card list is a friend on Facebook.  I mean, other than a couple relatives that united nations-friended usa everyone on our list is getting a agglomeration of pictures and data in concrete form that they already had in digital form.  When nosotros have made Christmas cards in the past we use our cutest photos of the twelvemonth or a contempo photo shoot which we obviously already shared on Facebook like weeks or months agone…… then I hateful sending a card with those aforementioned pictures in a cute collage with a quaint maxim on it to our friends and family unit seems a wee bit redundant. Back in the day you would ship Christmas cards to folks y'all may take had little to no contact with all year.  Yous would ship updated photos and likely a short letter with a little update on your family.  With engineering existence as it is, I am pretty sure y'all know all of those updates and more than.

Things I typically included in (or were included in other'southward) Christmas carte letters a few years ago

• births, deaths, adoptions, separations – Nobody built-in, nobody died, nobody adopted, Harry and I are good
• new pets – Still just the 1 crazy domestic dog, Mabel.
• the holiday nosotros went on –  Nosotros went to a Dude Ranch and Disney – it was awesome (that was last year, this year nosotros just hung out in San Diego)
• the new job/loss of chore/determination to stay at home – Harry has a new job and he actually likes information technology. I have cut downward on blogging a bit (hence this rerun of a web log post) to focus on revamping my illustration skills in hopes of working equally an illustrator eventually.
• sicknesses – Healthy as horses, thankfully.
• recovery from sickness – Harry was in a bad car blow that was non his fault. He has recovered.  We are again thankful, if kids had been in the car it would have been a different story.
• child's hobbies, talents, awards – J is Mrs. Potts in her schoolhouse play this twelvemonth, she also played the lead role in a theatre camp this summer, S had a fantastic fourth dimension in Fall Ball and was just given the role of Mic supervisor for the tech team at school. C is making strides with schoolhouse and even got an honour for all her hard work on trying to learn to read.
• new home – then far nosotros are still here, we volition proceed you posted.

…… but you know all these things about us right?  So I mean, nosotros are expert.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the sentiment of a Christmas bill of fare.  I really do.  I actually love getting your Christmas card, but I won't be offended if y'all don't send me one.  I'm not proverb at that place won't come up a fourth dimension where I will ask y'all all for your updated addresses and spend a cozy, quiet afternoon with a latte in 1 hand and a beautiful stack of cards in another.  My kids are 8, 8, and 3 this twelvemonth.  I am living in this flavour with two kids that are very probable on their last leg with Santa and simultaneously but entering the understanding of Santa with the littlest. We have three kids in our house that fully embrace the magic of Christmas right now and I am non sure if we will have that next twelvemonth.  Christmas is much more for our family than Santa Claus and magical reindeer, merely that is a part of it and I know the window of that is fleeting.

Update, kids are now xiii, thirteen, and viii.  We merely take Santa magic left with the littlest.  I'm not squandering a moment of that on anything I don't love. Sad, not sorry.

Then for this year at least, know that the Christmas carte we typically would take sent you lot is not coming.  I hope y'all find solace in the fact that it isn't y'all, it is us.  I hope you love that this year we are taking a pause and the money we would have spent on cards is existence split between one of our favorite adoption charities and a new favorite breast cancer research charity (both in honor of friends and family).  I hope you know nosotros plan on devoting that time to snuggling our 'getting more gigantic every solar day' babies.  I promise you know we love and we wish you all the blessings that Christmas brings, nosotros wish your family health and happiness in the New Year, and simply to sum it upwards – our twelvemonth has been decorated but fun and we experience incredibly blessed.  So here is our Christmas card to you lot!

Have yourself a Merry Footling Christmas and a Blest New Yr!

Christmas is almost here over again. Cheque out how to have a debt free Christmas this year.

Update – this has been passed around like crazy thanks to Facebook – so I sure would love for y'all to follow me on Facebook too! (pretty please?) and if you want to share on Pinterest I would honey for you to Pivot information technology —-> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/237846424046387820/

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