We haven’t sent out Christmas cards for years. And gradually, people stopped sending them to us. To be honest, I’d much rather get one of those family letters detailing the accomplishments of the year. Sure, people poke fun at these letters, but they provide news and a sense of contact. But email works better for these, anyway, since they can then be filed away and searched for in case there’s a need to remember what the name of the new grandchild is.
But we used to get a lot of Christmas cards – diminishing year by year, but still quite a few. This year, very few. There are probably several reasons for this.
1. Continued decay curve, as people realize we haven’t sent them a card in many, many years.
2. People deceased, particularly as the “Greatest Generation” thins out.
3. Facebook. If you are friends, you can just message holiday greetings and maybe get in one or two messages of dialogue. If you aren’t even Facebook friends, then is it really important?
4. The economic downturn, now in its 5th year by my reckoning (since I remember selling Dad’s house in 2007, and the downturn was definitely coming in then).
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