For me, building and decorating a gingerbread house this time of year with everything else would be PURE TORTURE!!!
I don’t get offended (and I kind of don’t get the other poster who got huffy about being a dinosaur), and I don’t expect a personal message on the cards-I’m just glad to get the cards, and that’s why I send cards (usually a semi-humorous photo one with peace and love somewhere in the text). I appreciate that people take the time; but I don’t need to know what’s going on in their life (other than see how their kids are growing and how many pets they have), is what I’m probably trying to say. Photo cards-I love them so much!
Gingerbread houses-I tried that one year when the girls were little and I wanted to strangle Martha Stewart by the time we were done-and I bake and build robots! Now we just watch the show on HGTV about the competitive gingerbread house stuff. Much more fun 
I don’t send cards any more since I’m simplifying my own life, but I certainly enjoy getting them. I know that by not sending them I’m taking the chance people will cut me off their lists, and that’s fine - I can live with that tradeoff.
Pizzagirl, I can’t speak to all, but I can try to explain further for myself.
For those who choose to send me a Christmas card, I’m ok with that. If they just sign it Bob and Mary(for example) I’m ok with that. I don’t require or expect any long handwritten personal message.
But when they send me the one-size-fits-all form letter, like I gave examples of in post 69, so I won’t repeat, that I’m not ok with. Sending me a form letter of their annual accomplishments is not how I define a holiday greeting. Perhaps they could send a quarterly update like my 401k broker. OOps, that isn’t very personal either. That’s just business.
So what is wrong with them for me, is that they are terribly impersonal(re my post 69) and can be arrogant of the sender to choose Not to call or write to share his/her joys with me any time throughout the year, but to feel a need to list accomplishments to send out as if they were resumes.
As I said in an earlier post, if the sender doesn’t know me well enough to know if I celebrate Kwanzaa or not, then maybe we aren’t close enough for him to send me a greeting that includes “Happy Kwanzaa”. (Or Christmas, or Hanukkah)
Don’t send cards, don’t decorate. I light the menorah but I was away for all of Hanukkah this year so didn’t even do that. Got S gift and gave it to him when he was home over thanksgiving. H and I don’t exchange but he always get wee stuff to put in doggie’s stockings.
I will do email cards to my close friends who celebrate Xmas,
@younghoss, do you mark it up with what you don’t like and send it back? Seems the best approach given how you feel about them…
yeah, that’s exactly what I do, that’s the ticket. sheesh
Sounds like you want everybody to take time out of their busy lives to call or email you personally as news occurs. Who’s the arrogant one?
That’s sure not what I said. I said nothing about “everybody”. Where in the world did you get that?
I said ** if someone is close enough to me to want to share their personal goings-on**, then they can do so sometime throughout the year. I find it hard to fathom even a busy person cannot find 5 minutes of free time sometime during a year for someone they feel so close to. If they cannot find just five minutes, then I suspect I am a lower priority to them, AND that’s ok. It just means they don’t feel that close to me. My comment referred to those THAT DO feel that close to me. At no time did I say or did I imply I expect to be at or near everyone’s top priority. Heck, I may be at the bottom; and that’s ok too.
Here again, sadly, I have to repeat, my comment referred to those who feel so close to me they feel the need to share their family goings-on, yet are so detached from me that they don’t know if I celebrate Xmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa.
My comments in post 69 and 75 applied to individual holiday greeting senders that chose to ignore me throughout the year, yet felt the need to send me an annual list of their accomplishments on a broad, generic form letter (and I cited examples in post 69).
To claim I said it’s all people, or all people that send greetings, or store clerks, or businesses, or all people that send me a form letter would NOT be correctly re-stating what I wrote.
If I said a limiting sentence such as- “All Americans born after 1964 are less than 40 years old”, a person could disagree based on my math, and that would be fair. But for someone else to add others NOT included in my statement- such as adding those born before '64, and then disagreeing with me is not fair. What about those born in '54? Well, I didn’t address those people in that example sentence.
So I’d ask this: If a fellow feels he is so close to me that he feels the need to send to my home an annual statement of his family goings-on, yet hasn’t sent any other communication throughout the year, and doesn’t even know if I celebrate Kwanzaa, is he really that close to me? Are there many Americans of Asian, Caucasian, or Hispanic descent that celebrate Kwanzaa? (note, I used the word “many”).
Time to break out the spiked egg nog.
“I said if someone is close enough to me to want to share their personal goings-on, then they can do so sometime throughout the year.”
I don’t mind, and in fact enjoy, getting holiday greetings from people I don’t necessarily consider myself “close to.” It’s ok by me if they are people in my past somehow and I’m fine hearing that oh, their kid just graduated college or got married or whatever the news is. I’m fine having acquaintances, friends and then close friends. They don’t all need to be close to me.
And honestly, my close friends - I wouldn’t always know what is going on in their lives (if it weren’t for Facebook). We’re busy. I see my closest girlfriends IRL maybe once or twice a year. It’s possible their kids (or they) had some success or achievement I didn’t know about real time. That’s ok. I’m very much the type who has the friendships where you don’t keep up but when you do pick up, it’s as though you never stopped. I like that. But that’s just me and to each his own.
“So what is wrong with them for me, is that they are terribly impersonal(re my post 69) and can be arrogant of the sender to choose Not to call or write to share his/her joys with me any time throughout the year, but to feel a need to list accomplishments to send out as if they were resumes.”
I don’t see what the real difference is if I post on Facebook “My kid graduated college!” with pictures (which I did this year, times two kids) or if I send out a holiday newsletter with the same news and the same pictures. It certainly would be weird for me to call people and tell them that, though.
Agreed. I love to hear about what is going on in people’s lives. I don’t have to be that close to someone to enjoy hearing what is up with them. And there are some people I feel close to that I don’t always talk to and could easily miss some interesting news from.
But then again, I’m one of those people that write those letters. Thankfully, those on the receiving end either appreciate it (I’ve been told they really enjoy my letters) or are nice enough to keep their mouth shut.
Thank you Pizzagirl.
The “real difference” as you say in post 92 is that I don’t read/post on Facebook. My close friends know that.
I agree w/ you that if I did, it would be communication possible throughout the year. So close friends that want to share something personal with me, know they cannot do it by Facebook.
“The “real difference” as you say in post 92 is that I don’t read/post on Facebook. My close friends know that.
I agree w/ you that if I did, it would be communication possible throughout the year. So close friends that want to share something personal with me, know they cannot do it by Facebook.”
My friends have varying degrees of participation / engagement in Facebook. But I don’t really consider it my duty to monitor if they’ve “liked” the post of (say) my kids graduating college and if they haven’t, figure they haven’t seen it and therefore it’s my duty to call and tell them.
It sounds like some of your friends DO want to share something personal with you - via a holiday letter, which is more convenient for them than it is to call each and every single letter recipient with news.
Did anyone watch the latest episode of “Last Man Standing”? The mom tasked the two younger daughters (teen and early 20s) with writing the annual Christmas letter. Instead of writing a typical letter, they wrote stuff like “Mom is back…from the cult. She keeps making us Kool-Aid but we’re all afraid to try it.”
Now I so want to do that next year. Top Ten Highlights: competitive high altitude llama shaving, bronze medal.
I am so relieved to see skipping Christmas cards at the top of so many lists! I have no objection to them but I just can’t seem to find time to get to them.
I have a chronic illness and there are just some days I can barely get the basic laundry & dinner done. But I do live Christmas and enjoy entertaining so I’ve tried to put my energies into that. My 2 sons (28 & 17) are a huge help and they did all of my inside decorating this year. We never got to doing lights outside but I’m trying not to beat myself up about it. LOL! Did all my shopping online - if Amazon doesn’t have it you probably won’t get it from me
Saw “Last Man Standing” and considered going that route with the newsletter. Then I decided it would take more time, energy, and creativity so just wrote the actual family news.
I love getting the newsletters and it’s ok if people brag. I know they are proud of their kids and families, too. I’ve only had one relative who was routinely over the top–a single guy who wrote 2 FULL pages, single spaced, about all the great things he did each and every year. I do like catching up and seeing photos of new and old friends, and far-away relatives.
We have friends who write an annual newsletter that is hilarious. We look forward to reading it.