Meaningless greeting cards

[primsong]

I've just been pondering the concept of the 'five love languages' (i.e. Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch) - mine is essentially 'service', something I'd generally already known - that I feel loved when people help me out or work alongside me - with a bit of Affirmation sprinkled in occasionally.

Whether or not I get gifts, big or small, really isn't that important to me, which is what brings me to greeting cards.

My mom, for instance, LOVES getting a nice card. She really takes to heart the words printed on it, notices the effort that went into choosing it for her and keeps them. She tucks them into her books as bookmarks, for instance, because they make her feel loved.

I...er, keep them around a while but if they don't have something significant like a genuine handwritten letter inscribed on them worth reading again later they get tossed. The ones I keep are the handmade, hand-drawn ones in the same way I would keep a work of art. I have almost no use for mass produced cards. And near as I can tell, neither do my immediate family members - only my son keeps his, and then only if they had a good joke in them.

SO - I'm thinking of sounding it out with my family to consider not buying cards anymore. They're so expensive, and so often they're bought last minute and presented out of guilt. Let's free ourselves from a needless modern ritual, perhaps... I would rather have someone send me a random thing in the mail because they were honestly thinking of me than to get a pile of mass produced cards that mean no more than remembering to say "Have a nice day" when you see them at the store.

Thoughts? Are greeting cards important to you? Do they convey love? Or do they make you wish the person hadn't wasted money on a card? Is it an important part of connection in our lives, or a useless gesture? There are no wrong answers.

Comments

[justice_turtle]

The greeting cards I keep are (one or more of):

1: from some special person I don't have many mementoes of
2: GLITTERY
3: funny
4: specially chosen for me in some way / have some personal meaning.

Like, I had a birthday card I wish I hadn't lost in the wrapping paper the day I got it - Burne-Jones's First Day of Creation - that was given me specifically because the angel on it is the spitting image of me at the same age. Mind-bogglingly so. I'd have kept that one. (I do plan to get a reproduction of it someday, which is a nice thing about giving Great Art cards. *g*)

Or the one from my aunt and uncle that wouldn't stand out except that (1) it was the first card I ever got with glitter on it and (2) I was sick in bed with either chicken pox or flu at the time. Brightened up my whole day; I still remember it nearly 20 years later.

On the other hand, I have an uncle who sends us Christmas money every year in, er, terribly bland cards. Those I don't keep; I just mentally file whatever I buy with the money as his present, and throw away the card.

For the record, my primary love language is Quality Time, which makes sense with this: I care about the time someone put into picking a card for me / sending it to me / writing a personal note; in short, the time they spent thinking about me and the amount of energy they put into knowing what I'd like.

(My favorite thing-somebody-gave-me-randomly is a Captain America jigsaw puzzle from waaaay before the movie came out, when I was a fan but it seemed nobody else was. My mom spotted it at the dollar store - last one, on clearance, actually - and bought it for me. :D That one's got a permanent spot on my wall.)

[meneleth]

Interesting timing on your question - this year I've been making a concerted effort to send cards to my family (and on time). I look on it as a chance to keep in touch and also to let them know that we're thinking of them. I get sets of cards periodically from a Christian source at a very good price, not the $3 a piece in stores. I can see your point, though.

[john_amend_all]

I'm happy to exchange cards with family members, but the ritual that my office used to have, of everybody exchanging Christmas cards with everybody else, always seemed wasteful to me. I was quite pleased when one year there was a scheme for everybody to make charitable donations instead.

[senmut]

For me, greeting cards generally only come in for the winter holidays (it's my way of saying thinking of you now) to a lot of people I've never met face to face.

I will occasionally buy my GF one, but only if I have really hunted for a good, thoughtful one that says what I feel but can never seem to SAY.

[kerravonsen]

I never send Christmas cards; it's just as you say: mass-produced cards with a side-serving of guilt. There are some people who still send them to me, and they are of two sorts: the ones who have a long Christmas list and do it automatically, and the ones who use Christmas time as a motivation to send a family letter of what they've been doing since the last time. The former don't mean anything to me, and the latter are nice to get.

But the cards I like getting the most are the ones which have actual hand-written messages inside, like a short letter. That type tend to be sent more around birthday time than Christmas, and it's nice to know that they thought of me.

But I don't send birthday cards either. I put all my effort and energy into getting or making very fitting Christmas presents for my family, and that's about it.

[lurkingcat]

I send cards to family and friends who I know like receiving them but I'd rather put thought into presents instead.

Cards that I keep are ones that had a message that really meant something to me or ones with pictures that I like (I've been known to frame those and hang them up over my desk too), or my mother's handmade cross stitch cards. On the whole, I'd rather that people didn't send me cards though and instead spent the money on something that made them happy be that a charitable donation, a new book or some cat food.

[alouzon]

Better watch out - Hallmark could be gunning for you soon.

I only get paper cards for my Mom, and weddings. I usually send e-cards for birthdays, Christmas, etc:

a) they're more fun
b) the intended party doesn't have to keep them out of a sense of obligation, they self delete after 6 months
c) they're more fun
d) there is no reason "d"
e) they're more fun

[blackmare]

I keep some, not most, though. I have a file in my office drawer.

Cards from my LJ/DW friends tend to get kept. They are special to me for being evidence of trust, of being invited across the usual boundaries between online and offline life.

Generally, I appreciate the time and thought that goes into sending a card, but the card itself? Usually is nothing special. I'm coming down more and more on the side of sending handmade cards from myself or some other artist.

[telegramsam]

I've received cards I've felt very touched by and kept for a long time, and I've received some that I found patronizing or dismissive and downright insulting.

A lot of it depends on who gave it to me and why. The thought & sentiment behind any action or gift is, to me, more important than the gesture itself.