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Meaningless greeting cards
May. 10th, 2012 05:22 pmI'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.
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.
