Christmas Cards

Christmas Cards: Economics of mailing them and what to do with old cards.

Is sending Christmas cards to friends and relatives through the mail becoming obsolete? Or has it already done so? Did you send as many cards this year as usual? Did you receive as many as you usually do? The answer for me to the last two questions is “No,” in both instances. I did receive a few cards, and sent a few cards. I still have a couple to send because they need ‘catch-up’ notes to go with them, and I haven’t quite got them all done yet. To friends in the complex where I live, I sent cards, but they were hand delivered to the villa or apartment.

In my case, many of the people I formerly sent and received cards to and from are no longer around. To others, it is simpler and less costly to email a greeting. I sent and received some of those too. And I received and sent Christmas and New Year greeting on Facebook. However, I did enjoy the attractive scenes on the cards I received,and the sentiments inside; not to mention reading the notes included, when the person took a moment to fill us in on the happenings in their life. But, when you mailed a number of cards, the postage was a bit costly, especially when the postal rate just kept going up-up-up. To be fair, everything else has done the same.

Not mailing cards saves the former sender money. Not sending cards costs the postal service revenue. So, it’s more of the good news – bad news situation. We have been hearing recently that the postal service revenue is declining. One of the suggestions has been to cut Saturday delivery. At least one postal worker, and there were likely others who felt the same way, didn’t like that idea because she received overtime for the working Saturday and depended on the extra income.

I can understand that, but I don’t think they should pay overtime for working an Saturday. It could be they thought the overtime for Saturday was less expensive than the expenses of hiring the requisite extra employees. Perhaps another way could be found if Saturday delivery was a necessity. But is it?

In my opinion, dropping Saturday mail delivery is a good idea under the present circumstances, and individuals losing Saturday overtime for that one day is preferable to someone losing thier job altogether.

Retailers work on weekends, but most offices don’t. How often do you get ‘important’ mail on Saturday. If you do get something from a business on Saturday, the office is likely closed, and you can’t act on it until Monday anyway. Since most offices are closed on Saturday, they generally speaking, don’t need delivery, though you can still mail a letter if you want to. If we have mail to send to an individual, we can just adapt to sending it so they will receive it by Friday. After all, that is what we do now for Sunday, when we don’t expect to receive mail

I should think that the cut back on mailing Christmas cards would affect the greeting card industry as well as the postal service. If this trend continues, the following probably will fall by the wayside too. However, if you currently have used Christmas or all-occasion cards on hand, and don’t know what to do with old cards, you might consider sending them to the organization listed below.

St. Jude's Ranch for Children
Recycled Card Program
100 St. Jude's Street
Boulder City, NV 89005

The children redesign the used cards and sell them as fund raisers.
All Occasion cards can be mailed to the organization the year round.