Whither the Christmas card in the electronic age?
This year my sum total of cards received to date is six. Now of course that could be because no one likes me, but my computer says different. Holiday greetings still pour in electronically, and this is a good thing because it saves money and trees, and probably reduces carbon emissions too. But having been brought up in the UK, part of me worries desperately about etiquette. What is the accepted mode these days? There appears to be a variety of approaches.
Some people are still sending cards in email. It is the closest you can come to the old paper system, but it smacks of bulk email and encouraging people to open attachments in email is probably not a good thing.
There are, of course, Internet-based card sending services, but most of them are annoying pushy and commercial.
Others put a blanket post on a blog or LiveJournal. That’s nice and easy, but perhaps a bit impersonal. Also it assumes that everyone you want to reach actually reads your blog.
Paul Cornell had an interesting approach. He created an event on Facebook and invited all of his friends to attend. That’s still a “push” approach, and automatically personalized, but it is much more low key than an email blast, and it gives people a very quick and easy means of responding by just accepting the invitation, or the option of leaving a message. Of course it assumes that all of your friends are on Facebook, but that’s probably a better bet than assuming that they all read your blog.
Of course in these high pressure days no one has the time to read or write anything. That’s why one of the fastest growing Internet services is Twitter. Even poor old Santa, who will be rushing round the world at breakneck speed tonight, might have the chance to dash off a quick, “Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!” on his cell phone between chimneys.
With all this choice, what is one to do? Where is Miss Manners to tell us what is socially appropriate? Possibly she is in hiding because, like me, she hasn’t got a clue. Being multicultural doesn’t just mean agonizing over the connect spelling of Hanukkah, and worrying whether persons of African descent will be pleased or offended if you wish then a happy Kwanzaa. It also means recognizing that different people have different levels of contact with the virtual world. Somewhere, I am sure, a bunch of my friends will be having a holiday party in Second Life. My mother doesn’t even have a computer. Most other people are somewhere in between. There is no “one size fits all” solution.
Except, perhaps that I should stop being so British and quit worrying about etiquette.
