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.
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.
Oh, but of course — http://twitter.com/noradsanta (as monitored by NORAD).
Perfect. Thank you!
Actually, I stand corrected. The twitter page makes it clear that the tweets are done on Santa’s behalf by Bitz the Twittering Elf. I guess it’s a sign of how important Santa is that (like Barack Obama) he has to get someone to do his tweets for him.
Actually I think he got the idea from Neil Gaiman, who had a WebElf for some time.
I’ve been dealing with that with birthday cards for years. My brother started sending me e-cards years ago because “[you] spend all your time online anyway.” I used to consider it highly rude, but now that more folks do it, I don’t care.
I use birthday cards as an example because I never send Xmas cards. I’m Jewish, and it’s not part of my tradition. When my ex-husband forced me to send Xmas cards it made my relatives REALLY uncomfortable.
With a mother from New England, I’ve had the same issues for years. It’s not just because you’re British ;>
England, New England – what’s the difference? Both are cold and wet.
I liked your Facebook idea (and thank you), although it amusingly baffled my husband; I used email this year due to my own disorganization and there being a number of folks for whom I have email addresses but not snail mail ones.
Meditating on what you said, which is honestly helpful, I think in future I may fight the potentially impersonal nature of email by sending each copy of the card individually and include more of a personalized message (still getting the hang of all these niceties) and why not host an image on a personal webspace after all? Then you can dodge the attachment thing. Hadn’t thought of that this year.
As to connection to holidays…I’m almost tempted to declare the middle of March or some other usually dreary and unpromising time “send keeping in touch cards day”, so that the function of the custom (which I am just starting to realize the significance of, and I think a lot of other folks have forgotten) is retained but its connection to all the holiday running around isn’t, and so it would just be a nice surprise for folks. Perhaps a quixotic idea. I think I sort of did a bit of that when I sent postcards to all the folks Mike and I befriended in Finland in September, and hopefully when I manage to send something else in the spring.