Pre-Ramble:  There has been some discussion among the mommy-blog set around the trend toward sending emailed holiday greetings, posting them on Facebook walls, or (shutter) not sending them at all! 

Shut up!

Molly Millet of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press suggests that, “In the age of social networking, we now see far-flung friends and family members’ cute kid pictures and status updates all year long … plus, some annual card senders want to save money, go green, or simply avoid the stress.”  She describes the holiday card-reading experience, citing the tendency to open the envelope, check out the photo, note that, “Oh, their kids have gotten bigger” … and then “chucking it.”

Well, I guess I can see where the traditional, low-tech, snail-mail method of expressing the holiday sentiment could be construed as stressful, labor-intensive and pricy… 

• First, you’ve got to find a high quality card with just the right image — one that communicates a spirited, yet humble message about the holiday season, and at the same time, has a fun, festive, graphically worthy design. Price per card: $1.25
• Then there’s shooting a decent photo of the kids and dogs — HUGE hassle factor, even without the dog. Creative decisions must be made like, inside or outside; … flash or natural light; … infinite background options; … full-length or head-shot; … matching outfits or not; … dress up the dog or not; … props? etc. And, once you’ve settled on a shot that everybody likes (good luck with that), you need to have copies made … Price per print: $.20
• Then there’s The Letter. This is perhaps the most challenging component of the Christmas card packet … remembering what noteworthy things happened during the year; … being informative without divulging embarrassing details; … giving the year’s overview without being terminally boring; … etc.  Once written, you need to have family members sign the darn thing in their own quirky handwriting and drag it down to the copy shop (white paper stock or a festive color?) Price per copy: $.05  (Note: copies of  The Letter will need to be folded in a configuration that will fit in the envelopes.)
• And then, there are the envelope issues … to hand-address (get real) or print address labels on the computer; … getting the address labels to line up with the label template (way easier said than done); handling the return address information … again, hand-written or computer generated … only there’s a special mini label system for the return address application … making a special trip to the office supply store to get the obscure mini-return-address-label templates … Price for 2000 labels: $15.95 (or $.008 per label)
• Procuring the appropriate holiday postage … you can choose from the religious (usually creepy) illustration of the Madonna and child, or the secular snowmen/mittens option. Price per stamp: $.44  (Unless you have unknowingly selected a square-shaped card, in which case the “extra postage” will run you $500 per piece.)

Yup – seems like the cards are pretty much stacked against the preparation and sending of traditional holiday cards. The one thing that hasn’t been factored in however, is the long-standing tradition of human resistance to change. Sure, it would be light-years easier to click out a chirpy little holiday tweet embedded with a bunch of video links, ping-backs and other high-tech stuff, … but, for the steadfastly tech-challenged, plodding through the traditional uber-putsy holiday card drill is actually comforting compared to the stress of having to train in on some slick new technology.

The Take-Away:  Bring me some figgy pudding and I’ll lick and stick Christmas cards any day.

Post-Note:  Total estimated cost per card = $1.96*

* Estimate includes materials costs only — vast amounts of time required calculated separately.

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