Christmas Cards

It's so much fun to receive Christmas cards in the mail! I love seeing pictures, especially of little ones - they grow so much! And knowing they thought of us enough to have us on their Christmas mailing list. I don't enjoy the letters quite as much - too much information about people I don't really know THAT well. I think most of those letters are written either for themselves or for grandparents. That's okay. I skim them. I like sending Christmas cards too. Our way of saying "We're thinking of you. Here's what's going on with us (just one paragraph, no more, I promise.) What's going on with you?" Yes, it costs time and money, but it's worth it.

Here's the frustrating thing though: we sent out 64 cards this year, but have only received 16, as of yesterday. That's 25%. Only a QUARTER of the people on our list have us on their lists. Why is that?? Are we sending out too many? Many of the people who receive from us but don't reciprocate are in my extended family: aunts & uncles, cousins, etc. (Both of my parents had 4 siblings, and all of them had children - that's a lot of people! We don't send to all of them, btw) (There are some on DH's side who don't send cards to us too.) We also send cards to friends from high school, both DH's and mine. Many of them don't respond either. Is it a "married thing" to send Christmas cards? Most of those friends are single. And then there are the family members we see often who don't send them to us. My mom's twin sister, for example. Every time we go to the Ranch we see Aunt Jane and her family, but we have never received a Christmas card from them. (How do I know this, you ask? Well, in the previous post you read how we catalog our movies in an Excel file. We also keep people's addresses in an Excel file, along with who we've sent Christmas cards to and who we've received them from. Duh. How else do people keep track of such essential information?? j/k) Perhaps she's trying to keep her list from getting too big, and she knows we know she loves us. It's just puzzling to me. (She sends one to my mom, btw.) Oh, and SIL! She was putting her Christmas newsletter together while she was here with us in early December. Her folks received one, but we didn't! Isn't that weird??

It doesn't really bother me. I just wish I understood why. Those who don't send out cards at all make sense - it's a universal cold shoulder (j/k!) But those who send them selectively don't make sense. Oh well. It won't really change how many I send out next year.