Christmas Card Etiquette

Sounds like a lovely tradition that you have kept going and I'm sure your parents are very proud that you have continued to do this. I would also suspects that the recipients feel the same. I wouldn't worry too much about getting the odd thing wrong or not knowing that people have split up, passed away etc. It sounds like you already do as much 'research' as is possible.

Every year we (wife & I) have the debate around sending cards to people who don't send one back. Every year we send one anyway.

Sending Christmas cards is something that you do because you want to and people appreciate receiving them, even with the odd mix up!

It's a tradition, similar to recode, that I inherited from my parents. Down to initially using their address book till we got our own. It's sad to hear that someone would bin a card after opening it, no different to junk mail!! Maybe some of the one we send meet the same fate however they were sent with good intentions. Similarly we would hand deliver local one and only post to abroad or 'down the country'. Hanging the cards on on strings in the hall with snowman pegs is one of the traditions as eldest elf like to hang them. I see them as a Christmas decoration and would miss them if they weren't there.

Aww it's lovely to read that you keep the tradition going and the lovely story behind it.

We send Christmas cards - just to our immediate family and close friends. It was lovely when our child use to do up a design in school to be printed, I think so much of it went back to the school and we would buy a few packs to send out (and show off his picture!). We are past that stage with him but our niblings and friends kids are at that stage now.

We also send a card to one neighbour, the rest of us don't bother giving cards even though we all get on very well. This neighbour isn't Irish and always gets my husband's name wrong - he's a standard common English name but she calls him a very popular Irish name (which isn't even the Irish for his name). She gets the rest of us correct, I've an uncommon name, the kid has an Irish name and gets both of them spot on! But it puts a smile on our face.

Fair play to you all, I admire your willingness to keep the tradition alive.

I love Christmas Cards...I'm waiting on mine arriving so that I can write them up. We normally just do close family and friends but I do post them. I never thought of someone reading them and binning them immediately 😭 I keep ours up (on a string like @TRS30) and then when I take them down, I put them into the arts & crafts box for the kids to cut up during the year and glue into collages...they will literally knock hours out of that activity 😀

We send a good few cards, friends and family by post and neighbours hand delivered

I never thought someone would bin them straight away, I put them up and keep them then for my pal she works with special needs and they always use them for crafts they do make beautiful pieces from bits of cards

I like to buy special friends etc for my close pals, good neighbours to really good neighbours I have, etc I like those kind of cards

I also like to post god daughter godson in the post and to my friends children too as I remember growing up a neighbour would always address the card to me and send by post it made feel so grown up getting a card in the letterbox when he passed away his daughter continued the tradition

I picked up some cards the weekend just need some more regular cards and cards for family in NYC and close pals in Portugal

FTR we were equally shocked when told that these couples binned cards, they said they simply didn't have room for them and with no kids had no reason to keep them.

We also put what ones we receive up on string (we have little pegs for them too) but they are far smaller in number now than we used to receive even 2 or 3 years ago. We use the old ones cut up as gift tags for presents (handy tip I got on here a few years ago)

I hear you.

As our cards are mostly for overseas its never cheap paying the postage. Think we spent around that last year, not sure what this years will be though as we've ant extra couple this year.

Years ago we had plenty of overseas cards to send but over the years the elderly relatives have passed away and most of the friends have moved back home. So mostly national stamps for us. I still send cards to the family and send individual ones to my nieces and nephew, andctoba few friends too. If we're seeing any of them in the run up we just exchange them, without forking out for postage. Like others here we put them out on display as decorations, but as the kids are mostly past the arts and crafts stage, they do get binned in January.

I think its a lovely gesture to send or receive a Christmas card. A few years back I stopped sending cards to people who'd stopped sending me cards. Why bother. I still send cards and receive them from some people I've not seen or talked to in years. I suppose its tradition. The idea of binning Christmas cards though seems very odd.