Do You Still Send Christmas or Holiday Cards? Here’s the Trend in New England

How many Christmas cards did you receive this year?  How many did you send out?  If you think sending holiday greeting cards is a lost art, think again.

While many people don't send Christmas, holiday, or New Year's cards, more people do, according to msn.com.  In fact, over 70% of Americans do send cards during the holiday season.

Hallmark and the Greeting Card Association say more than 1.3 billion Christmas cards are sent each year in the United States.

According to deseret.com, in the early 2000s, nearly two billion cards were mailed out annually. Although it's now down to 1.3 billion due to the ease of communicating through social media, video, and texting, there's something really special about being remembered with a card during the holidays.

In fact, there's been an uptick in card sending over the past three years, mostly due to the connection between the sender and receiver.  It's more personal than a text or a social media post.

So, I asked around (very unscientifically) to see if we as New Englanders are sending more or fewer cards.  The answers were interesting.  20-somethings generally do not send cards, while those in their 30's – especially if they have young families – are slowly getting back into sending photo cards.  People in their 40's make time to get cards out, often to get that growing family photo updated.  People in their 50's are just too busy, and often stop sending cards out as their kids are older now.  Ironically, folks in their 60's start sending cards again because they have grandchildren to highlight.

So the two headlines are: photo cards are the way to go for New Englanders, and it's a stop-start-stop-start process.  In other words, it depends on the year, cost, life stage you are in, and time constraints.

Do you send holiday cards?  We send out 80 each year and receive about 40.  I'm cutting my list in half next year.