eatingThinking

Christmas cards ain’t going no where because a REAL card beats an E-card any day!  So you better pick up that pen and start writing! And why not?  This is the one time in life where the messier it is, the lovelier it is.  It shows that you care.   It shows that you tried.  Your handwriting is the soul of the card.  And don’t worry if think that your handwriting won’t be legible – come on, we all know what those cards are supposed to say anyways.    We are smart enough to guess!  And quite frankly, we much rather guess than to get another e-card!   Your writing carries intimacy.  The messier, the more intimate.  It is what makes it more special than any of the ridiculously funny e-card filled with fantastic digital art and moving graphics.  It shows that you care enough to go out and find a card.  It shows that you are cool enough to not care about little details like handwriting. 

And here’s another reason why you should stick with hand-written cards.  It used to be that handwritten cards were the only way to go.   But since the start of the internet and the evil e-cards trend,  the handwritten cards standards have turned more lenient.  The reason is simple.  In the digital age, any physical card (regardless of content and handwriting) makes you a better person because 1)you didn’t skimp by sending e-cards 2)you held your ground by not giving into the temptation of the easy internet.

If all you have to do is to write “Dear” and “Love”  to earn big points from family, friends, and loved ones, then why wouldn’t you?   I hope the following article makes an even more convincing case for picking up a Hallmark card again!

Merry hand-written Christmas

by Meghan Daum

When you care enough to send the very best, it shouldn’t be an e-card.

Ok, people, what is it with the electronic greeting cards this holiday? Why are you sending me jpegs of the Himalayas accompanied by phrases I recognize from yoga class (”Peace to you and all living things . . .”)? Why am I being asked to download elaborate animation videos featuring singing snowmen or a Nativity scene with a manger that looks alarmingly like a tiki cabana? Why have my otherwise intelligent and dignified friends Photoshopped their faces onto the bodies of dancing Santas? Why, if I don’t open these cards right away, do I have to endure auto-generated reminders that I am a thoughtless and terrible person who does not care about my friend enough to sit through 60 seconds of flash animation sugarplum fairies?

Is it that you’re all environmentalists? Have you gone green and therefore paperless? Do you refuse to send a regular, old-fashioned card because you don’t want to waste the resources (the jet fuel to transport airmail, the gas used by the delivery truck, the calories expended by handwriting and addressing and licking an envelope) that are savagely pilfered whenever someone cares enough to send what is apparently no longer the very best?

Or is that you’re trying to show what an early adapter you are? How willing you are to try new things? How seamlessly you’re able to combine traditional holiday cheer with error messages that say “You must install Adobe”?

Maybe. But considering the number of you who (still) drive tank-sized SUVs and are so computer-wary that you don’t feel safe depositing a check into an ATM, I think there’s something else going on. An insidious societal scourge is at work. I think you’re sending e-cards instead of paper cards for the same reason that college students now bring laptops instead of spiral notebooks to class and some people have taken to writing shopping lists on their BlackBerrys and iPhones rather than the back of an old utility-bill envelope.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 am and is filed under Great Ideas for Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.