To 'e' card or not to 'e' card!

So how is the Christmas card sending (and receiving) going?  There is nothing nicer than a string of cards hung above the fireplace at Christmas with their festive pictures of snowmen, robins, Father Christmas and any number of seasonal scenes! Until a few years ago I would have sent most of my cards by post, now my card sending is split three ways. I personally hand out some or get them passed on, I send a few ecards (sometimes in addition to a sent one) and lastly I post a few. The cost of stamps (60 pence each or nearly a dollar to my N. American friends) is just too much to send out cards now en masse. And mentioning N. America, I cannot think why we don’t adopt their system of post being collected from home owners own post boxes. In many places in Canada, not only is mail delivered to homes but it is collected too, saving the effort of even leaving your own driveway and surely encouraging use of the mail system? What we need is more post (at a cheaper price) being sent not less and surely a system like this would encourage more of the smaller and simpler kinds of mail being sent.

But back to ‘e’ cards. I have paid an annual fee to an ecard supplier for the last five years or so (the number of cards you can send is unlimited) and it is worth its weight in gold - especially for those last minute forgotten birthdays. You can schedule the card to arrive whenever you want and if you are really organised (I’m not) you can do everyone’s birthday, anniversaries etc for the whole year! There are some really great interactive cards on line and the children really love them as do some of my  more elderly relatives and I love choosing a nice Christmas scene with jingly music to accompany it.
Is it inappropriate to send ecards to some people? Yes, I think you have to gauge who to send
e cards to, it may seem a little too casual in some cases, but on the whole most people love an ecard. For your nearest and dearest though you can’t beat a handwritten card!
If you still have Christmas cards to post you had better get a move on though - the last date for first class is Thursday the 20th December. If you wanted to send surface mail to New Zealand, South Africa or Australia I’m afraid you have missed it - that was back on September 28th!
As for the ecard you can send that on Christmas Eve and still be in time for Christmas day.

We hope you like our card which is taken from 'Roley to the Rescue' coming next year.
So Happy Christmas to all of you, from all of us at J & J Gill Publishing 
(Roley Moley included of course)!

---