Holiday greetings in the age of technology

I appreciate people, rarer every year, who still send holiday cards through snail mail. I enjoy seeing the cards and decorating the dining table with them. 

I hope the senders don’t mind that they hear from me by email. I can’t remember why — perhaps it was my frugality — but quite a few years ago I switched to emailing holiday notes. I ignored the etiquette mavens at the time who said that e-cards are tacky and assured myself that a personalized message shows effort, whichever way it is delivered. 

Nowadays the ubiquity of technology has made e-cards acceptable, although the Etiquette School of America still prefers traditional cards for family and friends. It says that recipients pay more attention to traditional cards, consider them more personal, and keep them longer. E-cards might get lost among a barrage of email or get as much attention as digital advertising. 

An emailed update, it seems to me, is better than the traditional cards I receive with nothing but signatures from people I haven’t seen in years. All I learn is that the senders are still alive and, from the return addresses, where they live. 

Of course there’s the risk of my email being buried in inbox clutter or going into a junk folder, but the latter isn’t likely. It’s not a canned card sent from 123greetings or the like. Neither is it a multipage newsletter attachment. It’s simply a brief message, with a holiday image inserted, sent from my personal email address. 

I search online for holiday clipart with a white background so that no borders show when the image is inserted into the message. I like images with words, like a fat cat with “Warm Wishes This Holiday” on its belly; two stick figures holding “Happy Holidays” signs; and “a very merry Christmas to you” in the shape of a tree. Different friends might get different images. 

Once the image is inserted at the top and centered, I compose an email as usual, beginning with attention on the recipients. If we seldom communicate, I may need to find their last email to refresh my memory about what to mention. A bit of my news follows (this part can be copied and pasted from letter to letter). I omit my news in e-letters to people I see regularly and just write a personal wish for them. 

Some recipients reply to the email, so I hear from them at Christmas even if they don’t send cards. Most will never open my message again, some will likely delete it, but I hope they remember that I sent one.