"I can't be arsed to write Christmas cards to everybody. Doing this enables me to be lazy and smug simultaneously".

It appears to escape such people's notice that it is actually possible to both give Christmas cards AND make charitable donations. It's also possible to give to charity and NOT make a point of telling everybody about it, which is another distasteful aspect of this unfestive cop-out.

I think the establishment in more need than any other at the moment is Royal Mail.

I totally agree. If you take the attitude towards charitable donation that it is something to be done at the expense of something else then where do you stop?

This does rather presuppose that giving Christmas cards is by default a waste of money, and therefore that giving that money to charity is a reasonable swap. For me, that's not the case - I don't get to see many of my best friends and loved ones during the year, and as cliched and formal as it may be, a Christmas card is an opportunity for me to tell these people I'm thinking about them, and to me that's worth (say) a pound each.

Yes, giving cards (and this goes for all greetings cards and postcards too) can be a mechanical, pointless, purely reciprocal drudge, but if so, that's the giver's problem, and as Paul points out above, there's nothing to stop us giving to charity and sending cards!

The other charity-related thing I object to is for people who do things they had always wanted to do anyway and ask for a charity sponsorship for the privilege of doing it.

I am NOT going to do a parachute jump or run a marathon, would you like to sponsor me for hearing you witter on and on about how wonderful the experience and how fulfilling it was?

Cards are a way of passing on some best wishes and recognising friendship. Giving money to charity is a different (but still worthwhile) activity. Doing both is not exclusive.

I can't stand Christmas (I spent 17 Christmases in retail if you need an explanation) and this allows me to do a little good with the minimum effort.
If it pisses off the Christmas Stasi so much that they leave me alone in future then so much the better.

There is such a thing as charity Christmas cards. Your local charity shops can provide; alternatively the city centre churches especially may have a stall with cards from a wide range of charities and styles, not necessarily Christian ones either, if that sort of thing makes you queasy, as it does for me. Do this, as opposed to just buying from the supermarkets.

Having said that, there is a charity box system at my workplace, for if you want to do this rather than write out another four dozen cards as well for one's own massive extended family. In that context it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

that it might legitimately be condemned as self-congratulatory, but I really can't see that you have any justification in moaning about the person's choice of charity.

If we follow the logic back to cards, it would appear to suggest you think you have a right to recieve a card and moreover that you might get some sort of choice in the design of it, yet I would be very surprised if you actually thought that was the case.

we agreed to send one collective card to everyone - displayed in the hall & then donate to an agreed charity. That seemed a good trade off.

I don't have a problem with it. Live and let live, I say. I send cards to people who never send them - they have their reasons, fair enough. (Perhaps they don't like me...)

I'll give a donation to charity instead

Just a way of absolving middle-class guilt. No more to say on the subject.

and presumably next year they will give less because you can't not give Christmas cards twice and presumably they will have to tell you they are not sending a card again (not sure how they do this? would be easy on a folded piece of card with a stagecoach on the front).

Having worked for a charity the best way to help them is give of your time or expertise or money (if you use gift aid they get even more money) DIRECTLY. Oh and if you give to charity my none conformist roots force me to say to do it without going on about it too much.

Not sure what the solution is if you just don't like Christmas/Christmas cards presumably don't do anything and people will get the message eventually!

have someone give money to a charity than waste it on sending me a Christmas card, since I stopped smoking I no longer need to make roaches.

Surely it is also an environmental issue, not only the waste of card and paper but the energy used to produce the card and get it onto my mantelpiece seems a bit silly.

(No lectures on the electricity running through my Mac please - it was only an observation.)

would Jesus do?

our media-employed Chiswick dwelling friends procreated and moved to the country (sic). Not that there's anything wrong with that. However we then started receiving (on Christmas Day!) e-mailed cards like those ref'd above with pictures of goats and whatnot saying no Christmas cards, we're giving to charity. Well frankly, we do both. And what with the price of a card and a stamp, it doesn't really matter how many friends you've got you're still being pretty cheap with your charity of choice.

Don't you find that you don't have people's addresses any more?

as the once-a-year catch up has been replaced by regular (possibly too regular) twitter and facebook contact.

I explained this to Mrs Pants. We sent them anyway.

I'd rather receive no Christmas cards at all, than those which contain tedious, blow by blow round-robin accounts of the insipid doings of people I never see. (And never liked much anyway.)
I just got one broken down into months - months and months of steaming guff about divorces, work deadlines, the allotment... for crying out loud - I literally don't care. Not a single, solitary, microscopic jot.

Happy Bloomin' Christmas...

"I'm not sending Christmas cards this year, because quite frankly I am too skint and would have to send most of them rather than handing them out, as I moved 7 months ago, so most of my friends are around the country. 2nd class x 70 = £21 + actually buying the things = £8. £29. Which is equivalent to what I spend on food in a week.

Good old facebook for this year's christmas messages!

1) Cards are compulsary.
2) Exchanging anything more than basic pleasantries is a no no.
3) Friends are people with whom you exchange basic pleasantries with once a year.
4) Anyone not sending cards is a lazy cad.

Fair?

(lights blue touch paper and retires to safe distance)

Are a way of sending festive good wishes to those we will not see in person over the period, direct family excepted. So workmates, people down the pub, etc don't get one off me. For everyone else, off the cards go with a hand-written envelope and a few words in each one.

I once received from a work colleague a card, through the post. Printed label, card pre-printed with a "Best wishes from XXXX and family" message. Not signed. She'd sent off her address database to a company who would print and send all the cards for you, presumably aimed at businesses.

Lovely.

I gave her a right earful about festive spirit and how special all the cards no doubt made all the recipients feel.

How do they let you know?

That people think that people donating money to charity should keep the fact to themselves.

But playing devil's advocate for a moment, don't charities rely completely on the opposite scenario being the case? Talking about your charitable donations is invaluable PR for the charities concerned, I suspect, whether you're a company sending out messages to that effect at Christmas (a time of year when the recipient will be more inclined to give money themselves), or Joe Bloggs telling his mate down the pub that he's given money to the hospice in which his mother died.

Charities rely on awareness. Don't talk about them, and contributions dry up.

I've been doing it for years now, and since even my elderly parents have finally got the hang of the 't'interweb and he-mail, they too have loved the electronic bleatings i've posted out - at the risk of sounding too smug, no paper usage and only having to rely on a broadband connection rather than the lazy feckin' 'can't post won't post' postal service, i'm all for it!

I'm afraid e-cards will never be as good as real ones. The fact that your friend held and wrote the card, choose which one to send etc holds a lot of atavism and meaning. E-cards don't have that and emails don't either I'm happy to get friendly message electronically but envelopes and card etc do mean more. The cost is also part of the emotion I'm afraid it is a small token of respect. None of the above are massive in their own right but they add up to something bigger.
That being said if you can't be bothered with christmas cards don't send them but don't think a e-cards is replacement.

to The Dogs' Trust every Xmas instead of sending cards. Largely because the number of idiots buying puppies for their kids as presents and then dumping them at the sides of motorways a few days later doesn't appear to be decreasing. If that offends any of my friends, then maybe I should rethink my choice of friends. Frankly, I don't care. I only broadcast the fact that I am doing it as away of assuaging the feelings of any family and friends who might be under the impression that they had done something to offend me as they had not received a card from me.

Anyway, are people you only communicate with once a year really "friends?"

For a number of years now we have agreed not to send Christmas cards at work but instead to collect charitable donations. We always ask for suggestions as to the charity to benefit, but the decision is often an easy one to make. We have had several staff over the years affected by various horrible illnesses, either themselves or close family members, so when we make a contribution we feel as though we are doing something useful however small. Occasionally we also raffle some of the gifts sent to us by other organisations and that money too goes into the pot.

We donate to UNICEF instead of giving presents to our numerous nephews and nieces & great nephews and nieces. They all get deluged with presents, many of which they never wanted in the first place and the word "Thankyou" isn't a part of their vocabulary, so we sent all of them cards one year saying that the money we used to spend on them would now be spent onkids that needed it and we've been doing it ever since.

Like George Costanza, I'll be giving to the Human Fund.

The most dispiriting fact is the English care more for animals, charity wise; than any thing human. Children, pensioners, the homeless all come a long way behind donkeys and cats protection. I like animals but, call me daft; I care for humans needing some form of assistance more. This does appear to be a common state of mind of the rich, elderly about to meet their maker. I assume it is a symptom of the loneliness of age. I will let you know in about 10 years.

..we're using the money for drugs, ale and DVD's so we can lock ourselves away for the duration.

I don't send Christmas cards to my work colleagues because I see them every day of the year. I don't see the need to send them a personal greeting in a card when I can pass on my best wishes on the last day I see them before the holidays. It's a waste of money, paper/card and, yes quite frankly, my time.

It is my choice to give the money that I would have spent on their cards to a charity. I give it to a charity that I support (Shelter usually, if you're interested) because it's my money, not theirs. If someone gives me a card I let them know what I have done so that they do not feel slighted, as some of them would, when they do not receive a card in return from me. I do not make a big song and dance about it.

Why is that a crime? Why is it "assuaging my middle-class guilt", or whatever phrase was used further up the thread?

you are sent, wholly unsolicited, some Xmas cards from a chartity (in this case, people who paint without using their hands). The cover letter says there is no obligation, but the working assumption must be that no-one would be heartless enough not to send them some money.

Apart from me that is ...

...I never send Xmas cards and it is purely and simply because I can't be arsed.

I do send Christmas cards, and it is the only time I buy books of stamps, which then seem to last for the rest of the year for birthday cards. As a result of this I am always surprised by how much they cost - 30p for second class, and 39p for first class (I had to buy first class this year as it was all the card shop had).

Anyone I mentioned this to has been surprised as well, thinking that stamps cost about 25p. I think showing that almost no-one writes letters any more. In fact, does anyone?

There's a comment by Virginia Ironside in today's Mail about sending goats to Africa not cards to friends. Some people are always late, aren't they?

As a company, my firm is giving money to a charity as opposed to sending out cards to customers, clients and contacts. We've sent an email instead with a nice festive scene. Frankly, it's good publicity for us, good publicity for the charity and it's more efficient than buying charity cards (i.e. the whole budget that would have gone on buying the cards and the stamps, goes straight to the charity).

Some people on this thread are missing the point - Christmas is supposed to be about giving, so why not give to charity?

Now wouldn't that be a more convincing piece of self-sacrifice for charity? Funny you don't hear it as often as the one about Christmas cards, the key difference being that booze is fun, and writing loads of Christmas cards tends not to be.

Fun game: Next time someone tells you they're giving to charity instead of sending cards, congratulate them, then ask which charity and how much. I suspect a good number of these intended donations get eroded over the holiday period, or even completely overlooked.

which where homemade,they were sent to people we truly wish well, no card is expected in return if one arrives it will nestle with others brightening up the mantel. As to charity that's been dealt with elsewhere. Happy Advent everyone.

For most companies i believe its a cost-cutting exercise whereas they may give to charity the donation I suspect to be substantially less than would have been spent on cards/corporate gifts.

Count the Christmas cards you have already received:

How many are from people you are actually close to?

How many are from people you don't really know very well?

Of those you have received from people you are close to:

How many contained significant personal details?

How many contained a generalised greeting?

Out of all your cards:

How many of are aesthetically rewarding and appropriate to you?

How many of them have designed that you don't like or are inappropriate to your personality?

Now I agree about people contributing to a charity on my behalf being a bit smug. They are also being disingenuous they are contributing on behalf of themself and their charity rather than me. Their action means as little to me as an impersonal Christmas card from someone I'm not close to.

However perhaps it means a bit more to them. More thought goes into it than taking the next card out of the packet and scrawling my name on it. Even if that thought has nothing to do with me.

Christmas cards are a waste. They are lots of card used for a tiny moment and then discarded. Most of the corporate designed images are unpleasant and consumerist.

They are costly for those of us without much money to spare, who want to use our resources to buy Christmas presents for our nearest and dearest and the food and travel that Christmas also requires.

They are also forms of social pressure. I don't send cards to friends because they share my views on cards or at least respect them, however I have to send cards to people at work, and have had to for years. Even people I rarely see at work. This creating more expense, diverting funds from friends and family to vague acquaintances.

E- cards are fine if you want. At least they are less wasteful. But again they are impersonal and are generally pretty aesthetically uninteresting. I sent all my friends and family an MP3 of a piece of music I'd written for xmas. I'd rather people sent an email with a message that reflected their personality and spoke to mine than an animation of father christmas crossing the sky.

I think christmas should be about love and family and friends and genuine feelings. I find cards to be a barrier to this. Just as the over commercialisation of the festival is.

Once cards were something different. But in a modern, environmentally conscious age, during a credit crunch they are really something to jettison. Give fudge. Phone people up. Write a select few close friends letters or emails. Whatever... just stop going through motions. Please.

Happy Christmas. Here's your card: http://www.myspace.com/thedaveiscoming