The handwritten note.

I've been sending out holiday cards ever since I was on my own when I was 17 years old. Back then, (oh god, 18 years ago) there were no pre-personalized cards. You still had to at least sign your name. I always included a little note to the person I was sending it to. All my cards were unique, I didn't simply write the same thing in each card. Some were the general "happy holidays" sentiment, but I always tried to say something personal to each person.

Then technology happened. You can simply buy your entire card, complete with picture of the family and already signed. All the person has to do is address the envelope, which is sometimes even simply labeled from a computer printout of their address book.

I sent out maybe 75 cards this year and it took me hours and hours of writing. So when I noticed that most of the cards I received in return were all pre-personalized, I missed the reason we send cards. Sure, creating, buying and addressing these cards still show the person you are thinking about them this Holiday season, but the receiver doesn't see any of this work. We just get a card that was no different from all the other cards that were sent.

These cards ~are~ appreciated, don't get me wrong. I was happy to receive each and every one of them. This year, I just noticed how many were already signed in printed text and, I don't know, it was a little disheartening. I think I only noticed because I had just spent every evening of the past week writing my cards or I probably wouldn't of even given this thought.

I was just discussing this with a friend and I thought about something I hadn't thought about - the fact that the majority of the people who send these types of pre-personalized cards are mostly younger than me. Either younger than me or they didn't start sending out cards back when the pre-personalization wasn't an option. So I think this is all the newer generation passing up an older tradition. For me, using a pre-personalized holiday card would be a change and I'm simply sticking with what I know. For those who use pre-personalized cards, they are simply doing what they know. It's not that they are skipping the handwritten note, it's that the handwritten note wasn't even one of the options.

Again, I want to say I still appreciate every single card sent to me. I know some of the senders are readers of my blog and I want to make sure I'm ~not~ giving the wrong message. I have the tendancy to do that because since I know how I feel, I don't feel guilty writing a post like this one. I know that when I say I appreciated those cards, I really did. I'm not just saying that to make anyone feel better. Even pre-personalized, they were still personalized. These cards contained beautiful pictures of families and that's about as personal as someone could get.

Remember, I'm simply talking about the handwritten note, the signed name, the hand addressing of a card. I find all of these things nice and I'm a little sad to see them go.