November 29 - Electronic Greetings Day

Posted on November 29, 2020

Do you get birthday cards in the mail?

Do you get holiday cards such as Christmas or Kwanzaa greetings?

Do you SEND greeting cards or holiday cards to friends or loved ones? And, if you do, do you do it the slower, more expensive way – with paper cards, envelopes, and stamps, that is!?

Key Points

For about a century, the mid-1800s until the mid-1990s, the
custom of sending printed greeting cards and especially Christmas cards grew and grew until multiple billions of cards are sold every year. But greeting cards – and postage – can be quite expensive, especially if you send out a lot. Even an average person sending not-all-that-posh cards to parents and cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles, colleagues and friends, neighbors and important business contacts might have a Christmas-card list that is about 100 names long – and that could cost around $135! Which is quite a bit of money – and if that “average person” also sends birthday greetings to a substantial portion of this list, then that person is spending a lot! Every year!

Sending printed photo cards used to be REALLY expensive

See also Terrified Night Watchmen

And…then there’s the waste:

More than 2.5 billion Christmas cards are bought in the U.S. alone – every year! – and that makes a lot of waste to add to the waste that wrapping paper and packaging and other holiday-related activities generate. Wow! Leaving aside all the waste produced by Christmas in America, the greeting cards alone could fill a football field 10 stories high!!!

But technology can enable us to send colorful greetings with personalized messages, thoughtful letters, and personal photos or even videos very inexpensively – usually for free! – and with zero waste! And people who procrastinate can still get their greetings to their loved ones on time, because email and other electronic messaging is almost instant! Because of the convenience, speed, lack of expense and zero-waste involved in sending electronic greetings rather than paper-and-postage cards, electronics greetings are gaining in popularity!

To celebrate, just use your smart phone, tablet, laptop, or computer to craft holiday greetings! Or explore e-card companies with inexpensive or free offerings. Animated snowmen, anyone?