Once upon a time, when I was a kid and well into adulthood, everyone sent Christmas cards to everyone. We sent cards to our next door neighbors. To our best friend who we talked to every day. To our boss and co-workers. We sent cards to casual acquaintances. They weren’t necessarily precious, but they were plentiful. We hung them on ribbons strung over windows and doors, taped them to walls, tucked them into special baskets and boxes that soon overflowed. They became décor. Evidence. Proof of connection.
The post office was so busy it delivered mail twice-a-day during the week and once on Sundays during the holidays. Yes, even on Sundays. That feels like a fairy tale now.
Then things changed. Postage crept up. Cards got more expensive. Life got faster. And technology—helpful, miraculous technology—made it possible to “stay in touch” without actually touching anything. Email replaced letters. Texts replaced phone calls. Social media replaced updates. Efficiency became the goal, and effort quietly fell out of fashion.
I’ll be honest: I went along with it.
I told myself, I’m adapting. I’m modern. I’m keeping up with the times. Some years I quit sending Christmas cards altogether and tossed up a cheerful holiday meme on Facebook, like that should count for something. And somehow, it did—until it didnt.
Somewhere along the way, I also developed a strange aversion to making phone calls. Phone calls started to feel difficult. I was busy. Handwritten notes felt like homework. I found myself resenting people who didn’t text or email, as if they were the problem for expecting more from me. If I had to pick up the phone, I felt a flutter of anxiety—a mini-panic attack. Does this sound familiar? Anyone…?
I’m ashamed to confess that some relationships thinned during that time. Not dramatically. No falling-outs. Just drift. Friends—most of ’em in my age group—who still stubbornly stayed in the 20th Century, reachable only by phone or postal mail, slowly slipped out of my daily orbit. We didn’t stop caring about each other. We just stopped keeping up.
Christmas cards stage a comeback
For a while, the cards were once-a-year lifelines. A brief catch-up. A handwritten snapshot of a life still unfolding somewhere parallel to mine. When they arrived, I was thrilled. Genuinely. I’d read them carefully, sometimes more than once, hungry for details. What matters to this family now? What has changed? What hasn’t?
It struck me as ironic—and more than a little humbling—that the very thing I’d dismissed as outdated had become the most meaningful connection left with some of my oldest and used-to-be-closest friends.
I sent out cards sporadically. A few here, a few there. Some years, none at all. I told myself, They’ll understand. Everyone is busy. Everyone is online. And then—quietly, collectively—something began shifting. It’s happening now.
People got tired…
…tired of screens. Tired of shallow check-ins. Tired of messages that vanished as soon as they’d arrived. Tired of performing happiness for an audience instead of sharing reality with a human being. And after years marked by isolation, loss, uncertainty, and change, a surprising number of people has begun drifting back to Christmas cards—not out of obligation, but out of longing.
Even younger people, who didn’t grow up with the tradition, started experimenting. They discovered what we once knew instinctively: that there’s something powerful about a physical object showing up just for you. Something grounding about holding in your hand the proof that someone took the time.
The market paid attention. Christmas cards became more personal, more honest, more creative. People started choosing—or creating—cards that actually said something. Family stories in 100 words or less. Handcrafted cards. Pop-ups. Gate-folds. Eco-friendly paper. Multi-faith, multi-holiday greetings. Less Look how perfect we are, more This year was real.
The messages changed
We write differently now. Loneliness during the COVID lockdown as well as loneliness in general, stripped away the fluff. Cards became braver. Softer. More honest. Thinking of you. I’m still here. You’re not forgotten. In 2025, a Christmas card isn’t a report card on your life—it’s a small, deliberate reach across the distance between you and a friend.
Sassy cards flourished right alongside the heartfelt ones. Because forced cheer is exhausting. After everything we’ve lived through, many of us simply refuse to slap a smiley face on reality. Irreverent cards tell the truth with a wink and a smile. They roll their eyes at perfection and still manage to say, I see you.
Snark, after all, is intimate. You don’t send a sarcastic card to just anyone. It assumes shared humor, trust, and an emotional bond. And for those of us aging audaciously, wit becomes a power move. Proof that humor doesn’t dull with age — it sharpens. In fact, the cards that get saved aren’t always the sweetest or prettiest ones. They’re the ones that make someone laugh and feel seen.
I send fewer cards now than I did back in the day, but they mean more. The list is shorter. Curated. If you get one, you’re not just on a mailing list—you’re important in my life.
Stamp selection, envelopes, and the aesthetics of snail mail have taken on new significance. It turns a simple card into a tangible experience. In a world where communication is mostly invisible, the look and feel of a piece of mail isn’t decoration—it’s the message itself.
A Christmas card doesn’t perform. And it doesn’t disappear. It sits there. On a table. On a shelf. On a mantel. It gets reread. Some of them get saved. It quietly insists that someone thought of you on purpose.
A hug across the miles
In short, a Christmas card is a long-distance hug. And in a world obsessed with fast and efficient, I’ll take slow, tangible, and real every single time.
Merry Christmas!
*****
The author
Carol Purroy is the author of 13 published books, including her most recent, Audacious Aging (bit.ly/3W7ghpz ), and the TEEN EMPOWERMENT SERIES: Self-love 2.0 ( bit.ly/4d0dyFH ); Leadership 2.0 ( bit.ly/47fVaXc ); Financial Literacy 2.0 ( bit.ly/3Xao8D4 ); Entrepreneurship 2.0 (bit.ly/3LLQcKr ); and the I BELIEVE IN ME Affirmations Coloring Book ( bit.ly/4apYnXt ). She hopes yoy’ll check ’em out.