Christmas eCards

This year it was difficult to do Christmas Cards since I was out for 8 days with back problems.  Jenna and Ellen created the assembly line and we mailed a few (card, letter, and picture of the kids and dogs, with signatures from all and a brief note).  I violated my own rule of sending a picture without Susan and I in the shot (see Happy Holidays from the Kids). 

This year I also wimped out and used a BlueMountain.com ecard instead of creating my own customized email Xmas email.  It was a great animated card to "God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen".  I'm actually surprised at how few ecards I received  (20%) vs snail mail traditional cards.  BlueMountain had this great feature to post a card to someone's wall on Facebook - or actually post it to your own wall (which I did). 

Like any good statistician, I wondered how fast traditions change.  For example 20 years ago there were not these Holiday Picture (usually of the kids) Legal Envelope size shots.  For the volume sender what could be more convenient - slap a mailing label on; return address; stamp; insert picture; and send (no note; no actual signature). To bad the picture is dated or you could use any excess for the following year.  Nearly 50% of the cards we received this year were of this type vs the traditional Hallmark folding card.

I suppose the reaction to my BlueMountain ecard is similar to my critic above of the Holiday Mass Mailing - how impersonal!  Where's the investment of time and thought? Why did Garen even bother?

Well - I will survey the reaction and modify for next year.  And if you didn't get an ecard this year - chalk that up to my mis-management of Outlook's address book (and a bad back).