Because you need it, Rabrrrrrr's Christmas Card etiquette

Since so many people have no idea what proper etiquette is around the issue of sending cards, and this deficiency is especially obvious around the issue of the Christmas card, I feel it is my duty to fill you in on etiquette and protocol so that you don't offend or look like a mucous-swilling ignorant self-absorbed sweatsuit wearing ass this holiday season.

You must include a personal, hand-written note

Every card that comes with just a signature I say "FUCK YOU!" I really do - it's so fucking rude, I can't stand it.

Only signing a card, and not putting a personal note in it, tells the recipient that all they are is another name on the sender's card list so that they can brag to their permed-and-dyed-hair obnoxious equally vapid inconsequential Budweiser-and-Marlboros-for-breakfast friends "I sent 200 cards this year!"

If the only thing I ever hear from someone each year is getting an ugly fucking Currier and Ives Christmas card with four lines of pissant putrid pusillanimous poetry and a signature and no note, then I don't fucking want to hear from them at all. "Please just write me out of your life" I want to say to them, "Because obviously I am irrelevant to you anyway".

Unless the sender is 95 and full of arthritis or has some other legitimate PHYSICAL reason not to write notes, it's lazy-all discourteousness to only sign a card.

I write a personal note in every card I send out - generally, a full paragraph. I refuse to send a card without some personalization. Is it a pain in the ass? Sure it is, but these people are MY FRIENDS, and THEY DESERVE ME SHOWING SOME RESPECT. It also ensures that I only send cards to people who are truly close to me and that I care about, instead of trying to crank up my card count.


The "Yearly Update" Blasphemy

Christmas cards are not the time to give people your news. If you actually cared about those people, and actually cared that they knew what was happening in your life, you would tell them when it mattered, not save it up in a last minute longwinded brag/whine fest. If you feel the need to do a yearly recap, send it in fucking July. Don't send it at Christmas. Dumbass.

Insufferable is all I have to say to that.

It's also rude - because it's insanely self-focused and selfish - if you ARE one of the insufferable types who insists on the yearly letter, to include mention of suffering. It's bad enough to send a canned photocopied note to everyone unless you are one of the 20 or so truly good writers in the country who can pull it off, but to send that note and include the suffering? Fuck that. Totally rude. People don't need to know in a Christmas card that you got your pecker caught in the babysitter so your wife divorced you; or that your colon is acting up; or that your dog died; or that you went bankrupt. These are all sad things, and, gosh, I sympathize with you, but don't tell me in a fucking Christmas card. If you didn't feel I was important enough to tell when it happened to you, then I'm not important enough to get your yearly shitfest of useless self-indulgent storytelling. And truthfully, there is a 90 percent chance that you shouldn't try writing because you probably suck at it.

No, every card should be hand signed, and include at least one personal sentence, handwritten. Remember, if something is important to let people know about it, it's important enough to let them know when it happened.

What kind of pen and ink does a properly courteous person use, Rabrrrrrr?

One certainly does not use a pencil. If you can't be bothered to use a pen, then don't even send a card. Unless you are allergic to pens or have a verified phobia of metal cylinders, use a goddamn pen.

Don't use a disposable ball point pen, like a fucking Bic. Believe me, people can tell that you couldn't be bothered to spring for a $1 pen that doesn't leave skips, bumps, and empty spots in the writing. In fact, don't even use a good ballpoint pen. Because there is no such thing.

Get a nice pen - a fountain pen is ideal, using bottled ink. That's the ultimate in good taste. But, even a rollerball or felt pen is good, too - even ink flow, it looks nice, it doesn't skip and look tatty and like it was written by a sweatsuit wearing heavy-breathing case of Pepsi-a-day drinking WalMart customer.

But what about color of ink? Well, since it's a holiday, almost anything goes. Black of course is always appropriate; standard pen blue, of course, is always totally inappropriate. Just like a suit.

Pthalo blue, Deep blue, Night blue, etc. are all okay - it's just that normal blue that one finds in cheap pens that is totally and utterly wrong and tells your recipient that you would just as soon hammer their head to Rush Limbaugh's ass with a I-beam and a stoat sternum as give them the time of day or let them use utensils when they eat at your home. Actually, it tells them that you have no utensils at home. Just like wearing a blue suit.

Red, green, purple, magenta, crimson, rose, forest green, Martyr Blood Red, all these are perfectly fine ink colors.

A reminder, though: if you are using a fountain pen (and remember, no one with good breeding uses a fountain pen with ink cartridges; bottled ink only, unless its an ink that only comes in cartridges), watch for smearing and use a blotter. Smearing is tacky.

Where do I write in the card?

I'm only going to deal with cards that have one fold, and one fold only (that is, not zero folds and not two or more folds; if you find a card that has a negative number of folds, please write a physics paper and submit it to "Science" Magazine). This applies to ones in which the fold is vertical or horizontal.

The cover we'll call page 1. Then the inside cover, page 2. Then the second inside page, which on 99.999% of all cards is the page that comes with the shitty poetry written by a poorly educated Shopko shopper, is page 3. The back of the card, where the UPC usually is, is page 4.

The rule is this: your note starts on page 3, then moves to page 4, then back to the inside to finish on page 2. Unless you have a card that has a shitload of crap on page 4; use your judgment. If there's only room for two columns of one-word width each, then skip that page.

How do I address the cards?

You might think I am being mean, but remember: you are sending a card to someone because you like them, and want them to know that you like them. So, printed labels are an abomination. As are - and brace yourself - printed return address labels.

Here's the scoop - if you are sending a card to someone, and you don't feel that they are worth the effort to hand write their name and address and your name and address, then you obviously don't care enough about them to send a card, and so you should take them off your list. This is not a moral judgment on you - it's just the truth. Think about this logically - if a person isn't worth the 30 seconds to handwrite their name and address, then why are you even sending them a card? They clearly are not your friends; and cards should only be sent to friends or clients who actually matter to you.

And YES, your name and address should be on the envelope. Cards sent without a return address say to the receiver "I'm afraid to let you know who sent this to you, and I don't care enough about you to have the post office return unedliverable mail with your new address printed on it". This is very much like refusing to let people see your phone number when you call them - it's fucking rude.

Can I use printed cards?

Christmas is one of the rare instances in which a printed card is okay. Just find something tactful, please.

What about the family photo in the card?

If you get a photo that's actually professionally done (and "professional" does not include the K-Mart photo department "Christmas Card Special"; and a photo that doesn't have you dressed in anything remotely Christmas related; and in a scene that has nothing to do with Christmas; and you are actually posed by a professional and not a Technical College "Photo Major" Ansel Adams wannabe working the WalMart photo department where they crank out 500 cards for $80, then it's okay to include a photo WITH the card you are sending IF the person you are sending it to is a close friend who will actually give a fuck and IF for some reason you couldn't manage to take a family photo at a more appropriate time except around Christmas (perhaps one of your children was home only at Thanksgiving this year, and so you were stuck with that). Any other time, you should have your family photo taken in an appropriate way, at an appropriate time, and send the pictures out immediately without any holiday bullshit attached to it.

And why is that?

Because in the area of etiquette, it's ALL about the other person - making them feel special. Handwritten notes, personalization, handwritten name and address, a handwritten return address, and a decent pen will let the other person know that you actually care about them and that they aren't just a notch on the bedpost of your Christmas card campaign.

If the best you can do is send me a card with a printed mailing label, no return address, a card that isn't a card but is just a picture of your family dressed in the same shittily artless appliqued Christmas-themed sweaters/sweatshirts in some cutesy artless fuck pose, with only your signature on it, then don't send me a fucking card and instead give me the cheapest Christmas present that exists: get out of my fucking life.

There are some people we know who every year send us only a rectangular photo of their children with some Xmas trimmings in the corner and not even a signature. These people are also repugs naturally enough. On the other extreme are my wife's cousins (some of them) who send the lengthy Xmas bulletins which I never read. That is how I deal with those. There are also the politicians who send us pics of their families with fake signatures but since they are Dems I forgive them this fault.

WAIT, what about the relatives &/or acquaintances who use the opportunity to send very religious cards with Bible verses etc. when they know (or should know) you have no such inclinations. I used to reply to one of them by sending very pious cards with blank pages upon which I would transcribe a medieval Latin hymn and then not translate it. Hah!

Ewwwwww. I have yet to save a single one of them.

Pictures that people send at other times, that are tactfully done, I'm willing to save.

The people who send the very religious cards don't bother me so much - it's the evangelical saccharine Christians that really sicken me with their shitty theology and vapid prosody, but I don't mind that they send them - it's a reflection of who they are, and that's okay. Just like I don't mind getting non-religious cards from my non-religious friends, so also I don't mind the freaky religious sending me their freaky religious cards.

Now, if YOU and other non-believers are the only ones they are sending the Christian facist cards, then that's a problem - they are inappropriately using the opportunity to jam thjeir religion down your throat. But, if they bought a box of 50 of one card and everyone gets it, then so be it.

I love your idea of including a Latin hymn - more than likely, they assumed you were sending them anti-Christian occultish stuff, having no clue that Latin was the lingua franca of the church for 1500 years.

in the card, and will impress people. Four lines swimming in white space looks like much less writing than one line with almost no white space left.

cheese inside it? Do I have to respond in kind? Can I counter with a slice of dried lunch meat, or does politeness require I stay within the same food group?:shrug:

I'm thinking it's in retaliation for my having not-so-covertly signed her up for information by mail from various fringe-religious groups.:o :rofl:

It was icky. She also has possession of a nine-year-old rotting (formerly)giant carrot we had in college. I'm just WAITING for that to show up at my house at some point....

Magic Mushroom Tied with a big paisley bow ala Martha Stewart.

in college?

Bio lab experiment? Rival school's mascot?



I just can't imagine... :shrug:

Actually, it was deformed and slightly spongy, and we used to hide in each other's pillows and belongings. It was a rather grotesque thing to encounter unexpectedly. Sometimes we would travel with it and photograph it in various scenic environments.

I used to have "discos" in my dorm room, when I got drunk.:rofl: After one such occasion, "the carrot" disappeared and I though it had been permanently lost until it turned up one day, in my mini-fridge, complete with photos of where it had been and all the "fun" it had.

I don't give a crap if you send one or not. If you do, keep it less than one paragraph, because I won't read more than four sentences before getting bored.

In fact, just send twenty toadskins, and ixnay on the smalltalk.

:cry:

Though i know that some rollerballs (if not most) will smear.

Or if you have a linotype machine, it's okay to use so long as you set your own type.

:-)

Seriously, though, some rollerballs and all sharpies will work. Being left-handed is a pain in the ass for writing, I know. I'm not one, but I have left-handed friends and I studied Hebrew so I learned what it's like to write with a hand that has to go over the writing and have much empathy for the lefties out there.

Smear smeary smear smear and a happy smear!

Cards should be about "how are you and I'm thinking about you" not "I'm so cool, and here is my well parented cool family". I do object to your dislike of preprinted return address labels though. I just got a card last week from an old friend and his address label was printed by BoysTown and reminded me that they were still around. I'm making a donation.

Can I put you down for a fruitcake instead?

:7

as long as I am in school.

You have years to go!!! Now get out your damned fountain pen, and write a Christmas Card correctly!

I can't have my two spiritual leaders on DU arguing like this.....

I get "bullet-hard" fruitcake all the time. I see it as my spiritual duty to pass it along to someone who can actually use the stuff.

And, it helps the fruitcake with self-esteem issues.

It's all her fault.

:shrug:

I usually buy some nice cards and use a decent pen but I only scribble a few lines about how much I love the person and seal the envelope after enclosing a check. Oh well I do only send to a few anyway I guess that will be one less. *sigh* ;)

I value cards with just a signature; I don't make requirements from people already making a lovely gesture by getting and sending me the card.

Thank you; not all of us are so concerned with class. I'm more concerned with happiness and good thoughts.
I guess that comes from an income of less than 30 grand a year, we can't afford to do it "the right way."

Two were signed only, one was a family "Christmas" picture from Wal-Mart, and one was a family Christmas picture card professionally done. Oh, wait, my cousin sent a card that she wrote a note in.

I can't wait to get my aunt's (poorly typed) update of the whole family (including said cousin) even though her kids are 32 and 36. :eyes:

1. The reason I send cards is so I don't have to think up and write a paragraph for everyone on the list. Some of the cards are merely courtesies anyway. I don't like all my relatives and am not friends with more of my colleagues, so any personal note would be hypocritical.

2. I like pencils. Anyone who is critical of the kind of ink he gets on a card that the sender has no obligation to send anyway would not be on my list. My best friend from high school sends me letters sometimes written in pencil. He is a math professor and uses nothing else. Should I hold that against him?

3. "...you are sending a card to someone because you like them...." I think you meant "you are sending a card to someone because you like HIM or HER." Bad grammar is disrespectful to your addressee who you obviously think does not deserve the best language. Again, some cards are mere courtesy.

4. Family photo cards: geez, what a snob!

5. Printed cards: all greeting cards are printed. How do you think they get the images onto the paper?

6. Sorry that your American Greeting stocks are not doing so well. Let me try to make up for it by getting you "the cheapest Christmas present that exists."

Sorry, to the OP but sometimes a card is just a card.

Pound with nails on doors?

Pour wine not Dramboui?

Put wet noodles in the drain?

Prawns wiggle at noon daily?

:shrug:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pwnd

:D

I had a similar response. What I can't believe is some people applauded the original post.

obnoxious in a Christmas card. However, what's worse is minute detail about the good stuff. I received a card yesterday with a printed "letter" that after the obligatory "Merry Christmas" started out "Professionally, I served as President of the blah blah blah....." and then proceeded with a month by month description of every trip my well travelled aquaintance took including destination and travelling companions...."We flew to New York for five days and spent them sightseeing with Jim and Sue from Pennsylvania...." "I won two business card drawings....."
"We went camping with friends Mark and Cindy and Don and Karen at the such and such campground off I-5 in San Diego county....."

I have more respect for my friends than to think they'd be the least bit interested in knowing who I camped in the desert with one weekend or what I won at a freaking rubber chicken dinner on a business trip.

I agree with you. A few handwritten lines is preferable to these cheesy generic "letters" anyday.

They don't come out around here until Thanksgiving. Is that ok?
And my daughter wants to write the notes in the cards this year. She's only five so I've thought about pencil for the message and ink for the signature(five year olds make alot of mistakes when they write and she gets frustrated when she uses a pen). I like the idea of her doing it-teaches her early on how to properly fill out a card(w/o all the crap that most people do).
Do you think that would be ok or just obnoxious?

I'm always reminded of Charlie Brown's awful luck with trying to write with a pen... children, for whatever reason, can have such a hard time learning how to use a pen. It's better now that fountain pens aren't the only option (which I think was charlie's problem, fountain pens were the only things they had then).

I think school pics are fine, and since they come out about this time, including them in a Christmas card is a natural option.

Great idea - wonderfully excellent idea - to have your child be included in the writing of cards. Bravo for you! This will be a great experience and learning time for her, and I think it's wonderful that you are early on in her life establishing a pattern of writing cards and the importance of correspondance. I bet you are owne of those wonderful parents who make sure that their children write thank you notes, and that they write them themselves as well.

It's also okay for you to write your own note in the cards as well.

It would only be obnoxious if you forced her to do it, and to do it "cutely". But as it is her initiative, let her have at it!

:applause:

:yourock:

Rabrrrrrr my little cutie-faced one. They tend suspiciously toward ways of deciding "whom 'we're' going to like and whom 'we're' not" and I've a very effective natural detector for that sort of thing.

Also, I'm possibly a tad more patient with people than are you. Perhaps. :hi:

I disagree only on the point of sending a few paragraphs on each and every card. If someone I know only in the slightest way sends me a card I'd think it rude and somewhat frosty not to send a card in reply. But I'd also think it more than a little presumptuous to jot out an entire paragraph of social blather. A signature would suffice.

My correspondence is never a contest.

Ah, people and their holiday expectations, which are -- surprise, surprise -- doomed to disappointment.

You're busy nailing people to crosses for perceived affronts. WRONG HOLIDAY, bubbeleh.

traditions we hold sacred at our house! We've been doing it every year since our oldest son's first Xmas (he's 9 now); and the challenges of trying to get a decent photo of two adults, one pre-adolescent, and a two-year-old are monumental. We change the setting every year; some indoor,some outdoor... and there's always lots of cursing (TERRIBLE, I know), and bloody marys or mimosas, but this shit is HARD WORK! Every year in the middle of the whole ordeal, I always swear I'll NEVER do this again. Then my relatives back East tell me how much they love the pictures, and we always do it again.
We once set up the videocam to tape our little 'perfect family photo session' (we were out in the desert decorating a Saguaro cactus that particular year),and much to my horror, my Mormon mother-in-law asked to see the tape. I think she went directly to the Temple afterward for some sort of 'cleansing' ritual..LOL.
But we always look spectacular, and that's the point of Christmas, isn't it?
It isn't? oh well...

too, trying to get everyone interested and settled and stop running around...

For something so simple, it can be an awful chore.

Mom always loved having the picture, yes, but hated the process. :-)

And it sounds to me like YOUR family pictures are nicely done ones; not cheap-ass KMart ones done in front of a matte painting of a fireplace with everyone wearing the same red sweater.

Thanks. I think I have complied with all of your rules for Christmas card etiquette. BTW, my MIL sent a card - blank - no signature whatsoever, no "love, Mom", no NOTHING. And she had the nerve to go after my hubby about writing "thank you for your generous gift" in a thank you card to an uncle who gave us money as a wedding gift. So, I ask, is it tacky to write "thank you for the money" in the thank you card, or is "thank you for your generous gift" acceptable?

Yeah, that's really something.

I think it's best to always mention the gift in the thank you note, to let the person know that you aren't just cranking out thank you cards in an assembly line and randomly putting them in envelopes. If someone goes to the trouble to send me a gift, then I should at least go to the trouble to mention the gift in the thank you note, and preferably mention somehow how it will be used or how much you appreciate it, e.g., "Thank you for the money you gave us - we will put it toward our honeymoon and raise a toast to you during the meal you have bought for us", or "Thank you for the video game. I have already gotten hours of entertainment from it!" or "Thank you for the original van Gogh - it's truly beautiful, and we'll be selling it to buy sex toys for our new dungeon!" something like that.

"Thank you for your generous gift" is too generic, and doesn't tell the person receiving the note that you have any idea what they gave you. "Thank you for your generous gift of the crystal champagne flutes" is okay.

I always mention what the gift is in a note, but I am wary about it when it comes to cash. I always thought it seemed tacky. Thanks for letting me in on the secret!

And if you don't want to say "gift of money", you can say something like "Thank you for the generous gift - we will use the money on our honeymoon...".

Or "tahnk you for the gift - the roaster will be so useful for the holidays!"

That is all.

:P

Besides I prefer green ink. ooooh. what are you gonna do, fly to my house and kick me in the balls now? Set my fucking holiday tree on fire and nail my cat to the door? Well excuuuuuuse me. Who died and made you the king of card etiquette?

snicker.

BTW loved your post - pretty much dead on; only thing missing is the sam kinnison scream at the end of each paragraph. aa aa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! :evilgrin:

Thanks!

It would be funny with the Sam Kinnison scream! It's so sad that the died so young. He might ave gone on to greatness. I loved his part as the crazy professor in "Back to School".

I absolutely can't stand the yearly updates. Last year one of our repug relatives used their Christmas letter to point out how much they hate the politics in MA. It was very sickening.

About hand-writing, though. Generally I agree with you. I'm not 95 with arthritis, and I CAN write. But a neurological problem makes it impossible to write legibly. I can't even figure out what I've written. So I print my cards on the computer, including a personalized message, and use printed labels for both addresses. I haven't explained to all my friends why I do this, so I guess some of them think I'm horribly rude. But they still send me a card. :)

Oh, and I'm a southpaw. When I was young and they tried to turn me right-handed, the teacher could always tell if I did my homework left-handed because I always blotted the fountain-pen ink with my hand and left blotches on the paper.

Funny -- my mom buys the most beautiful cards and then just signs them, "Mom". :rofl:

right.

See how many cards you get. ;)

Cheesy, amateur, professional - it makes no difference. I want to see how my friends look, how old their kids are, etc.

We've started taking vacation pictures in obvious places (last year, the Grand Canyon, this year Mt. Rushmore) using them for our cards, and claiming we are in the Witness Protection Program and therefore can't say where we're mailing the card from.




Ran into someone recently who said "my husband and I wracked our brains, but couldn't figure out your secret location -- where were you??!!" I knew she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but....

Can I get on your Christmas list? I swear I won't demand you sign your cards with a fountain pen!

:7

I like the idea of sending a real photo of the family actually doing something, or being formally posed - I don't like the "This is what we look like when we're all wearing the same thing trying to look christmas-y".

to people. Maybe they aren't uncaring idiots who want to win the Christmas card derby. Maybe, just maybe, they're well-intentioned people who care about you and aren't blessed with unlimited time, unlimited resources and perfect handwriting. In other words, maybe you should pull the sprig of holly out of your ass and lighten the hell up. Good lord you must be difficult to know. I'd be afraid of offending you at every turn.

If I hand-printed the addresses on my cards the post office would never deliver them because I have terrible handwriting that only gets worse as I get older. Sorry, I guess it's a good thing you're not on my Christmas list because I use *GASP* printed address labels. Of course, I'm a graphic designer so I design my own cards, address labels and, this year, even my own postage stamps. So most people on my list tell me they really look forward to my cards every year.

I also have 10 siblings, dozens of nieces and nephews, a huge extended family on my husband's side, and many friends. So sometimes I just don't get to hear or share everyone's news from the year. It doesn't mean I don't care to hear it, or that I don't care to share my news. It just means that sometimes people are just busy living their lives and aren't blessed with unlimited free time to call or write each and every person they love with complete updates. Your declaration about "If you actually cared about those people, and actually cared that they knew what was happening in your life, you would tell them when it mattered, not save it up..." reminds me of people who spend all their time scrap-booking about every little detail of their lives instead of living it. Sometimes the people with the most news are the ones too busy to share it "when it matters".

As long as it isn't filled with a laundry list of bad news, I'm happy to get xmas letters from people. And I have sent them myself when we've had a particularly busy year with lots of news. My feeling is that no one is forcing anyone to read them. I don't quiz people on the information I've supplied in my letters. Nor do I feel obligated to read every line of every letter I get. Sometimes it's really a matter of tone. I'm thrilled to read the news people want to share with me, but if it's written with a tone of boasting, self-absorption, or negativity, I get turned off. But that's pretty rare. Maybe I just know more witty and interesting people than you know.

And, Shiva H. Vishnu, you're REALLY going to come down on people about PEN CHOICE and INK COLOR? Really? Please tell me you're kidding. I mean, why stop there? If they don't fill those fancy fountain pens (or quills, really the better choice) with ink made from berries that they specifically grew over the summer for the sole purpose of making their cards really special, why bother right? And if the people who send you cards aren't artistic enough to make their own cards, shouldn't they at least care enough to send cards on uncoated, cotton rag 80 lb. cover stock with a wax seal? Anything less just screams "Fuck you!" I also think a costumed courier to deliver the cards is really a must. Sending cards through the mail is just tacky. Don't even get me started on postage stamps.

If you have an attitude like that in your public persona, don't worry. I think soon pretty much everyone you know will "get out of fucking life". Who would want to have their every kind gesture judged for purity of intent?

:yourock:

How much do you have to pay extra to make your own stamps? I've seen them, but haven't seen prices, and wonder if they are hella pricier than 37 cents each? And where do you make/get them?

I think that's a really cool idea!

to read your instruction manual.

I am on page 721 of my missive to my step mother.

I sent out a Holiday card with a printed letter this year. My husband and I signed the letter and I wrote brief happy holidays note inside each card.

And you know what? I've already received feedback from the family and friends I sent the card to, they've all said how nice it was to receive the letter. Crazy thing, they enjoyed being thought of around the holidays.

I'll let them know they have no class. And I'll lash myself with a wet noodle for not using an eagle quill and bottle of liquid gold when I signed. Obviously there is classy ink and bourgeois ink.