Melbourne Herald Sun, 19th December 2009
The other day I heard a comment in trendy Albert Park. Two mid-30s yummy mummies catching up over their soy lattes. “I just haven’t had a minute to send out the Christmas cards this year.” “Same here - it’s going to be emails again like last year.” They nodded in agreement.
Eavesdropping from the next table, my reaction was: “Thank goodness - I’m not the only one.” Yes I’m afraid my friends and extended family - as opposed to immediate family who have been carded and gifted already - will receive their warm, heartfelt greetings. But without the postage stamp.
Over this decade, as the internet has grown from strength to strength, the world has seen a decline in Christmas cards.
In Britain the number of festive cards bought in shops has dropped by 20 million in the past two years. Even more worrying, a recent survey showed that 40 per cent of the under-35s have given up the card habit.
In America the number of Christmas cards received in the average home dropped from 29 in 1987, to 20 in 2004. Latest figures indicate that the decline is continuing.
The ever-sunny Australia Post PR machine assures us that in fact nothing has changed. Just a few weeks age they announced that AP expects to deliver 470 million mail articles across Australia, up from 450 million in 2006. But are they Christmas cards I wonder? They are certainly not coming to my letter box, how about yours?
The post office and Christmas cards have always been linked. The first commercial cards were produced in London in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole - one of the creators of the Penny Post three years earlier, the foundation of all the world’s postal services.
For a century and a half the cards flourished as a form of social massage for the human family. Even if you only met with your cousin once every ten years, you could be guaranteed to exchange cards every Christmas. It said “I know you’re there and I still care for you”.
Modern communications have changed all that. Your cousin knows you are here because every few weeks you share a dirty joke with him and your friends in your emails. Girls now have cordless and mobile phones so they can have long chats with their girlfriends while they make the beds or cook the dinner (how does my wife do that? I am in wonder at her multi-skilling). And Skype means that even interstate or overseas friends can stay in the circle for a low cost.
In Britain again, they estimate that email cards are growing by 200 per cent a year. There are now thousands of card services on line which allow you to email all your friends and customers, and others that will produce and individualise cards from your mailing list, with your message, and send out the cards in the mail.
Of course all the Scrooges have lots of good excuses. Cards are too expensive, postage is exorbitant, a postal strike could stop them arriving, they are environmentally damaging both in production and disposal, and who has got time between job and home and kids and preparing for Christmas - to sit down and write cards?
But there is something a little sad about a barren dresser with just a few cards from your parents and aged aunts to show it is Christmas.
Well let me take this opportunity to thank you, my loyal reader, for sticking with me all year. This is my Christmas card to you, if you wish you may clip it out and place it on the mantlepiece. And do have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! Cheers - Ray.
Ray@ebeatty.com
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