By now most of us have already mailed our Christmas cards (at least those few of us who are holding on to this paper bound tradition). Part of the process for most is a review of the names to adjust addresses, add names, and in some rare occasions remove a name from the list.
I don’t know if this is true with most people, but frankly a person is more likely to be removed from the TSA “Do Not Fly” List than they are to be removed from my Christmas card list. I carry names forward long after I’ve stopped actively carrying them in my heart (and barely in my memory).
There is no logical criteria for retention or removal of card recipients. Certainly reciprocation barely figures in if at all. I don’t know how universal is my experience, but my send to receive rate is less than 50%. Every year I think of setting up a send receive matrix, but then I remember that I have things to do.
I also have not often let the vagaries of human relationship terminate the Christmas card relationship. I have sent cards to people with whom I’ve had fallings out, people with whom I barely talk, and people I frankly don’t like (no one on my current list fits into this category).
I guess it feels too final to actually take a name from the list. There is a kind of death in this culling. In fact I always move these addresses to a “Dormant” spreadsheet in the chance that they might someday re-emerge like Lazarus.
Looking through my list, and thinking about the other lists I’ve seen, I’ve found several types of people that maybe should be cut down but who persist from year to year.
- Asymmetrical relatives: Of course you send cards to your immediate family, often grandparents, uncles, aunts, and first cousins…but there sometimes a outlier, a second cousin-in-law with a limitless list and a strong sense of genealogy.
- Former coworkers: In most offices, Christmas cards are usually distributed using the inter-office mailboxes (or just leaving cards on desks). When one leaves one office for another, usually a few addresses are added to the list. Addresses that often stay far beyond the next job change.
- Never answerers: These are people to whom you send cards who never send cards themselves. Since you never receive a card from them, there is no indication of when it is appropriate to stop sending on your end.
- Downgraded: Friends who used to receive a gift, and though that no longer felt natural, it was equally weird to not greet them at Christmas, so a card (usually with comments about not seeing each other enough and strong intentions to see each other more in the new year) will suffice.
- Newbies: Every year you add a few new names just to “try out.” You s well might remove them next year. Ten years later you wonder how that name got on there, and how it stayed on so long.
I love sending Christmas cards to everyone on my list…no matter how long they remain there.
As always, I welcome your comments.
Image: http://copycatcollector.blogspot.com/2011/12/collection-124-vintage-christmas-cards.html?m=1