The next time I decide to send out holiday cards…

17th December 2007

The next time I decide to send out holiday cards…

posted in Mom Rants, Mom Friends |

I thought my fine tuned organizational skills at work would behoove me in ordering holiday cards this season, the first season I have ever send out holiday cards. Boy, was I wrong. A list of my comedy of errors:

Cheaping out and buy the minimum amount of cards I think I need and then having to reorder more at the last minute. Read: friends who receive the cards after Dec. 26, I’m sorry.
Ensuring all my “new” mom friends receive such card, to the expense of “old” friends. Old friends of my husband, that is.
Ordering too few fancy return labels so that I have to pick and choose who gets to see my matching label and card. Read: Friends of my husband, I don’t think you care about such things.
Getting umpteen paper cuts from undoing and redoing such cards to ensure only my friends get the matching label and card. Thank goodness I have Gloves in a Bottle to fix my dry cuticles. Oy, my cheap ass is turning into such a shill.
Using an old mailing list from my wedding four years ago such that I have no confidence if my addresses are correct or not. Returned holiday cards are such a killjoy.
Using an old mailing list from my wedding four years ago marked up with check marks of who I invited to my son’s first birthday party such that I forgot to send a holiday greeting card to anyone who wasn’t invited to the birthday bash. Hence, the need for additional cards at the last minute.
Having to lie to dear husband on several occasions when he calls and asks, “did you send a card to XX?” and I know for sure they didn’t make the cut.

Maybe this is the reason he said Jewish people shouldn’t send out holiday cards?

Follow the RSS Feed, leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On December 18th, 2007, Barb said:

Great new way to send greeting cards:
Send Out Cards - check it out.
Time and money saver for sure.

2 On December 18th, 2007, Nancy said:

It took me like 4 hours to prepare and send holiday cards on Sunday night — and this is after my husband stuffed and sealed about 60 envelopes.

I can’t decide if it’s worth the trouble or not.

3 On December 18th, 2007, Amy said:

Because I, like you, can’t get it together enough to send out holiday cards in time, I send out cards that say Happy New Year - so when our friends get them after the holidays, it’s okay Just an FYI, I just took the picture of the kids on Sunday, did the cards online on Sunday night, so you are one step ahead of me.
PS - Do you know how many times I’ve looked for our wedding list but can’t find it??

4 On December 18th, 2007, Shannon said:

Sending out cards seems so easy, but no matter what, there are glitches. Taking the picture is harder than you think it will be, and husband grumbles the whole time. Cute labels didn’t come out right, and then when I went to Office Depot to buy more, they were out. The @#$% return address labels I ordered STILL haven’t come. Walgreen’s only gave me 46 envelopes for 120 cards. Husband can’t seem to get updated addresses for his friends. (We’re using the wedding address list, too.)

Okay, not that you care about my mundane problems, but I thought I’d mention them to show you that you’re not alone. And really, I wonder if it’s worth it just for people we know to open up the card, take one glance, and throw away after New Year’s.

5 On December 18th, 2007, Emily said:

I love that you are using your wedding list, too. I finally decided to highlight the box in our Excel address file if I had updated that person’s address. Now I at least have some clue as to what is current and what isn’t.

BTW…next time hubbie asks if you sent a card to one of his friends, just tell him, “Um, no. That’s your friend, so send our your own damn card that you designed, ordered, picked up, researched addresses for, addressed, stamped, licked, and mailed.” Ha. That probably won’t go over well, so maybe scratch that in reality, but think it the whole time you are talking to him.

6 On December 18th, 2007, Nicole said:

Hee Hee. I remember the first time I sent cards - I sent like 18 and was so darn proud of myself.
My husband is the obsessive one, and orders like 125! And ever since we’ve had kids we’ve been
too lazy/busy to update or cross-out the returned ones, so we get the same ones returned - doh!
We use a much updated wedding list too that has some random friends of my parents whom I
barely know.

7 On December 18th, 2007, Alex Elliot said:

We still haven’t sent our holiday cards off either. We also use our wedding list and younger son’s baby dedication list neither of which have any new friends on it. Wow, matching return address labels? I’ve never done that before. It must look nice! I just have to concentrate on getting mine out!

8 On December 19th, 2007, Laura said:

You have no idea how many holiday cards I have to send out. I wish there was an easy way around it - but being a photographer puts me on the spot. My life was so crazed this year I sent out 3 cards to 1 person, 3 different people! Imagine that!

To boot: I wrote out the return address on every one. I guess I really don’t believe in making my life easier with two pre-school aged children.

9 On December 20th, 2007, Marcie said:

I quit sending holiday cards years ago when the girls started school. And guess what happened? I got arrested by the suburban mom police…. yes, I’m kidding. No one cared. It made for less work for me, and as the years went by and fewer people sent US cards, there were fewer cards to feel guilty about when I had to either get rid of them or clutter up my house with them.

I have really good e-mail relationships with most of my friends, so I don’t notice when I don’t get cards from them. There’s only one friend who moved away that I’d want to get a card from, so I can see how her kids have grown (she always does the family photo card which means making photog appt, dressing up family, schlepping down to the mall etc etc). The last time I phoned her she was freaking out about all the stuff she had to do, so as her friend, I now DON’T want her to have to produce and send out cards.

10 On December 21st, 2007, Melinda said:

That’s too funny. Holiday cards unfortunately take a ton of practice. This was the first year I semi-got it right. I did forget 2 people though and the shame is that they are really close friends, duh. Thank God hubby can generate card quickly to save my sorry arse.