Do you buy greeting cards? Why or why not? Are they fun to send, or tacky in their mass-marketedness? Do you prefer long letters, or do you just not care?

What about Christmas cards? Do you send them? Are you picky about the ones you send? What do you do with the ones you get?

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

Answers

Since my best friend lives 500 miles away from me and doesn't have a flippin' computer, we send cards back and forth to each other. Usually Far Side stuff that makes us laugh, or a blank one with a neat picture on the front.

My boyfriend orders these hideous train ones for Christmas every year and gets his name printed on them and whatnot. I like to buy my own and send them out. My family gets the religious stuff and my friends get those Shoebox ones.

I save all of the ones I get. Birthday ones usually sit on my bookshelf for a few months until I remember to take them down. For Christmas cards, I tape them to garland that goes around the frame of the kitchen entrance.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I buy 'em. Yeah, most of them are tacky, or at least the card-giving occasions are so hyped up they unwittingly become tacky. Sometimes, tacky is good.

I'm very picky about who I'll buy for, on what occasions, and what cards. I generally like to pick unusual cards, I'll pick a beautifully made card over a super-funny one anytime.

With the ones my wife and I get, we stand them on our dining room table for a few weeks, until we're tired of them. We're the only ones who will ever enjoy them, so we're doing it just for us. But we get more out of them that way.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I'm a big fan of the concept, but despite the recent boom in 'targeted' greeting cards a la, "Sorry you just got fired" and all that, I find them still too unspecific for my needs. So I make my own.

Recent favourites include: "Hey! I just heard the girl you met in the club last weekend gave you a call! What was her name again, and are you planning to go out?"

"Sorry to hear that your neighbour dented your car, thereby escalating the ongoing conflict between you and them, which is damn bad luck considering all the hassle you had with your previous neighbours, d'you remember?!"

"I know, I hate that kid who works down at the corner shop too"

If you're able to turn the things out and deliver them quickly enough, and if the recipient is able to reciprocate similarly quickly, it can be just like a conversation. I've often thought that, what with advances in technology, someone should invent a way of posting letters electronically to their friends. I might have a go myself.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I'm a big e-card sender. Cheap, yes, but effective. It drives my mom nuts. But every time I have bought a paper card, it ends up on the floorboard of my car for 8 months til I finally remember to go by the post office and send it. Besides, when I receive cards from people, I read them once, think it's nice and then I just want to throw it away. But I can't do that. I feel guilty. So I keep them in a drawer for five years and surrepticiously throw them out when no one is looking.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I only send cards to people who are special in my life. I'll send lots of electronic cards to friends and family but I usually only send paper cards to my parents, my brother, my grandmother, and my best friend who lives in Boston. I think it is because I have issues with my local post office and letter carriers.

For my husband's family I usually buy birthday cards to give to them in person for their birthday party because it is a good way to hold the gift certificates we usually get everyone.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I like sending paper cards to people, even the ones I email. And they say they really like getting the paper ones. A friend carries stacks of funny postcards and writes them up to friends when she's in a line or something. Plus she swears that a fountain pen really makes a difference with cards. She says that it makes them seem more personal.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I love to get greeting cards(anything other than bills is a big "woohoo!"), so I go under the assumption that other people like to get them. I try to find funky, offbeat ones in little bookstores and the like. However, the best card I found recently was a Hallmark that I got at Wal Mart.

It was a cartoon drawn, upside down car on the front and inside it said "Condolences on the death of your car". A friend of mine recently lent her beloved Geo Prism to a someone and they totaled it. Luckly, no one was hurt but my friend was sad to see her ride go to the big car lot in the sky. So, I was happy when I found the card and she called me after she got it to tell me she loved the card and it really made her day.

Thanks to being part of a military family, we send around 150 holiday cards. We take some pictures when we're cleaned up for Thanksgiving or some other holiday shindigs and then have those picture cards made up at the Rite Aid. I write a note on the back to let friend's know what we're up to. We usually get around 125 cards and I love seeing the kids growing and getting everyone's news. I am a big, big sucker for holiday cards-no doubt.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I love going to the card store. I'll get cards even when there isn't any reason too just because I like them. I have a collection and when it's someone's B-day or they just got fired or broke up with their girlfriend, I have a card ready to go. E-cards are so impersonal. And so is a phone call. Uh-let me refraise that before someone here beats me up over that thought. I mean from my point of view. Wheeewwwww! That was close. James

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I'm terrible about sending cards. By the time I think about it for someone's birthday, the occasion has past. I didn't get my son a birthday card this year and since he can't ready anyway, it's not a big deal.

I don't keep the cards I get, unless they are homemade one from my kids.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I make my own greeting cards, just 'cause I know for me personally, I never read what's written on the store-bought cards, its just too impersonal.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I buy cards if I have some extra $$ (not often) and I see something that strikes my fancy. I usually have something on hand to send off for a birthday.

I buy Christmas & Chanukkah cards at the after-holiday sales every year. I have a huge collection with lots of variety.

One of my favorites is a cartoon of an old guy in pj's & nightcap looking scared and a guy with dreads & a fat spliff in his mouth saying "eh, Merry Christmas mon" and it reads "Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost..."

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

I always wanna make them, but I'm too lazy. Lately I've been buying cool ones from independent shops as they catch my fancy. And I've been keeping my eye out for ones that are cool enough to frame. I got some cool Virgin Mary postcards at that Corazon shop, and at Crossroads (a gay/lesbian bookstore,) they had postcards with guys posing as provocatively clad superheroes. I got a saucy one of those, and a really cool hologram card with two little dolls dancing. And a postcard that said "GAY JOHNNY -- Texas Vegetables" with a little cowboy.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

Hastings Records and Tapes has the coolest and most ribald collection of getting cards I've ever ran in to. They're a chain, but I don't know how widespread they are. Christmas cards are a big deal at our house. They're taped up on the mantle and are part of the decorative cheer at our house. We send Christmas cards to everyone we know...and continue to send them even if they don't. I think picture cards are great...sometimes it's the only way you get to see a picture of people you haven't seen in years. I like cards...I just never know what to do with them afterwards. I feel bad when I throw them away.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

James, I don't get why e-cards are any less personal than regular paper cards. I can see why store-bought Hallmark cards are less personal than homemade cards, though. Is it because it's easier to email than to lick a stamp? i'm not trying to argue or anything, in fact, my mom feels the same way you do. we all sent her e-cards for her b-day last year and she was *pissed.*

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

Yeah, my mom's the same way. If I only call her on her birthday or some other occasion, it's nice (because I don't call very often), but she prefers getting real cards in the mail, something she can hold in her hands. I wonder if this is a generational thing? I don't think it should make any difference if I swabbed a stamp and envelope with my DNA (spit) or not, but it does, so I go with it.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

I used to make them out of my old Mary Engelbreit calendars, because my mom gave me one every year, and it seemed silly to waste them. That was back when I used glue sticks regularly. Now I don't even know if I still have any glue sticks.

I also have a box full of more postcards and greeting cards and stationery than anyone could ever possibly need. I like buying them. I'm just too lazy to actually send them.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

I love paper products. So naturally I love cards. I either make my own cards or i buy old cards and remake them. I embellish them with letraset usually. For instance I will scout out the card section of every lousy dollar store, or corner store or any place that looks like it will have cards from eras past. I love the ones that are plasticy on the cover and have vasceline-lensed images of daisies and a girl pondering life or couples holding hands with phrases such as "together forever". Or the ones that say "you're 5 today champ!" or the ones with religious messages.

I have a chest of drawers that are filled with cards and postcards. I even keep the really special ones and organize them into old scrap books.

Every Xmas I manage to find a box of old cards from the 50's or 60's or 70's at a second hand store and I send those out. I don't get them at xmas time though. I spend all year stockpiling cards for up and coming holidays birthdays etc. I usually only give them to certain people though. The ones who will appreciate it and know how much scouring through greasy, dusty plastic covered cards I go through to find the few good ones.

I also have a fried who lives far away from me who i exchange cards and letters with regularly. It's nice getting stuff in the mailbox that isn't just bills and junk mail and it's good for me to get off the computer and communicate in a more personable way.

Ahhh the joy of stationery!

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

Craft Tip***** On my last NYC trip, I spent part of the day at the 6th Ave Flea Market looking through polaroids (no, not porno, but they did have infant funeral pics...WTF?) anyway, I got a stack cheap and now scan them into homemade cards with funny captions. They are really fun to make. For some reason, there are a lot of pics of ladies in the kithen in the 40's cramming cake into their mouths. Was that some cultural phenom I missed? They're kind of maniacal looking.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

There's some person here in Texas, I believe, who makes cards out of old '50s b&w's. He pastes one to the front and then types a funny caption inside. I guess he's in Texas because I've seen the cards in little shops in Dallas, Houston, and Austin. And a lot of them have a gay theme. Anyway. Those crack me up, sometimes. I just sent one to my friend. It had a chick sitting at a desk, talking on the phone. The inside says something like:
"Can you believe that whore brought chicken after I told her to do a casserole? And did you SEE how fat her ass has gotten? Bitch, please!"

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

That is so funny! You can see the massive humor opportunities.

Maybe I'll post some of them on one of my sites and find some way to let peeps post captions....hmmm.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

Lisa D - were they really "cramming" cake in their mouths, or just posing with little cake-bites poised on the ends of forks just about to go into their mouths? If they really were cramming cake, that's an awfully weird theme for postcards. Next time you see one, buy it and scan it and link to it here. Sounds so bizarre I have to see one! :-)

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

It wasn't a card (yet) but a picture, and I think it was cake...coulda been some other delicious food...I'll find it and post it with a link. I keep thinking there were booze bottles on the table too (that would explain some things, huh?) but I can't swear to it.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

oh, it wasn't "dainty" either.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

i always thought i would market my cards one day- but i probably never will so i may as well share. antique stores sell old postcards- birthday, easter, x-mas. you can buy blank colored greeting cards at crafts stores, cut a window in the front, and paste the old postcard inside. i decorate the front of the card (front of old postcard showing through) with lace and little pearls and stuff, but when the card is opened you can see the back of the old postcard, complete with the postmark from 1910 and a spidery handwritten message from someone named netty hoping grandma is over her apoplexy or whatever. they're pretty cool!

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2000

Gardanna, I wasn't passing judgment on the sending of E-cards. Sorry if it came out that way. My big mouth an all ya know. "For me" it's just not personal enough. The thought and time it takes to find one just right( of course I have scads of them anyway), write some meaningful verse in them and lick that stamp is doing a little more and seems more thoughtful. To me anyway. james

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2000

I do a lot of photography, mainly B&W, and make cards from some of the images. Makes it unique. It is a lot of fun. James

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2000

Paul, I pulled that photo out and they're eating hotdogs! Isn't that even better?! I'll try and post it tonight...

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2000

Woo-hoo! Cramming hotdogs, baby! These should be terrific. :-)

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2000