Holiday Cards a Bah-Humbug Chore for Many

Gary Fine remembers his mother’s annual ritual well: notes lovingly penned on crisp cards, tucked in envelopes, addressed and sent to scores of family members and friends in time for Christmas.

Nearly half a century later, the Northwestern University sociology professor is having a hard time checking his list once, let alone twice. He figures he and his wife will be lucky to send 30 holiday cards this year.

“In essence, it has become a chore,” says Fine.

As much as we enjoy sending and receiving them, holiday cards have become a source of angst for many who feel snowed under by the expense and time the tradition can mean.

“I resigned from seasonal stress,” says Bonnie Russell of Del Mar, Calif., who sends homemade cards to only her closest friends.

“I’m a copycat holiday card sender--you send me one; I’ll send you one,” says New Yorker Judy Katz.

“Otherwise, I’m not interested in sending little cardboard cutouts with ‘cheer’ all over them,” Katz added.

Still, some have had little success limiting their lists.

The Christmas season accounts for nearly a quarter of all holiday-type cards sold, according to the Greeting Card Assn., a trade association for the more than 2,000 card publishers nationwide.

On Monday alone, U.S. Postal Service officials expect to postmark a whopping 280 million pieces of mail--part of an estimated 3% increase in volume over last year’s holiday season.

“I can’t stop,” says Donna Hardwick of Boston, noting that it’s the only way she stays in touch with some friends. “And hey, it makes me feel good.”

Some greeters are turning to the Internet to keep up, sending free “electronic cards” that incorporate graphics and sometimes even video from sites like Amazon.com, BlueMountain.com and Yahoo!

Traditional card companies, such as American Greetings and Hallmark, have their own lines of “e-cards,” as do nonprofit sites like www.newdream.org, which uses children’s artwork in its cards. The industry expects computer users to send as many as 100 million e-cards this season.

If you’re still a paper card fan, some companies will do much of the work for you.

This year, JaYing Wang took a photo of her 4-year-old daughter, LiLi, had it scanned onto a computer disc at a photo processor and shot it off to a company called CardStore.com.

Wang then uploaded addresses from her computer and used the company’s Web site to type slightly modified personal messages.

The company assembled the cards and messages, addressed and stamped the envelopes and sent them in bulk to Wang and her husband, who are adding their personal signatures.

She says the whole process took two hours and cost about $180 for about 100 cards--compared with 10 hours and $150 last year.

“It just makes you feel like a load has been lifted off your shoulders,” says Wang, a mosaic artist in Alameda.

But not everyone is embracing technology--or even trying to save time or money.

Georgette Mosbacher, the chief executive officer of New York-based Borghese Cosmetics, sends fancy needlepoint pillows with holiday messages to her friends. Hyde Danforth & Co., a human resources consulting firm in Dallas, gives small reproductions of oil paintings to clients as holiday cards.

Sometimes there’s a true payoff for all that effort. Rita Fisher, who runs a resume-writing business in Columbus, Ind., is convinced that one client paid an overdue bill because she sent him a holiday card and fancy pen as a gift.

Most people go to the effort every year to send holiday greetings for a pretty basic reason, says Jack Santino, who is a professor of folklore and popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

“It’s part of a wish to connect,” says Santino, who wrote the book “All Around the Year: Holidays and Celebrations in American Life.”