Writer. Blogger. Chipmunk enthusiast.
Forget texts, forget Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, IM…I have no expectations when it comes to your social media well wishes, but giving me a real card with nothing but your name written inside? Why bother! Sure, the dog dressed as a rabbit on the front might scream “Julie!”, but you know what else it screams? L-A-Z-Y. Just because you spent time and money seeking out and purchasing that card doesn’t mean you can let it do all the work for you.
The ultimate example is holiday greetings with the family name STAMPED on the inside: “Happy Holidays. The Jones Family.” Are you serious, Jones Family? You killed a tree and I risked getting a paper cut for that? It’s the card that says, “You are an obligation. Merry Christmas!”
This obligation theory applies to any type of card, but especially thank you cards. Oh, you like the gift and thoughtful card I composed for you? Well your sloppily scrawled, “Thank you for the blankety blank and blank. I really like using my new blank blank blank. Love, Boring Betty” makes me wish I didn’t get you anything at all.
Remember when your parents used to say, “Don’t buy me a gift, make me something instead”? They had the right idea. You grumbled and groaned, but when Mother’s/Father’s Day rolled around, you learned that you were capable of making some pretty sweet friendship bracelets.
My point is, even craftng a crappy card is better than buying a card and writing nothing inside. And believe me when I say getting no card is better than receiving a cop-out card. Your empty (i.e., soulless) cards go right in the blue bin, but anything more I will treasure forever.
There are other perks to taking a minute or two when you open that Hallmark gem, pen at the ready. You will be the envy of friends and family alike if you take the time to think of something touching or cute to add. It doesn’t take much. A simple, “I’ll always be younger than you” does the trick in a birthday card pinch. Even if you’re not artistically inclined [like me], you luck out in greeting cards, because stick figures are almost always hilarious.
Still don’t know what to write? Try one of these:
Draw a stick figure in a hat appropriate for the occasion.Give it a try and don’t over think it. I believe in you. And I’ll be sure to tell you in a future post how you’re doing.
Go Jules Go 
I like your ideas (and will probably steal them) and I hear what you’re saying… but sometimes the imagination is dry… bone dry (which is why I’ll be stealing your ideas whenever I can get away with it). But be careful what you wish for when you say you’d rather have nothing or one day you’ll be writing a post about how you didn’t even get one-stinking card.
I don’t often have much to say to people I see all the time and sometimes I have even less to say to people I hardly ever see. In this regard, maybe cards are irrelevant but I do spend a LOT of time trying to find the right one.
Anyway… try not to be so hard on people that have at least remembered you and may have spent an hour at a Hallmark store listening to horrible music searching and searching for the just the right card for you.
Preach! LOL In all seriousness, I hear you. It’s always nice when someone is thinking of you!
If you don’t write anything but your name, it’s almost like signing a check. I endorse the witty or sentimental statement above, signed, Paul.
Exactly! Although I can’t think of a reason why sentimental greeting cards are ever appropriate. I keep waiting for Hallmark to step up their game in the sympathy department.
Because we agreed to spend less money on gifts to mark occasions like holidays, in my family we will buy a card that’s funny (we know our family’s sense of humor), write nothing in it, and pass it around over time throughout the extended family. It recycles both the paper and the joke. Sympathy cards are VERY appropriate when given (for example) to a new graduate. It means they will have to move out and get a job.
Now that’s fantastic – both the recycled card and the sympathy card to the new graduate! I think I’ll have to invite you to be a guest speaker at my next seminar on this topic.
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