<p>For Mansfield: Although my kids (and one’s fiancee, one’s boyfriend, and one’s dog) are in the family photo and newsletter, but since none of them live at our address anymore, they will not be named in the ‘signature’ of our cards for the first time this year.</p>
<p>Thanks to this thread I got myself going on the card design. Did the google part, now just have to go looking for other photos and think about what news to include.</p>
<p>I love getting holiday cards and letters too. I don’t mind the braggy ones. (My sister could win an award for hers! They are unintentionally hilarious.) I have friends and former colleagues in several states, and I wouldn’t keep in touch with them if it weren’t for Christmas cards. </p>
<p>This year we moved in the fall, so I really need to send them so everyone will have my new address. I am not sure where my new address labels or the Christmas cards are right now, but something will be going out in the mail this December!</p>
<p>This one cracked me up 
[Family</a> Takes Clever Christmas Card Photo](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Family Takes Clever Christmas Card Photo | HuffPost Entertainment)</p>
<p>I too am wondering when we stop using the kids’ pics. Mine are 23, 20 and 14. I have done it every year and it too is the stuff of lore. I used to do cute “themes”, but ran out of them years ago. </p>
<p>Many of my friends married and had kids a few years before me. I noticed several years ago many of them stopped the kid pics and started using their dog instead. I would have even less chance of my dog sitting still than my kids, so I guess I’ll stick with kids :)</p>
<p>I know my friends and family are busy but I don’t really like receiving cards without a personal message. I don’t mind if it’s a handwritten one liner. </p>
<p>The best time to be on jury duty is late November or early December. I got to handwrite messages in almost every card one year!</p>
<p>I think my D’s ( now 18 and 21) have always secretly enjoyed going through all the cards and photos and newsletters. I catch in the front hall reading them LOL. It is interesting to them to “see” the others kids, and read what their peers are up to. A little gossip circle for them.</p>
<p>I did not start sending cards till the first year I graduated from college.
Frankly, due to FB and email, I doubt my girls will ever send Holiday Cards.</p>
<p>I love getting cards, so try to send them sometime during the season (often in January). I enjoy any type of note or mass letter. Usually I try to write a yearly news update (good, bad, and mundane), but then personalize each one slightly for the recipient. It involves more work than a mass produced letter, but given computers it is MUCH easier than hand-writing a note to each one. I don’t use Facebook, so this is my way of connecting with distant friends.</p>
<p>I write individual holiday letters to three family members I don’t usually see all year, and enclose them in greeting cards. My wrists are on their way out 
so I’m content to write letters on the computer and print them on holiday paper. </p>
<p>I like to enclose gift cards in individual Christmas cards to my niece, nephews, and a few other people I buy gifts for. I try to find cards in the humor section that are actually funny without being inappropriate or just plain disgusting. Though my nephews appreciate fart jokes, I won’t buy Christmas cards on that theme. (There are many to choose from, btw.)</p>
<p>I noticed today that there are few cards available addressed to grandparents (plural), or even to grandma or grandpa individually. As for great-grandparents, forget it. Why is that? People are living longer, Hallmark.</p>
<p>I love sending and receiving Christmas cards every year, but that number has halved over the past 8 years. I keep track of who I send to, and who I receive from each year, and if I don’t receive from someone 2 years in a row, I cross them off, sadly :(</p>
<p>I cannot stand the achievement letters.</p>
<p>I also don’t like getting cards from people in my neighborhood. That’s just silly. </p>
<p>But here’s a classic: last year we were at a house party, right in town, soon after Thanksgiving, and at the end a woman pulled out a bunch of envelopes and handed one out to each person. I said, “Oh how fun, another party invitation” and opened it right there. </p>
<p>It was her Christmas card!!
Really? You’re going to hand them out? In November? Yikes.</p>
<p>We used to send out a letter on holiday-bordered computer paper and separate photo of the kids. Eventually we started imbedding a few digital photos on the back of the letter. I do not include a card, but every letter gets at least one sentence of handwritten sentiment. They are mostly for the friends and family who live far away.</p>
<p>We continue the tradition, even in years where we are very busy or discouraged by bad news. If we didn’t, folks might fear there was death or divorce at our house. Yes, I know some folks don’t like the letter… they can skip to the photos. Others look forward to them -one aunt emails me every year about her delight in receiving our letter. </p>
<p>Over the years, it’s Christmas letter that have kept me connected with the lives of 3 dear friends/roommates from college. One couple writes verrrrrrrry long ones, and I get excited when it arrives and make myself a cup of tea. </p>
<p>Each year I print 3 copies of the letter (and also have 3 copies of each of the photos from early years). My intention is to do a scrapbook for each child as a wedding present. Some moms preserve family history in delightful photo albums. I do Christmas letters.</p>
<p>We always send a card with photos and a little letter that basically updates everyone on what the kids are up to. We send out about 140 cards to HS and college friends that we don’t see that often, as well as extended family, some of whom live far away. </p>
<p>If people feel it is “braggy” I guess there is not much I can do. I try to make it funny (i.e. if you see [Son] in person, be sure to comment on how tall he’s gotten cause that never gets old!" And “[Dog] excels at nothing except sniffing in inappropriate locations.”)</p>
<p>I know I love getting a little news from my friends and hearing what their kids are up to. I am FB friends with some old friends,but not all so I look forward to the Christmas/holiday letters and cards!</p>
<p>What the OP calls “brag sheet” I call resume. The kind that start off- Merry Christ., Hann, or Kwanz. If the sender doesn’t know or care which I celebrate if any, then he doesn’t know me well enough to send me such a greeting.
Then it often goes on about Uncle Tim getting a promotion, Little Susie passing 8th grade, and so on. Do these people think I am hiring? Or do they think such a form letter run off the computer is a warm personal greeting? If they want me to get caught up on their achievements write me a letter, or give me a call. Don’t print a form letter and pretend it’s a personal greeting. If they truly want to keep me caught up, they won’t do it once a yr, on a form letter disguised as a personal holiday greeting. I may be in the minority, but I think they are an insult; I feel if that’s all they think of me, to send me such a form letter once a yr, then I probably am not close enough to them to be getting a greeting.
Don’t want to give the impression of being “braggy” with friends and loved ones? Then give them a call more often through the yr, and don’t send them a resume of accomplishments disguised as a holiday greeting.
“Susie is such a free spirit” can really mean she has no job.
“Eddie developing a love for art” can mean he spends all his money on tattoos.
“Uncle Bob is enjoying traveling” may just mean he’s a deadbeat escaping his child support payments.
“Mom got a promotion” Really? Then Mom can afford real cards!</p>
<p>Everybody has different views on this. Personally I like to receive letter or cards with a little note much better than just a card with a signature. Still I know that every holiday envelope that hits my mailbox was sent with best intentions, so I cherish them all. Each gets put an basket, then hung on a card holder thingy on the wall after DH has read it too. </p>
<p>A dozen or more of the cards we receive are the form-letter kind that some of you dread. None of them seem to be braggy nature. Most do include some lighthearted comedy and fun photos too.</p>
<p>I stopped sending them about 10 years ago, when I realized that they were the biggest source of Christmas stress for me. Not the cards per se, but the question of hand-written notes. It seemed there were 3 choices: a personalized note to everyone (which was taking gobs of time as I wracked my brain for a fresh-sounding note for each and every card), a generic note to everyone (which always sound like exactly what they are – generic), or simply a signature (which seemed like just going through the motions). </p>
<p>For those of you who expect a personalized note: Is it better to receive a signature-only card, or no card at all?</p>
<p>We used to send a holiday card with a photo of the kids, or of all of us, every year with a short personal note in each. Some notes were just a line or two, but I always tried to personalize each one in some way. I don’t mind getting the annual “form” letters- they’re usually very entertaining and fun. I just don’t do it because I don’t have the same relationship with the various people I send cards to, so a “one size fits all” letter would seem either too informal for some, or a repeat of what people already know, for others.</p>
<p>The last couple of years we have not included the kids in the signatures, nor have we included pictures. My kids are 23 and 26 with lives and homes of their own, so it seems a bit inappropriate to have them in our Christmas photo as if they were still living under our roof as children. My son lives with his girlfriend- not with mom, dad and sister anymore, so it just doesn’t feel right to us.
We also dropped their signatures once my youngest graduated from college and moved to another part of the state. So it’s just Dh and me.
At least both kids still come to our house for Christmas! I hope that, at least, will never change. (But I know it will. )</p>
<p>And Lasma- I’d rather have the card with just the name than no card at all. They make me feel connected to my friends, even if there’s no written message. And they look pretty in my kitchen. :)</p>
<p>I actually gave up Christmas cards a few years ago, but my husband still sends out cards to his side of the family. </p>
<p>I did a ‘newsletter’ for a few years and might do it again this year. Frankly, I love receiving them, even if they are brag sheets or not. I don’t ‘brag’ in mine, but just give a quick update of what has happened during the year, good and bad. </p>
<p>I would rather receive a newsletter than just a card with a signature.</p>
<p>Some we look forward to receiving each year. Some very old friends will send quite the political diatribe form letter that goes for a number of pages single-spaced exhorting all their friends to protest this and not buy that, etc. These are people are in their 90s now! </p>
<p>Then there’s the one we always get from an old work colleague from twenty years ago. She’s on her third marriage, this one to a woman. There must be two dozen kids across the various tangled marriages and relationships. Her newsletter brings us up to date (in minute detail!) on every single individual – ex-husbands, their ex-wives and step children, etc.</p>
<p>I sadly stopped doing the pic of the kids. They’re just too old now and won’t cooperate. Will sometimes get a nice pic of all of us at Thanksgiving that I will include. I will do a very brief summary, basically updating on address, phone numbers and telling all that we’re still vertical.</p>
<p>We still manage to snag a picture with our 2 boys when they are home for Thanksgiving for the holiday card with picture. Wife still writes a letter. We are very disappointed when we receive only a card with no picture from an old friend we haven’t seen in a long time. OK, time for final edits and off to Costco!</p>
<p>While holiday letters can be nice to receive, on the other hand… I tell the story in this thread…</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/824758-holiday-letters-dreaded-appreciated-2.html?highlight=letter[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/824758-holiday-letters-dreaded-appreciated-2.html?highlight=letter</a></p>
<p>No I never did follow through with my MIL - but then again, the letter has yet to arrive this year… hmmmm</p>