Is this tacky? Or am I just an old fogey?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

Got a card in the mail today from a young relative. I guess it was supposed to be a Christmas card, but it consisted of just a photo of the sender and her new husband on their wedding day (they were married this past Spring) with the printed message "Have an awesome holiday!" with a little pink heart, and underneath it their names. There was no other message and no signature. My first thought was, "Christmas isn't about you and your wedding, sweetie!" But maybe that's too harsh. I know a lot of people send Christmas cards with photos of their families in front of their Christmas trees or whatever, with some message like "Season's Greetings from the Smith Family." But this was just a wedding photo (the bride wasn't exactly a bridezilla, but she was so obsessed with her wedding and OMG I'm getting married!!! that nothing else mattered in the whole world, for months!!). Is the card tacky or am I being a grump who should be happy to get any kind of card at all?

[hlthe2b]

1. I'll let them have their wedding obsession... but my peeve is related if a bit OT--sorry

My issue is seeing all my single friends over the years--many who are struggling mightily financially, be constantly hit up for bridal shower gifts, the wedding gifts, the baby shower gifts, the coworker kid's graduation gifts, retirement gifts.. and on and on and on and on. All the while, they, being single, never are acknowledged at all...

I know this sounds "scroogey" but the fact that those "soliciting" gifts never give a thought to how difficult that might be financially for some of their co-workers--all the while the expectations (and office politics) don't really give them an out--has become an increasing problem over the years. I've generally been happy (and financially able) to acknowledge these same milestones in co-worker's lives, but I can't help feeling that maybe I should be pointing out the insensitivity. (Of course, I don't)...but I've seen the look of dread on the faces of some, when that "collection" envelope was circulated their way...

Just a thought...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Sending a card is perfectly appropriate.

Nobody should feel obligated to contribute to a gift.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

20. That's why when i turned 30 I gave myself a spinster shower for my birthday.

[raccoon]

34. As a lifetime single, I heartily concur. nt

[PoliticAverse]

2. Did you send them a card? n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. I will; I haven't sent out my Christmas cards yet. That's next week.

But they will be Christmassy and not weddingy and they will not feature a photo of me standing outside amid spring flowers.

[PoliticAverse]

7. Give them slack they're still in the 'honeymoon phase'. n/t

[Wounded Bear]

3. Probably best to just accept it...

and let go of any motivation or hidden message within. You'll be happier if you take that road.

Consider it your relative's foray into the War on Christmas.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. I'm not fretting too much about it - just wondering if I'm behind the times

and maybe this is something the young'uns are doing now.

[femmocrat]

9. I think it's generational.

My cousins send photo-cards of their kids. At least they remember me and keep in touch once a year. I look forward to seeing how much they have grown.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. You may be a grumpy old fogey, but...

yes, the card is tacky.

Holiday cards are about the holiday, and good cheer, and all that stuff.

They are not supposed to be about ME! ME! ME! and should involve at least a minimal effort.

(Remember how disgraced our grandmothers were when preprinted cards first happened? Imagine what they would think now...)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. That humming sound is the young lady's grandmother, spinning in her grave.

She would be absolutely appalled. I'm not quite appalled, but not thrilled, either.

[Skittles]

19. I detest E-cards

I am DEFINITELY an old fogey

[TreasonousBastard]

21. I'm with you there-- Fogified to the extreme...

every time I see one of those.

[geardaddy]

11. Meh. It's not an ideal holiday card,

but she sent you something. Maybe they didn't think to take a special photo. Did they at least send the "letter"?

We send a picture of us with our dog, but always send the form letter about what we're up to.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. No letter, not even a signature.

I'm very happy not to get a Christmas brag letter (if she couldn't even be troubled to sign her card she isn't going to write a letter. Anyhow, she has Facebook for that). I get those from my odious sister-in-law; she doesn't like me but I think she sends them to me just to show me how superior her life is to mine.

[geardaddy]

13. No signature is a no no.

She should at least have included a personal greeting.

[a kennedy]

17. We get a lot of family picture Christmas cards.....WITH NO NOTE NO SIGNATURE NO HANDWRITTEN ANYTHING

and I hate them. Ugh...... but I do keep them and use them as who I send my handmade valentines to in February, as I don't send Christmas cards, just valentines.

[Phentex]

14. I vote tacky...

I really don't care for cards that don't include at LEAST a signature. Yeah, yeah, it's the thought that counts which means the cards with the pre-printed labels and no message or signature tell me they think of me as just another chore over the holidays.

I guess your relative is in the honeymoon phase and the wedding was everything but I still think a note along with the pic would have been more appropriate.

[orleans]

15. femmocrat said she thinks it's generational

so do i
there is just so much facebooking, texting, twittering, internet shit & iphone apping crap to do
plus the required video games, nights out at the local bar/club, etc.
who the hell has time to actually write a note & sign their name and hand address envelopes???



they have been (for a number of years now) the self-involved generation

(don't let the dip in the sound around 43 seconds fool you--there's more to come in the audio! just scooch it up to 1:00)

[BubbaFett]

16. it's the thought that counts

I think it is exceptionally wonderful that you have people in your life who care enough to take the time to send a card.

I only get phone calls. When people need money.

[Skittles]

18. it's tacky AND you're an old fogey

yes INDEED

[Liberal Veteran]

22. The signed non-photo Christmas card is always a classic.

I don't like the "look at all the cool places we went this year" cards or anything like that. I'm not even a Christian, but I'd rather have a glittery snow covered manger scene card than photo cards.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

23. I'm an old fogey

and I find that people nowadays are just rude and self-centered in general. Every time I go to the store, I find that people walk around as if only they existed. They walk right at me as though I was invisible and if I don't move, they'll just trample me. It's the same thing in the parking lot. If I walk across an empty parking space, there's always a car that suddenly comes along and moves me out of the way. Just the other day I took my mom to the doctor and was putting her in her wheel chair on the passenger's side of the car. A lady came along suddenly wanting to get into her car that was parked right next to us and nearly pushed my mom's wheel chair over. That someone is so wrapped up in their own life in sending you a card uniquely about them and not about peace and goodwill to all (which is what Christmas is all about) doesn't surprise me, unfortunately.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

24. Update: Yesterday I got a card from her parents, who are my age.

It was a photograph of them, the bridal couple and their other daughter at the wedding (which I attended and took many photos of myself). No signature, no note.

So the apple didn't fall far from the tree. In fact, I think it's still on it.

Oh, well. Guess I know now where the bride's manners came from.

[Phentex]

27. THAT is funny!

You have to just laugh about it.

[MADem]

38. Hey, you just might wanna frame that picture and put it on the piano!!!!

Ya never know...?

I'll bet they thought to themselves "We're never gonna look better--let's fix this image in EVERYBODY's mind!!!!!"

[Coventina]

25. I'm anti-photo cards in general.

I miss the art of the old Christmas cards.

But, I can't complain because I don't send cards - of any type - myself.

I guess I'm just Scrooge McGrinch.

[mnhtnbb]

26. You probably are an old fogey, but part of being an old fogey is having the wisdom

to know what's tacky.

I'm 63 and what we send as cards has evolved over the years. I used to
hand write ALL my cards, with personal notes to everyone. About 20 years ago
I started including a holiday letter. Then I would include a photo. In the last
few years we've done photo cards with a still life photo, a photo of the house
we built after the fire, a photo of us taken by our son in Berlin, and finally this
year a collage of photos from trips--all with family and significant others. I still
add a handwritten note--personalized--since I don't have to summarize what's in
the holiday letter.

This year I was ruthless in cutting the Christmas card list to less than 80.
One of the people we cut--from a town where we lived over 20 years ago--sent
a card this year with no personal note, no holiday letter, and no photo. I did not
feel badly we'd cut them and did not relent and send them a card.

I also cannot tell you how grateful I was to discover after our fire that our French "daughter"--a foreign
exchange student who lived with us 25 years ago--had kept all our holiday letters. I now have copies--from
her--and it's a marvelous record of what was happening in our lives and important to our kids as they were
growing up.

I love getting cards from people with holiday letters and photos. A plain card with nothing means nothing
to me.

[DebJ]

29. What a cool idea, to have a journal of your lives like that.

As a family ancestry researcher, I'd LOVE to see that in my family!

[LiberalEsto]

28. I'm sending cards with a photo of my daughter and husband at their wedding this year

We've never done photo cards before. Year after year we get cards with pictures of people's kids and grandkids, but we could never afford to do that when our kids were little. Our daughter was married the week before Thanksgiving, and there are a lot of friends, relatives and godparents who couldn't come to the wedding, but would love to see a photo of the couple. It's not a professional photo, just a casual picture taken during the reception. They look so radiant, and there are white string lights hanging behind them.

To me holiday cards are about reaching out and staying in touch with the people you care about.

[WinkyDink]

40. No offense, but couldn't those photos be sent another time? Or included within a traditional card?

[MADem]

30. This is growing very common. It's the cards that are getting rare!!!!

Maybe they aren't religious but they're just marking the season...?

We've gotten a card of a couple, aging every year and scowling at one another, every year for maybe twenty years now. Wish we'd kept them all--it was a bit of a study!

Be happy they remembered you--next year you may get a pic of them eating their wedding cake top on their first anniversary!!

[mnhtnbb]

31. I have a college friend who never had children.

She told me that she has kept the photos that friends would send with their holiday
cards of their kids. So she has an amazing collection of kids growing up.
After our fire, she went through that collection and pulled out the photos of our
kids and returned them to me. I was so grateful!

[MADem]

36. Very cool friend--a treasure, that one! nt

[cyberswede]

32. I got one just like that from my nephew (late 20s)

He got married in September.

I don't love photo cards, but we get a LOT of those, particularly from people with school-age kids at home. One thing I do like is seeing photos of friends' kids as they grow up. Most cards don't have anything besides the printed greeting & names, though.

I send regular cards - and I prefer to find old-fashioned-looking cards. I usually write a couple sentences to each recipient.

My 84 year old mother sends about 300 cards every year. She includes a hand-written personal letter in most of them. She starts writing letters & addressing envelopes in November.

So, it seems generational to me.

[WinkyDink]

41. Indeed. Soon it will be texted "MRY XMS. HOPE U R OK."

[cyberswede]

42. IKR?!

[GOLGO 13]

33. We have real competion with Xmas cards in my family.

It's turned into let's flaunt our lifestyles/accomplishments for the year. So I've seen things like a family in a pool with dolphins, or somebody in a BMW graduation gift. So we fight back with our own Xmas card warfare and the resulting Facebook tomfoolery is a scream.

[MADem]

37. If that were me, I'd fight back with serious PHOTOSHOP!

There's no way I could pull off any of that actual "lifestyle" warfare....

I'd get one of the talented family members to put together a picture of all of us .... ON THE MOON!!!!!!

Now there's some lifestyle!!!!

[Xyzse]

35. It's possible that it is their best picture together.

I don't really mind when it comes to Christmas cards.

I love the ones from my sisters. It is usually pictures of the kids in different things throughout the year, showing what they did or just their smiling faces. It is pretty awesome.

So, sending a Holiday Card, to me with them showing whatever important things going through out the year is a-ok in my book.

[GOLGO 13]

43. If it was one family that did it...

This has become a game of one up's manship that is stretching into half of decade of braging Xmas card exchanges. The gauntlet has been tossed down and everybody seems to be anxiously willing to go along with it.

It's essentially like an undeclared war that no one talks about openly except to other allies at the family parties. I admit, I now have an interest when the Xmas cards start showing up every December. There's a lot of, "that sonofagun went to the Great Wall of China this year?" or "shit, Joey caught a 10 ft hammerhead on vacation this year".

It's both fun & infuriating at the same time. Yeah, my family...we just aint right.

[WinkyDink]

39. 1. It's supremely lazy not to sign a card. 2. It shows a sad lack of appreciation for the artistry

of many a Christmas card. I'm serious.
3. It sounds cheapskate-ish, like they had these left-over photo-cards.

[gollygee]

44. I don't understand why people who don't want to bother with doing it properly

even bother to send Christmas cards out at well. They were helpful once upon a time to let people know what your family had been up to over the year, but with social media they don't serve that purpose so much anymore. It seems like people who care enough to do it would do a good job with it.

[begin_within]

45. It's beyond tacky and it's embarrassing.

If they absolutely had to feature themselves on a Christmas card, at the very least they should have had a new photo taken, with a Christmas theme. I would be tempted to send a card back to them featuring my colonoscopy results and a little pink heart with, "Have an awesome holiday!"

[bluesbassman]

46. Here TVO, I've got the perfect card to send back to them...

[noamnety]

47. I don't think it's tacky.

I think they are sharing what's important in their life right now. It sounds way more personal and meaningful than a store bought box of generic cards.

Yeah, they may have missed an etiquette lesson about signing the cards, but I teach high school and a ton of my students don't even know how to write an address on an envelope properly; they might not realize they are supposed to sign it. But really, the signatures are often assembly line type deals anyway for people who are sending out a lot of cards. It's not like there's deep personal meaning in it if they hand write their names instead of printing them.

I could be wrong, but from the second part of your post, I suspect you just don't like the person much, and that may be affecting your view of the card. If it had been sent by someone you genuinely liked, you might have had a different reaction and been happy to get it.

I know if my daughter - who was also married this last summer - sent me a card with a photo of their wedding, I'd smile, and take it as a sign they are still happy and that they are fully appreciating their first Christmas as a married couple.

Disclaimer - I'm too lazy to send out Christmas cards at all, so I am very aware of the effort/cost/hassle, and I'm not one to be judgmental about what cards people send.