Excerpt from Southern Living, “The Etiquette of Taking Someone Off Your Christmas Card List”, October 31, 2023
{“Most people, out of habit, stick to the same ‘holiday card list’ they have used for years and sometimes decades, which is often outdated for one reason or another,” said Diane Gottsman, international etiquette expert, author, and founder of the Protocol School of Texas. “Relationships change, friendships wane, and people (physically and literally) move on.”
If your list hasn’t been updated in several years, it may be time to reexamine it—and perhaps make a few cuts. Read on for the etiquette on how to remove someone from your Christmas card list.}
I’m not here to judge. The cost of Christmas cards can really add up. Price per card, paper quality, foil lined envelopes, postage; I understand.
Some of you don’t do Christmas cards and I understand that too. It’s not your thing and I totally get it.
But it’s my thing. I love to send Christmas cards for many reasons. One being that I’m proud of my family. Not proud in a “keeping up with the joneses” type of way but proud in a “damn, we made it” type of way.
Another reason I love to send Christmas cards is because for many on my list it will be the only point of contact I’ll have with you this year. And if you are on my list then you are someone from my past who impacted me in such a way as to carve yourself onto my heart. Old co-workers who felt like family, friends I laughed with in church 15 years ago, people I hardly know who sent meals and gift cards when my baby was in the hospital, teachers who have selflessly embraced my most difficult child …… just to name a few.
I’ve thought only a few times about reducing my Christmas card list; usually when money has felt especially tight. But I just can’t seem to hit delete without feeling as though I’m in turn deleting the memories. Every name on my list is a person who has provided counsel, friendship, care, love, service, laughter, a place to lean or some combination of those things and I want you to know that …… I can’t delete you.
My Christmas card list is the unexpected reminder each year of how beautiful this world is. How filled with goodness this world is. How good the people of this world are. Even on the darkest of holiday seasons when I don’t even want to try and see the good things, I look at my list and am reminded of how many people have decided to show up for me over the years. And quite frankly, I don’t want to ‘move on’ from you.
If you receive a card from me and feel as though you need to send one back, you don’t. Please don’t trouble yourself. If you don’t send cards and feel guilty when you receive one from me; please don’t. If you are someone who does in fact weed out people from their card list and think I’m shaming you; I’m not.
I send Christmas cards because I want you to know that I still like thinking about you. That I still cherish our quiet, distant and otherwise obsolete friendship.
You will always get my Christmas card.
Lauren Blauw 