Tradition vs. Tech: Are E-greetings Easier?

By Sharon Miller Cindrich

Q: I’ve considered substituting my holiday greeting cards with e-cards to save postage and time—maybe even the environment. Your thoughts?

E-cards have become a fun and creative way to send quick greetings, invitations and reminders. Without envelopes to address or stamps to buy, this can seem like a great option for saving time and money, but before you trade in those traditional greetings for the e-version, consider this:

Collecting e-mails can be tedious. While home addresses can change every now and then, e-mail addresses can change much more frequently. Making sure you have the current e-mail address of every one of your dear friends and relatives may actually take more time than using last year’s home address list. 

E-cards aren’t easily personalized. You might be able to send a general e-mail to your list, but you may not be able to personalize each e-card with a name unless you send out cards one at a time—much like hand addressed cards.

Blocked emails don’t get returned. If you only have an e-mail account for your friend at their work place, beware that many companies block e-mails with flash animation or attachments. This may prevent your greeting from reaching the recipient, and since some blocked e-mails don’t bounce back to the recipient, you might not know your greeting didn’t get through.

Some folks don’t have e-mail. Who on Earth doesn’t have an e-mail account? Grandparents and older family friends may not be online at all, and students off for the holiday may not get your greeting until next year… literally. 

E-mail is disposable. While they are flashy and fun on the computer, many holiday greetings don’t translate if folks want to print them out, hang them up, or share them with holiday visitors. 

If it sounds like I’m talking you out of it, well, maybe I am. This season, use e-mail cards as invitations (which are a handy reference) or to offer greetings to small groups of work colleagues, but send traditional holiday cards to close friends and family. While this e-parent is all about tech benefits, the holidays are often about tradition, and in today’s techie world, a personally-addressed, hand-signed actual card with a photo of friends is truly a gift.

Sharon Miller Cindrich is a mother of two and the author of E-Parenting: Keeping Up with your Tech-Savvy Kids and A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet.