Friday, December 9, 2011

Has Facebook killed the holiday card? - San Jose Mercury News

By Angela Hill
Oakland Tribune

Updated: 11/30/2011 01:16:59 PM PST

On one side of the gold-wrapped chocolate coin in your Christmas stocking, there's Kathleen Snider, of Alameda, who was simply stunned to get a detailed, family-update holiday letter in the mail from a friend last year because she figured everyone is on Facebook now and no one sends holiday cards or letters anymore.

"I have to say, I thought it was archaic. I mean, I'm 53, and I thought it was something really old people did," Snider said while shopping in Cost Plus World Market in Oakland recently. She picked up a small box of hard-copy Christmas cards she plans to send only to a few relatives "who still like to get mail."

On the flip side, there's Janice Hitchcock of Albany, who uses Facebook but still snail-mails 90-plus cards every holiday season, staying up deep into many a silent night writing, editing and perfecting her annual holiday letter as her husband, Steve, adds his own personal notes in the margins. They even keep all the cards they received from friends from the year before and reread them so as to make up-to-date individual comments in every note.

"I think people realize a status update on Facebook is not a greeting," Hitchcock, 63, said. "An e-card might be a greeting, but it's so easy to just delete it. It feels so cold."




Has Facebook killed the holiday card? - San Jose Mercury News

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