I haven’t made a personal post here in quite some time and I maybe shouldn’t right now as I’m feeling a tad under the weather, but because it’s timely, and I’m not feeling all that great, I should just let it spill, right?

It has to do with Christmas cards. Does anyone else dislike emailed Christmas cards as much as I do? Perhaps my dislike is out of range. I should just appreciate any communique a person sends, right, whether of the paper sort or email?

But I don’t. I receive a card via email and I feel offended, not appreciated. Okay, I’m old school, I admit: I like the personal attention you have to give to writing someone’s name on an envelope–or even printing out a sheet of address labels, writing your name (a preprinted card will do) and affixing a stamp. We only do this once a year, right? No one sends out Valentines Day cards anymore, or Easter, or Halloween or Thanksgiving. So how much trouble can it be?

Now, if you don’t have someone’s address and you want them to know they’re in your thoughts, that’s different. And of course I want everyone to have a great holiday.

But if someone has my address and still sends me an email card, I hit delete. I don’t think, how sweet, how nice, how thoughtful. I think: Well, that was easy. I hope they feel good because I feel worse. I don’t feel appreciated at all. Rather, I feel minimized.

At this point, I should delete this post because I know I will offend some of my friends and colleagues who send email cards. In advance, I apologize. My sore throat and general lousy feeling made me hit “publish post.”

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this. Am I being too cranky?