What happened to the cards?

the ritual of sending snail mail.

This year, I didn’t get a birthday card. Not one. No crinkly envelope. No handwritten note. No glitter-bombed declaration of "You were born and I’m glad." (no this is not a post with me whinging about it either).

Photo by Maxim Simonov on Unsplash

I got some texts and Facebook posts and a lot of people saying nothing at all. I mean there’s the vague sense that maybe people meant well but were distracted, or assumed someone else had done it, or maybe just forgot entirely. Which also happened when I was 10, but it hurts just as much at 32.

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The Stats Say It Too

We’re not imagining it. The whole birthday-card culture is quietly fading.

• The U.S. greeting card industry still moves about 6.5 billion cards/year, but printed card sales have fallen nearly 13% over five years.

• 60% of consumers now choose digital greetings instead of physical ones.

• A UK survey showed that only 13% of birthday greetings are paper cards, while 70% of people say those cards feel more meaningful.

We’re still celebrating each other….sort of. But now it’s via a text with 3 cake emojis, or a thumbs-up on a birthday Facebook post that gets buried by noon. It’s efficient. It’s easy and it’s really emotionally flat.

Before you ask—no, I’m not amazing at cards either. Typically I buy a cute pack and it sits in a drawer until the season's passed and then I usually put it on a Buy Nothing page. So I’m not writing this from a place of greeting-card righteousness. I’m writing from the ache and the longing. And the realization that we’ve quietly let go of something deeply tender: the art of sending a card.

And I think we’re starting to feel it. Especially those of us who are the “doers” in our houses ( I may forget a card but you WILL have a treat and at the very least my goblin butt singing to you) so when it’s our turn, and the room stays quiet, it lands in a different kind of hard.

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Here’s What I’m Doing About It

Again, there’s no guilt here, but dammit I feel like if I’m going to complain about not getting cards, I should be the one to do something about it. Something to reclaim a little sliver of that magic I felt as a kid when the cards would show up in the weeks before (and after) my birthday and maybe to even turn the ache into an offering.

I’m going to make a card box into some wild little altar. A way to send real mail again without pressure or perfectionism.

Here’s what’s in it:

• A small stash of 12 cards (blank, beautiful, some are kind of weird)

• A good pen, some stamps, and a batch of stickers.

• A tiny playlist for letter-writing moods

• A few names. Just people I want to stay tethered to in real ways

• A little tin of dried herbs to tuck in when I’m feeling extra

• A promise to myself to send just 2–3 cards each season

It’s low-pressure. Seasonal. Ritual-based. And it starts with me. Not because I owe it to anyone, but because I want to hold onto the parts of connection that last longer than a text notification.

Maybe I’ll even write one to myself.

Hell, do you need one?

Because we all deserve to be celebrated. Even if it starts with our own hands.

With determination and stamps,
Sia