You know what the equivalent of binge-scrolling was in the pre-internet days? Spending your lunch hour in a shop reading funny cards.
One after the other. You might go with a friend, passing the cards back and forth between your chuckling selves. They were the memes before memes existed.
Sometimes you bought a few cards simply because they made you laugh. Sometimes it was because they nailed the sentiment you wanted to express. Either way, you held onto these cards, waiting for the right recipient and the perfect occasion.
Cards weren’t just slips of paper. They were documents that underpinned social interaction. A card for the graduate. A card for the bereaved. A card for a birthday; a special card for a special birthday. A good card was a prize.
Christmas cards were the measure of much, with snowy evenings set aside in early December to dispatch the docket. You could tell a lot about a person by looking at their Christmas card mailings and whether they went for basic or foil-lined envelopes; Winter Wonderland or Holy Land motifs, rum-ball jokes or mawkish sentiments. A custom job complete with a family photo of everyone arrayed on a staircase – the pinnacle of the seasonal card – was a veritable anthropology.
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Sending cards was expected. The expression “Not so much as a card” was an indictment. It meant you didn’t have a shred of human decency.
Times change. Now we have e-cards. And no cards.
You know who could use a “get well soon” card? The greeting card industry. In just the last five years it’s contracted by about 11 per cent, according to 2025 report. Today, it registers in the range of $184-million , way down from 2010 when the sector was valued at around $730-million. And who’s buying cards today? Women. Seventy-five per cent of cards are bought by women. I suspect it was ever thus.
I have in my possession two types of cards: cards I’ve received that are too good to throw out, and cards I’ve bought that are too good to send out.
For instance, one card given to me reads: Never mistake my silence for weakness. No one plans a murder out loud.
Every time I see it, I laugh.
Another says: My desire to be well informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.
Bada bing! I think it was sent to me because I always say I read broadly … and shallowly.
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I tell a friend about my card archive and she shows me a card she’s kept for years. It shows a woman being interviewed for a job by two men, who are explaining they’re looking for someone who can do the work of six men. The bubble above the female candidate’s head reads: That’s a shame. I was looking for a full-time job.
Bada bing! We fall over laughing.
In a different drawer I have the unsent cards I can’t part with. They’re too perfect. Too funny. Or I’m saving them for some precise occasion that has yet to identify itself.
I have one where a terribly chic woman is standing on airstairs above a tarmac. She’s wearing gloves, carrying a hat box, and waving. A terribly handsome man in a fedora stands behind her. The caption reads: Every Holiday season, Jane flew home to show everyone her new husband.
If your name is Jane and you’ve married twice, this is pure gold. It’s the crown jewel in my Too Good to Mail collection. Instead, I describe it to people.
I have another card that shows a classic church lady on the front. The front reads: Jesus loves you. Inside the card it says: But the rest of us think you’re a jerk. (Well, words to that effect).
Who to send it to? Who? There are many candidates but just the one card.
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I also have cards that are too dear to discard because of sentimental reasons. I saved one from my mother-in-law who suffered terribly with multiple sclerosis. The torment is evident in the constricted, heartbreakingly wobbly letters with which she signed the card: Mom. She cared about cards. At the store she’d read them all and, with great care, select the one she thought was perfect. It wasn’t a hasty purchase, by any means.
Another keepsake is a card my grandfather sent when my daughter was born. His free-ranging scrawl reads: Welcome to the world. Even if you do have the misfortune of being born during the Reagan administration.
He was political. She was a baby. Go figure.
Cards may not be cheap, but snail mail has a unique capacity to bring cheer into the household. And while those bedazzled Papyrus cards can cost as much as $20 – not including special postage – they’re still cheaper than flowers.
Mother’s Day is just around the corner. After Christmas and Valentine’s Day, it’s the third-biggest card-buying occasion in the calendar. For years I’ve saved a card my sister sent me that’s vaguely related to the occasion.
On the front it says: I couldn’t ask for a better sister. Inside it reads: Well, I could … but mom’s getting a little too old now.
And then there’s this one, showing a mother and daughter:
Am I a bad mother, Jane?
The daughter’s rejoinder:
My name is Sarah.
Bada bing! Definitely one for the archive.
Jane Macdougall is a writer based in Vancouver.
