I’ve always thought that the custom of sending cards to everyone you know at Christmas is pretty weird (I know we apes do a lot of crazy things, especially at Christmas – bringing six million dying trees into our homes for a few weeks springs to mind.)

The US spends around $2 billion on Christmas cards every year, and after Christmas, people in the UK will dump or burn over a billion cards. There’s also the trees that are cut down every year to make all the cards, not to mention the money spent on postage stamps, and the additional carbon footprint left by the delivery of all those cards.

I like getting Christmas cards as much as the next person, but I no longer feel I can justify participating in this just for the sake of tradition and meeting people’s expectations.

So this year, and presumably every year from now on, we are not sending any Christmas cards, and we are donating the money we would have spent on them to Unicef, to help Syrian children.

I’m sure some people will be unimpressed with this decision, but frankly, we’re not doing it to impress anyone, just trying to put our money to better use and reduce our impact on the environment. If you usually send us a card, feel free to continue, or not, it’s entirely up to you. Any cards will be gratefully received, but we won’t be offended if you decide to stop sending them.

And if you think we’re somehow trying to say we’re better than anyone else for taking the ‘moral high ground’, rest assured that we will still be wrapping presents in paper, cooking a turkey, and driving all over the place to visit relatives, so feel free to look down on us for any of those things! 🙂

Merry Christmas!