Holiday Greetings Should Come From the Hand

Meghan Daum is sick of receiving e-cards with dancing Santas and singing snowmen instead of real Christmas cards, and she's got a theory why people are sending so many of them. It's not laziness or a wish to save paper, it's because too many people—including herself—have let the computer age wither their handwriting skills to a sub-second grade level, she writes in the Los Angeles Times.

Daum ends up discarding many half-written cards because her penmanship is so poor that "Merry Christmas" looks like "Hurry Chipmunk," but she loves the process of picking them out, digging up addresses, and buying special holiday stamps. "Not only is it impossible to stick a dollar bill in an e-card, it's hard to find a template that includes the sentiment 'Hurry Chipmunk,' Daum writes. "When you get that greeting from me, you know it's for real." (More Christmas card stories.)