With the internet at one’s disposal, sending greetings is a very easy thing to do.

No more hunting for the right card(s), hunting for the addresses (surely that aunt moved last year?), writing them laboriously, signing your name to so many cards, pasting on the postage (did the postage go up since the last time?….of COURSE it did!) and going to the post office to mail the cards, hoping that even in the rush, somehow, the greetings will reach their proper destination….and not be dumped by some disgruntled postperson who is sick and tired of walking around every day!

No…with the internet, in the twinkling of a moment, you can send greetings to your friends. And your family. And your relatives. And others.

Ah…the others. Here’s where the problem lies.

Some of us seem to think very all-inclusively about our communication; we seem to want to include every name and email id on our Address Book. I don’t seem to relate even to those physical cards which come with some unintelligible signature in them, with a bald wish for “good wishes for the festive season” or whatever.The signature is illegible because it was the 873rd time the poor sender was putting it on paper, of course.

To me, bulk greetings of any sort (both postal and e-mail) totally miss the point that such communication should make, which is, “I am thinking especially of you.” If I address a card (e- or real) to 250 people, who am I kidding that I am thinking of them? I am just thinking about getting my greeting-sending chore done, that’s all!

I cannot, therefore, send those generic festival greetings to everyone on my list. I would like to wish different people differently. (Eg for my sis in law, who has one false tooth in her smile, I made a greeting card that said, “Without you, there would be a gap in our lives.”…something like that.)

Yes, e-cards save paper…quite a lot of it, so I do like sending them. But each of my friends deserves individual attention, so if I feel the need to, I’ll send an individual card to each of them….

And what I have now started doing is, sending e-card replies, not greetings. To those friends and family who have wished me, or communicated with me, I send greetings or mail in return. I do not send out greetings on my own, because knowing me, I am bound to leave someone out!

But if you have sent me a greeting that is also going out to the rest of the egroup or your address book, I am sorry, I will not be replying to you!

Well, I do hope each of you is having a good festival, if you celebrate it, or enjoying the holiday(s) if you don’t…! But you’re not going to get bulk e-greetings from me…..