by Robin Fiedler
This holiday I’m going to Elf Myself; it’s a personalized free e-greeting.
Holiday greeting cards have always been part of my Christmas decorations. The cards I receive in the mail are ceremoniously taped around doorways. That’s hard to do if we’re sending e-cards instead. But no fear, we can send both, and many of us do.
The ritual of sending greetings started with the Ancient Chinese and Egyptians, then later in Europe, more specifically the Germans, in the 1400’s, according to the Greeting Card Association. “Louis Prang, a German immigrant who started a small lithographic business near Boston in 1856, is generally credited with the start of the greeting card industry in America.”
The Greeting Card Association estimates, “The cost of a typical counter card. . . is between $2 and $4.” The average household buys 30 cards a year and each individual receives about 20 cards a year. Women buy about 80% of greeting cards, but men spend more per card. Women buy in bulk; men purchase one card at a time as needed.
According to the Greeting Card Association, we send 7 billion cards every year for a total of 7.5 billion dollars in total card sales. Today, there are e-cards, which became popular in the 1990’s, and surprisingly have not usurped sending traditional greeting cards, but instead are now supplementing our card-giving. “Electronic greeting cards (e-cards) are popular with Americans of all ages because they are casual, fun and spontaneous. Worldwide, an estimated 500 million e-cards are sent each year.” Since we send both, we search for free Christmas e-cards, and we particularly like free musical e-cards. 
One 2009 free holiday e-greeting MUST is to Elf Yourself. One of the coolest holiday e-cards for free is offered by Office Max and JibJab Media. Go to Elfyourself.com, and create your free personalized holiday e-card. It’s a short video that can be emailed, streamed, or downloaded. Office Max explains, “Users can then share their holiday eCards via email or using new capabilities that enable them to post their creations to Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites.” It’s all free, but saving a download of the video costs $5.
Up to five family and friends’ face photos can be easily uploaded, scaled and rotated. Then after marking the mouth area, pick a dance from “Disco Elves,” “Hip Hop Elves” to “Singing Elves” that perform a melody of holiday music. You can lift pictures from Facebook or upload from your computer. According to Office Max, Elf Yourself has had 284 million hits worldwide since it started in 2006.
For special family members, Office Max has customized Wall/Desk Calendars, starting at $14, a 2010 wall or desk calendar customized with family photos. I want one of those.
Other popular, and more importantly safe, e-card and e-greeting websites are Yahoo Greetings, which offers a free 2-week trial, and Hallmark.com, which has photo e-card basic formats for free, but an annual subscription costs only $10 for unlimited access. You can also send e-greeting cards through your favorite charity. Not only does the word of the charity spread, but most of the purchase price goes to the charity cause.
According to the National Retail Federation survey, most Americans plan to spend $26.77 on holiday greeting cards in 2009. I haven’t spent any of my $26.77 budget for Christmas cards yet, but my Elf Yourself is ready to go.
Resources
“About Greeting Cards.” Greeting Card Association. 11 Nov. 2009.
“‘ElfYourself’ Returns With Brand New Videos Including ‘Singing’ and ‘Break Dancing’ Elves.” Office Max. 10 Nov. 2009.
Grannis, Kathy. “Economy to Impact Two-Thirds of Families this Holiday Season, According to NRF Survey.” The National Retail Federation. 20 Oct. 2009.
COUPON TIME
After you get ahead on your greeting cards, get ahead on your holiday shopping by checking out all the Black Friday Promotions!
Around my house, it seems like it’s all hoops, all the time. My daughter plays on a middle-school varsity team; her practices and games have already started, and she’s lamenting the fact that it gets too dark too early for her to spend much time after school practicing foul shots with the neighbors. Her younger brother has been dragging out his kid-size net and drawing wavy “3-point lines” in the driveway with chalk. When it’s too dark for him to play outside, he’s got a Nerf hoop in the family room.
