Greeting cards

Living far from all of my family and many of my friends, I've made an effort since living in France to send out holiday greeting cards.

I figured out several years ago that "Christmas cards" don't exist since the French send cards to wish friends and family a happy new year, so for a while I bought the various holiday themed cards reading "Bonne Année".

But they were only sold in packs of 6 or 8 maximum and we wanted to send 20, 30 or more cards.
(There are even lots of cards sold individually, which I think people must buy to accompany a check or gift)

Enter the magic of iPhoto on my Mac and the pre-formated products you can order. To combine the French style greeting card and the American news-y annual Christmas letter we put a bunch of pictures on the card and wish everyone a happy new year. Last year we ordered post-card style cards with a large picture on one side and smaller pictures bordering on both sides, with the reverse middle empty to write a note to each person. This year we wanted to have larger pictures so I chose a horizontal folding card.

The printing service through iPhoto is really nice: paper and printing quality is always top notch and they arrive by FedEx/DHL in less than a week. For 50 cards plus envelopes (and shipping) I paid just over 80€.

As B and I were doing an assembly line production for the cards (write, write, stamp, stamp) I realized we would probably need about 50€ in postage since the price of cards sent in France would average with the price of cards sent internationally.

On the one hand this seems pretty expensive to send a card we hope people will keep for a while (it has nice pictures from our travels this summer!) but might toss before the end of the month. But it's also the price of living far from family and friends and I feel that receiving something by snail mail says more about how you value a relationship than a status update on Facebook or a group email.

And we might be able to save a few euros by getting some stamps from the university. I have quite a few stamped envelopes in my office from students who applied last year but weren't admitted and we didn't need the envelope to send them the registration materials. As an American, using office supplies for personal use seems unprofessional/marginally corrupt, but I know lots of French people (including my office mate and my husband) who put personal mail in outgoing to avoid paying postage or help themselves to printing paper or pens. I guess French customs are rubbing off on me because I'm less and less shocked by these kinds of things!

Next up: I have to reply to Rebecca's post plus review several different biking accessories I've been using.