This week I learned that something has been lost in this time of social media pandemonium.
And I believe Hallmark would agree with me.
My birthday was this week. I remember when people actually went to the store, carefully spent time hand-picking a greeting card for you that semi-suited your personality, forked over hard-earned cash at the register, then had to actually know your physical address to mail the card, adding a stamp also purchased with hard earned money.
A few days later, you received this wonderful declaration of how much someone loved you, with colorful ink, heartfelt words, and maybe a fart joke imbedded on card stock inside an envelope.
Those days were WONDERFUL!
I LOVED those days!
One of my favorite greeting cards of all time featured these words and graphics
And some people just like to get cards because they expect cash or check or a giftcard inside. But that isn’t me. It was always the thoughtfulness behind the card that I liked most.
I would get birthday cards as a kid, and set them around the house to enjoy them long after opening the envelope.
Greeting cards have slowly been replaced by electronic email cards, email, texts, etc.
This year I got no cards in my mailbox for my birthday. I blame that on 4 things.
1. I am an adult now. (Kids always get more birthday cards than adults.)
2. My birthday is next to 2 major holidays. (So they could just be late getting here in the mail.)
3. Facebook is destroying the greeting card industry. (More on this in a minute.)
4. No one loves me.
The wise rainbow knows all.
People so willingly enter their birthdays into Facebook, then on their birthday it will remind all their friends to wish them a “Happy Birthday”.
I’m sorry, but this feels like cheating to me.
I don’t give Facebook my birthday for several reasons. One of them being on my birthday, I don’t want hollow birthday wishes. I totally admit that some of my facebook friends are more acquaintances than my besties. And this is fine.
But is it wrong of me to still feel like someone should put a little effort into wishing someone else a happy birthday? I admit, I am lax in this department as well. But some of my Facebook friends don’t even know my physical address or in what city I live in.
Even MY MOM didn’t get me a birthday card this year. Ugh.
Not to diminish the wishes of those who did wish me a happy birthday via Facebook. Thank you. For without those wishes, I would have had no wishes at all. (And my dear mother-in-law who left me a voicemail. She is a consistent listener to the audio-version of my blog, so I better give her a shout out.)
I am just a person who likes to hold on to the old ways. 2013 was the first year that I went electronic with my personal organizer and address book. It may be another 5 years before I embrace this Facebook birthday thing.
Which, by then, Facebook will be replaced with some other media with a goofy name.
