This Year's New Year's Cards

Hello, this is Pandagorogoro.

The end of the year and the beginning of the new year were hectic, and it wasn't until the third that I was able to slowly look through the New Year's cards that arrived on New Year's Day.

When I was a child, the New Year's cards arriving from friends on New Year's Day were my greatest joy, and I used to look forward to them.
Now, 50 years later, they have become a luxurious traditional event that gets pushed to the back of our lives—a non-essential task that takes both time and effort.

For my children's generation, it seems to have become the norm to send New Year's greetings via email or LINE instead of New Year's cards.

From now on, the custom of sending New Year's cards might become polarized between those who write them with brush and ink and those who send them instantly via email.

Now, the reason I decided to write about New Year's cards is that the number of postcards I send is decreasing year by year.

This year, when my husband asked me, "How many New Year's cards do you need?", I counted the people in my address book for New Year's cards and found there were over 60.
That is the number excluding those who sent me mourning postcards, but even so, there must have been nearly 100 people over a decade ago, and I felt deeply moved by how much that number has dropped.

I think the good thing about New Year's cards is that they allow you to greet people you haven't seen all year, renew old friendships, and even if you don't meet in person, you can let each other know that you are doing reasonably well and that you haven't forgotten about them.

I think it is quite a high hurdle to send a letter to someone when there is no particular reason to do so in this busy social life, but with a New Year's card, you can easily report on your recent situation or learn about theirs through a postcard without the other person thinking it's strange and wondering, "Why now?"

Because of that, along withspring cleaning, I have continued sendingtwo major{time-consuming and laborious events}, even thoughNew Year's cards are one of them.

However, the number of cards I send and receive has gradually decreased, leading to this year.

I know the reason for the decrease.

Reason #1 for the decrease in New Year's cards

The people I send New Year's cards to are,

is the main point, but first, the decline in (1) is significant.

Since relatives are almost entirely people older than oneself, when one's own parents pass away, one's aunts and uncles also begin to pass away at the same time, causing that number to drop sharply.

Now, the only relatives I send New Year's cards to are my three cousins on my father's side.

Regarding (2), my former teachers, the number of those who have passed away has also increased over the last five or six years.

As for (3), my friends, they are fortunately still doing well, but the year before last, a friend from my middle and high school days passed away due to illness.

This is a side note, but the mourning postcards I received this year had a notable characteristic.
In cases where the age of the deceased was clearly stated, they were all over 90 years old.
Both of my parents passed away in their 80s, so I was impressed by how everyone is living longer now.
I suppose it is due to advances in medicine.

Reason for the decrease in New Year's cards (2)

Now, the second reason for the decrease in the number of New Year's cards is the
<increase in people declaring their graduation from New Year's cards>
.

This year, too, I received cards from relatives in (1) and people from (2) who helped me in the workplace in the past, stating that since they are reaching the age of late-stage elderly, they will stop sending New Year's cards from next year.

My parents back home did the same a few years before they passed away (my daughter and I thought up the wording, printed it on postcards, and mailed them), so I understand well that as one gets older, exchanging New Year's cards becomes a burden.

My husband and I have also discussed that when we get even older in the future, we will have to consider two items:

(1) returning our driver's licenses
(2) stopping New Year's cards

.

Reason for the decrease in New Year's cards (3)

The third is natural attrition.
This is the case where you had been exchanging New Year's cards for some time, but from a certain year, they suddenly stopped coming from the other person.

In such cases, I continue to send them for three years even if I don't receive one from the other person, and from the following year, I remove their name from my list.

This is common with people I worked with temporarily or met a few times in succession, but as time passes, they return to being strangers.

This year, there was someone I stopped sending to based on the above rule, but surprisingly, a New Year's card arrived from them on New Year's Day, so I hurriedly sent one back.

It seems that the number of New Year's cards sent across Japan is decreasing year by year.
I wonder if it will quietly become a custom of the past,
or if it will regain popularity due to some trigger,
and I would like to keep observing it.

Thank you for reading until the end today as well.
It is nice to be able to exchange New Year's greetings with everyone on note here on the platform.
I look forward to your continued support this year.

*The title image was borrowed from Fumiko-san.
Thank you very much.