Postcards and letters still matter to some people. Don’t dismiss these as a form of communication just because we live in an internet age. Much as I am an internet junkie, and in fact thought about calling myself iPaula since I own everything starting with an “i” (hope you are reading this Apple), not everyone is like me. Well actually most people are, but some .. like my mother … are not.
Why Postcards and letters still matter to my mother
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Mum is a Luddite, and refuses point blank to have anything to do with anything remotely looking like it belongs to something modern. She is a highly intelligent woman who is as stubborn as a mule. Yes, I love her but … she likes to be difficult. I can also write this here, because she doesn’t read this.
Postcards and letters still matter and Gen Y
She writes letters and loves to receive them. Funnily enough all of the Gen Y kids in our family are right on board with this, and write to her every week and she replies every week. She writes to my siblings who don’t live in the area, and they write back, ditto friends and relatives. She and the postman are friends.
She also loves postcards. Whenever anyone of us is away, we send postcards. I believe however, in that competitive sibling rivalry type of way, that I have made everyone else’s life really difficult. No longer can anyone get away with the “having a great time, we are well, hope you are too”. No, I have ruined it.
But really, it started with my niece. She was studying in Maastricht and sending her grandmother postcards. One day she was on such a roll, that she forgot the address and with no room left on the back or most of the front of the card, she placed it on a tiny space on the front. The Dutch and the Australian postal services deserve medals, as it arrived in Australia much to Mums amusement and actually to all of ours.
Game on young lady.
How to make Postcards and letters interesting
In Japan I sent her Mum one that was written from the bottom left hand corner backwards to the top. It took me an hour … try it … it is difficult. The postal people in Nozawa Onsen were watching me and wondering what I was actually doing. When we went to Munich, I was at a loss so bought a beautiful card and with the use of my translation app on my IPAD, wrote it all in German. She didn’t understand a word of it, but that one got huge value from her coterie of admirers. She shares these postcards with everyone, as does the postman who has read them first. In Switzerland, we found one of those beautiful cards that folds out to be about a metre long and had cows and alpenhorns all over it.
Another thing – she judges the stamps for one. So it is always difficult to try and ask for the prettiest stamp that they sell, when they don’t understand English. Note to other countries – Australia has beautiful stamps and our money is colourful too, so we don’t feel so depressed when everything costs so much. The lovely man in Amsterdam didn’t understand English or my request for a pretty stamp, but when I said ‘moeder’ and did a bit or role play, he got it. He found a lovely stamp for me. The next day he had a beautiful postcard and when I wrote about him and how lovely he was, Mum was delighted.
Finding a postcard in Bangkok was difficult. For a country that sells everything, we really had to hunt one down, and to make sure that we were not violating anything like having a Buddha on the front and we were a little careful with what we wrote as things were tense in Bangkok at that time.
In Domodossola, where there was no English, we resorted to a half Italian, half English diatribe of crap. Again she loved it.
We will be in London soon, so I think that the Queen may have to send her a postcard and a letter.
this is awesome! I love postcards:)) I used to send them too. I don’t anymore:( But I still buy postcards wherever I go:)
I know people love receiving them. I did find an electronic version of postcards, but am not sure that it is the same.
I love sending myself a postcard from each city I visit. It’s something to look forward to in the mail and helps me remember all the places I’ve been.
It’s a great idea to do that, and to get home and see where you have been, and more importantly what you were thinking at the time.
I used to love receiving postcards but was hopeless at sending them.
I’ve started using an app on my phone (postify). Is that cheating? I love it that you can use your own photo in the postcard but it does mean when I send one to my Mum, for example, it doesn’t have a pretty stamp as it is printed and posted in the UK, no matter where in the world I am.
Kat that doesn’t count. Get that pen out, pick a pretty card and a stamp and send your Mum a ‘real’ postcard. The other day I sent Mum one from where we live, 10kms from where she does. It gave her amusement value
I’ve used that app too. It does make things a lot easier but without the stamp its not the same.
Love letters and postcards, am crap at sending them now though. Back in the day I travelled Africa for a year before settling there for 3 and I wrote a letter every week. My parents kept them all and I have them now – was amazing to read them years later. My wife also has all the letters and cards I sent to here while we were travelling apart. I think the appeal nowadays is that it just takes so much more effort to write by hand and that makes the recipient feel a little more special than getting a dumb text message…I may yet try to kick start the habit again 🙂
I like this response and I think that you have explained it perfectly – it makes the person feel special. So many people save letters and postcards and it is more special than reading over emails or texts. Start again Andy.
Who doesn’t love mail? I mean real mail? Something other then a bill. We spent y parents a postcard from the Arctic Circle at Christmas time from Santa’s very own post office. The kids loved it, the grandparents loved it and I loved it. I’m going to do it more often, thanks for the reminder.
That is lovely; lets start a big movement – ‘Send a postcard today’.
I’d gotten away from postcards, but your ingenuity has inspired me to give it another try. I do love going to visit my mom and seeing my postcards from Paris, Greece and various other places I’ve visited- it’s a moment in time of how I was feeling and what I was experiencing in that place. Great article.
Thank you, it is interesting reading back what we were experiencing at the moment. I think there will be a resurgence in snail mail, and not just because of this post, but that so many people are expressing how much that they really appreciate them
I’d gotten away from postcards, but I love the ingenuity you’ve used and think I will give it another try on our next adventure. Great article.
I love postcards. I have a large collection of them. Some of them were from me to my parents when I was younger and others were sent to my family. They are great memories.
We have received so many positive comments on this “post”, and it just goes to show how many people really do value receiving and indeed keeping them
I love both sending and receiving postcards. I wish it was still more of a “thing” to do still…(i.e. I wish more people would send me postcards!) I have a few great ones, including one from Antarctica.
send me your address by email and I will send you one 🙂
I send post cards and letters monthly from Japan, back home to my family and all over the world to the people I’ve met while here. I think another great thing about post cards and letters today, is that they make you feel like you matter to someone. Someone took the time to select and buy the card, to write it, to fix a stamp on it and to send money to mail it. The internet has given us convenience, but it has also taken the feeling out of long distance communication.
My mother used to write letters back and forth to her mother, and now, I write letters back and forth with her. Each letter is personalized, and all the post cards I’ve send her are stuck on her fridge. It’s great to open the mail box and see something that isn’t a flyer, or a bill. Something that shows someone out there si willing to spend $1 to show you how much they care.
I love this as my mother has all of the postcards and letters that she receives as well. In fact we sent one from Belgium to my brother in law and it is still on his fridge. Thanks for comment
Saw this on google+ this morning (love networking with the travel group!) and I had to comment. I LOVE getting and sending mail. And even people I know who are younger and don’t send mail themselves have said to me that it was really fun or special to get something in the mail. I especially love it on trips, because it sort of keeps family and friends who we see only a few times per year in the loop. 🙂 My cousin who just turned 18 sent me a vintage post card from her home just to tell me that she liked when we sent her post cards. 🙂 Oddly enough in New Orleans I had the most difficult time finding a post card to send. I typically gravitate toward something quirky or vintage inspired or a reproduction. I couldn’t find anything so I ended up with this reproduction of a painting that I had never seen or heard of that was fairly pretty, but I was still hoping for better… anyhow we heard from my husband’s aunt, and then from my mother in law and then from his aunt AGAIN that she loved it so much she put it on a little easel in her home office. I was shocked (happily so) especially since I got it at a convenience store and she lives in a very affluent part of a neighboring city! 🙂 Funny.
Love that you are making people smile with your post cards too. 🙂 – for a techie, there is an app called postale and it lets you make post cards with your own pictures from your devices. It is very cool you can pick templates and add your photos and text. Then you can share them on social media and order them to send in the mail if you’d like. Check it out, it’s a neat app. 🙂
🙂
Alexandra
Simply Alexandra: My Favorite Things
Send me you address, I will definitely send you one. I have been so happy to hear that so many people still value the letter and the postcard. We may all revitalise this.