Has Facebook Raised the Bar on Christmas Cards?

Recently at work, one of my 20-something colleagues was furiously finishing up her stack of Christmas cards, and I thought to myself, "How quaint. I thought only people who weren't on Facebook still sent Christmas cards." Apart from sending religious and artistic Christmas cards, this snail-mail Christmas ritual seemed as vestigial to me as an appendix. Christmas cards historically served as an efficient way for people to maintain a semblance of contact with friends and relatives, especially those far from home. But with the advent of Facebook, we can now track the daily travails of Tracy from high school and pore over every photo cousin Phil took of his trip to Fargo without even getting up from our chair.

Abetting Facebook's takeover of Christmas cards has been the steeper cost of postage stamps and a growing number of people declaring themselves too green to kill trees for Christmas cards. In our household this season, the mailbox that groaned under the weight of Christmas cards in the past was almost barren except for bills, and as the previous years' flood turned into a relative trickle, I found that I honestly did not miss receiving those commercially pre-printed cards containing just a harried signature from the sender. With the exception of the few treasured home-made cards and those with chatty, personalized messages, Facebook had functionally replaced the mass-produced commercial Christmas card in the blink of a mouse click.

Here's my analysis of how Facebook stacks up to different kinds of Christmas cards:

Photo Christmas Cards vs. Family Photos in Facebook: In years past, Christmas cards containing a family photo were among my favorites because I enjoyed seeing dramatic changes in my friends' and relatives' children from year to year. But now that family photo albums from pre-school graduations to high school prom pictures are posted on Facebook in real time, such once-a-year posed snapshots seem almost anticlimactic.

Family Christmas Letters vs. Facebook Wall Postings: Those braggy holiday letters that are so much fun to get (and so much fun to make fun of) have also become obsolete because of Facebook. We are now privy to detailed information about every trip our friends and relatives take throughout the year, including (in the case of some Facebook fanatics) routine trips to the grocery store.

Funny Christmas Cards vs. Funny YouTube video links on Facebook: Even those funny Christmas cards, such as the Shoebox Greetings line from Hallmark, have been usurped by Facebook users' ability to post comical video links, such as this animated suspense short, in which a Santa ornament springs loose from the Christmas tree to score some homemade chocolate chip cookies or this Doctor Who-styled rendition of "The 12 Pains of Christmas."

When it comes to Christmas cards vs. Facebook, the latter has become a cyber Annie Oakley crowing, "Anything you can do I can do better." Yet, despite its Hollywoodization and Time magazine Man of the Year acclaim, ultimately Facebook is just glorified software code frozen behind a screen-a graphical display that can never be passed around the kitchen table or saved in a hatbox. Unlike a colorful envelope with a hand-scrawled address- a personalized greeting bursting with the creativity and love of the person who sent it-Facebook will never be able to warm my heart or decorate my hearth like good old-fashioned Christmas cards.

Christmas Cards vs. Facebook: And the winner is...

Perhaps the only Christmas cards that deserve to disappear are those generic greetings with assemblyline signatures. Does the world really need another Christmas card depicting a wreath-dressed door or goofy Rudolph? In the icy arena of Christmas cards, Facebook has raised the bar.