BIRTHDAY CARDS

A birthday can be a milestone or simply a special day where you celebrate being another year older. I, however, learned long ago, from a college friend, that a birthday is so special it desires special consideration: birthday week or, better yet, birthday month. The celebration of birthday month has become a new ritual.

The expanded birthday holiday can be very helpful to the spouse who can never remember the actual day or who happens to be away on business for the actual day. A month-long celebration means there are four weekends to consider for the “special celebration”. Of course, for the birthday boy or girl, it means – there are now 30 times as many days to get additional gifts – or that a birthday card is never too early or too late. It just needs to land in your birthday month.

I haven’t seen Hallmark or American Greetings embellishing your birthday into a month-long celebration – but as this trend continues – I would not be surprised. After all, Christmas starts right around Halloween.

Many of my retailer loyalty programs were on top of this trend sending me extra discounts valid for my birthday month. It looks like the marketers are already on board with birthday month.

For my recent birthday, I am pleased to report that I still received snail-mail, paper cards. I happen to like cards and the lost art of sending letters on cool stationery or in nice cards. But, I also utilize the very convenient ecards – to ensure that my cards arrive to my friends on their exact birthdays. I also received many ecards for my birthday, and they all were welcomed.

From Facebook wishes to the ecards that showed up in my email and the stream of the paper cards – I got the trifecta of birthday wishes. While the US Postal Service may be crazed by the reduction of paper cards and therefore use of postage stamps, as the recipient – I like the mix of media greetings. And as people become more conscious of eliminating paper products that will be thrown away versus electronic greetings that will only be deleted – the sustainability-conscious or green crowd will be moving from recycled paper cards to the eco-conscious ecard.

The point is – remembering your friends’ and family’s birthdays. Wishing people well as they travel down their life’s path – makes every birthday girl or guy – happy that their friends remember. So, while I am delighted that I received some paper cards – I am just as happy that so many of my friends hit my birthday month with well wishes for my future.