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I love mailing Christmas cards, mostly because I enjoy imagining people actually caring. We send out a photo card plus a short letter each year. (Don’t worry – it isn’t one of those six-page monologues that your second cousin sends you, detailing every time their child went to the bathroom. It’s a short letter.) Here are some ways of saving this year:

Research shipping. Different services have different prices for different destinations. You can click around online and find the best.

Ship away. If you buy online, have the gifts shipped to the person instead of to you. They’ll be just as excited to open a box as they will opening a wrapped box inside a box. It will save you the cost of resending the gift.

Buy Forever stamps. Their holiday stamps are some lovely evergreen branches. You can get all the traditional holiday themes – Christmas, Kwanza, Eid, etc. But if you get Forever stamps, the leftovers will be good next year and the year after, even if the price of postage goes up.