The NTWF Christmas Card Swap 2024 [SIGNUPS LOCKED]

[Ginz ❤]

Oct 30, 2024 9:56:06 GMT -5 Huntress said:

...in theory I could also be super clever this year and send our card to Ginz from the USA because this way it'd probably get there much faster, buuut then I wouldn't be able to use my brand new set of custom stamps that arrived today :'D Ginz ❤ , any preference either way?

oh, hmmm... that's a difficult choice, haha. But I love your custom stamps, so I think it'll be worth the wait just to get that! <3

[notooryous]

I would love to sign up this year =)

[Moni]

ok so. not really sharing my address with literally everyone. but is it possible to like, send basic cards to people on this list and just receive nothing? i send only the most basic postcards though and i'm not 100% on how to use mail

[Huntress]

Nov 1, 2024 16:28:48 GMT -5 Moni said:

ok so. not really sharing my address with literally everyone. but is it possible to like, send basic cards to people on this list and just receive nothing? i send only the most basic postcards though and i'm not 100% on how to use mail

Wayhey that is a lot of new arrivals this year - man, I need to stop cutting corners when writing up those posts, the past few years have always been the same people who already know the drill so I got lax :'D

'nyway, I'd say that the core tenet of this event is that everyone signs up, everyone hands out their address and everyone sends a card to everyone else, so I'd rather not bend on that one. After all, receiving everyone's postal addresses is arguably a greater trust than the benefit of receiving a bunch of nice cards. And keeping that a two-way road is about the only pinky-promise-esque security measure we can reasonably have in place.

Using mail should be as easy as "take a bunch of cards to the post office and make sad faces at whichever post office lady is willing to walk you through it", at least.

[June Scarlet]

Okay, I checked, and Twillie is okay with me sharing an envelope with her, where she'd add my postcard to her card, and it'd be sent at the same time.

Would that be okay? I've thought about it some more, and I just don't think I'm set up right now to receive cards this year, but I do have cards leftover from the Kansas City convention. I wouldn't need cards in return sent along with whatever Twillie gets, this is just a way to share the cards for me.

[Huntress]

Nov 1, 2024 19:23:23 GMT -5 June Scarlet said:

Okay, I checked, and Twillie is okay with me sharing an envelope with her, where she'd add my postcard to her card, and it'd be sent at the same time.

Would that be okay? I've thought about it some more, and I just don't think I'm set up right now to receive cards this year, but I do have cards leftover from the Kansas City convention. I wouldn't need cards in return sent along with whatever Twillie gets, this is just a way to share the cards for me.

That does sound like a reasonable way of doing it - that'd mean that you're not a participant per se, but more of a bonus that comes along with Twillie's cards. So I won't be adding you to the list, nobody is required to send you anything back, but anyone who wants to set up a separate card-sending agreement with any of their other friends, forum or otherwise, has been encouraged to do so from the very first iteration of this event anyway because maximum holiday cheer FTW. There's nothing wrong with this card swap having little offshoot circles where people who might not have been comfortable sharing their address with the entire swap circle can sort out holiday card sending amongst themselves, I just don't want to also coordinate any of those offshoots myself because that'd get insane tbh :'D


Okiedokiepokie, timezones should have ticked thoroughly into November 2nd now and we also have a solid ten participants so it feels prudent to lock these signups now. And since we have new faces this time around (color me impressed, goes to show that there's still growth potential in this lil dinosaur community of ours) I'm going to roll the address method back to the OG approach because this way it'll be easier for me to handle any potential questions one-on-one.

In other words, please PM me your mailing address separately in an as-soon-as-possible fashion. Once I get all addresses, I'll lump them all into neat little address sets, fuss over them endlessly so as not to get anything wrong, and send them back out to everybody.

Twillie Pixie Carolyn Celestial Thundy Ginz ❤ Birdy dcathartiq Kat notooryous ahh, the return of the tag rainbow, I'd missed this.

Other points of interest:

• Do also let me know if you have any specific preferences about the cards you receive. Over the years we've had people who celebrate the more Christian angle of Christmas, the more secular kind, Hanukkah, "I don't mind, send me whatever", "nonspecific winter holiday cards only please" and probably a few other iterations I've forgotten.
• I don't consider it an obligation to write feedback about the cards you receive, but it's turned into a pretty steady custom for everyone over the years and is also the primary way of keeping the Good Vibes going throughout the card arrival season (not to be confused with the actual holiday season, ahaheh).
• Relatedly, if your cards don't seem to be arriving or reaching the recipients, don't despair, random unexpected late arrivals are a rite of passage of this event xD But at the same time, do try to be diligent about sending them out on time.
• The main point is the aforementioned Good Vibes. Plz don't make me handle bad vibes, I tend to handle them with sharp objects :]

[Huntress]

Alright, everyone has now received their addresses with a healthy sprinkling of my everlasting paranoia that I mucked something up somewhere. Truly a time-honored tradition. Which means that we can now all get to the sending part, or in my case the part where I'm impatiently eyeing the magazine racks of the grocery stores waiting for the holiday cards to actually make an appearance. I swear, advent calendars are already all over the place but does anyone have cards? Nope.

We're still pretty early in the season, but I do suggest getting the cards to the farthest destinations from you out in first order and relatively soon, maybe by 20 November or so. In my experience, regular cards take about two weeks to travel between the US and Europe, while all bets are off with other continents.

Twillie Carolyn Celestial Thundy Ginz ❤ Birdy dcathartiq Kat notooryous tag rainbow continues to prosper

[notooryous]

Thanks so much for organizing, Huntress!

[Celestial]

So, I had a realisation...

Some of y'all are due mail from us of the invitation kind. Would anybody mind if we slip the wedding invite into the cards for folks who have expressed interest in coming? ^^ That way, we are not double-mailing.

Of course, I get it if you all would prefer to not cross the streams, and both card and invite are special in their own way, so I am floating this idea now. x3 Anybody object to slipping in an extra wedding invitation, those who already expressed interest in attending. (Twillie, Carolyn, Ginz ❤, Kat, Huntress, Fraze)

[Carolyn]

Go for it! International mail is $$$ by all means combo!

[Ginz ❤]

Celestial I think that's a very smart idea! Would love to receive both together. ^^

[Huntress]

Personally I'm more partial for double-mailing, because more envelopes = more yay and it'd keep the specialness of both separate. Fraze's aunt sends our kids personalized postcards on the regular and they usually show up with a few days of each other despite being mailed at the same exact time.

Not that we would, like, be upset if you did send them together xD Ultimately it's your call ^^

[Kat]

Nov 12, 2024 16:04:04 GMT -5 Celestial said:

So, I had a realisation...

Some of y'all are due mail from us of the invitation kind. Would anybody mind if we slip the wedding invite into the cards for folks who have expressed interest in coming? ^^ That way, we are not double-mailing.

Of course, I get it if you all would prefer to not cross the streams, and both card and invite are special in their own way, so I am floating this idea now. x3 Anybody object to slipping in an extra wedding invitation, those who already expressed interest in attending. (Twillie, Carolyn, Ginz ❤, Kat, Huntress, Fraze)

I don't mind if you slip the invite into the same envelope as your card - whichever is more convenient for you! I just need the invite in some shape or form to shove at the embassy for my visa application.

[Huntress]

Continuing to justify my existence in this relatively hands-off type of event to remind everyone to get 'em cards on the road probably sooner rather than later.

The reminder applies to myself as well, but no worries, there's still time >> The more demand we place on the postal system, the more incentive they have to increase efficiency, right? Right? (ha.)

Twillie Carolyn Celestial Thundy Ginz ❤ Birdy dcathartiq Kat notooryous

[Carolyn]

I sent out one international card (got two to hopefully send this morning) and one US card! Gonna try to do the international ones first since they have further to travel.