It may only be the first of November, but doubtless many families will be starting to think about Christmas. One thing we would like to do is to take the pressure off families to send Christmas cards to every classmate. We know this can be a stress and there’s an expense too.
We’re also aware of the environmental impact of cards. While many can indeed be recycled, equally many can’t.
We’re not banning cards – we also know some children will love to write and send lots of cards to all their friends. We will still operate the post box service as normal.
What we’d like to do is suggest some alternatives:
- Each class will have an space set up so cards can be displayed and teachers will arrange opening and reading out of cards. Your child could bring in one card to their entire class and have it displayed there for everyone to read and enjoy. This could be a bought one or a home-crafted one. Cards could be delivered direct to the teacher or addressed to the class via the post box system. Either would work.
- You could spend what you might have spent on cards to support our chosen Christmas charity for this year, Crisis at Christmas. Donations can be made directly at their website or you could pop a donation into that card (above) for the teacher to collect in. We’ll gather any donations to send in one joint effort on behalf of our school community. If you like the idea of donating online, don’t be fooled into thinking £29 is the minimum donation (as we first thought) – you can put in any amount from £1 upwards. https://www.crisis.org.uk/ Crisis will also be the recipient of any collections we do at our nativities and Carol Services.
- Send an electronic card or greeting. There are lots of websites or apps to do this. Your child could send one to their class via the teacher’s email address. It could be displayed on the class screen.This site, for just one example, has lots that you can send free to up to 50 recipients: https://www.paperlesspost.com/cards/category/christmas-cards?coins=0 There are lots more alternatives if you Google ‘Digital Christmas Cards’
- Send a video greeting, again via the class teacher’s email address. This could be watched together in class
- Give the class the gift of a book. This is an idea we saw online at another school: A book for the book corner
Children could spend the money they would have spent buying cards to purchase a book for their classroom book corner. Children could even write a message inside the book wishing their classmates a happy Christmas and explain why they chose that book in particular.
- Do nothing – no one has to send anything! There is no obligation, of course.
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Do your own thing – you may have some great alternative ideas of your own. Feel free to share them with us if you think others might like them too. We can add them here!