Those of you who know me know that I am not a big fan of birthdays. I feel that the celebration of the day is pointless and it is no different than any other day. The day that you were born doesn’t matter. What matters is what you’ve done in the days since. Im not going to talk directly about this right now. What I want to talk about is the giving of birthday/Christmas/Valentines Day… cards. In true 5 paragraph essay style I will convince you that greeting cards should not be given because they are expensive, wasteful, and do not convey true feelings.

Apparently greeting cards are about $5 now. This is ridiculous. Its a thick piece of paper with a generic sentiment on it. I feel like I need to capitalize on this and sit outside of the Hallmark store with a pad of construction paper and some markers. Ill make you handmade greeting cards, $2 each. Ill take online orders too. MattBrand could really make some money with this.

This insanity needs to stop. Americans purchase about 6.4 billion greetings cards every year. (Not a made up statistic.) Thats enough to circle the earth at least 20 times. This is ridiculous. I know that some of you keep and cherish the cards you get forever. Guess what, when youre 6 feet under and your kids have to sort through all of your junk those cards are going to the city dump. I say go green and stop giving cards.

Nothing says “I just read what someone wrote and couldnt come up with anything better” better than giving a greeting card. There are a hand full of cards that I have received multiple times. One was from the same person 2 years in a row. If you arent creative, thats ok. Im not either, which is why I have this extremely popular blog and website. But, dont for a second think that giving someone a card with some stock sentiment makes anyone think that you care.

So, heres what I want you to do next time you are compelled to give me a greeting card. Rather than spending $5 on a card that I am going to throw away moments after Ive checked to see if it has any money in it and pretended to read it, give me a $5 bill. Youve spent your money so you can feel good about yourself, and it hasnt gone to waste because now I can spend it on something. The fiver isnt going to end up in a landfill so global warming will come to an end. Lastly, if you feel something needs to be written on it you can write your favorite poem or something. (Dont have a favorite poem? Ill help.)That way I can enjoy it and all the other people whos hands it passes through can enjoy it as well.