I love greeting cards. When I go to the mall, I like to stop at Hallmark and look at cards and when I go to Target, I like to stop at the greeting card section. I love looking at cards because they are small pieces of art and I have fun sending them. It annoys my husband a little (hehe) when I look at cards, so I tell him to go elsewhere. The hardest thing I learned is just because I send them, that doesn't mean the recipients will reciprocate. But I still send cards because I love to send them (paper cards and e-cards). I do it for satisfaction for myself. I tell myself that I'm the better person. Some people are too lazy to send them or just don't know how to write, they don't care or don't think about it. Alot of them prefer emailing their 1 sentence wishes. I've sent christmas cards to a lot of relatives (and some of my old friends) but many of them never reciprocate for years. So I question to myself, if they still existed or moved (if I don't receive a return to sender).
When I send birthday cards, I would send them to people I associate with most (like in-laws, parents, siblings, grandparents, some cousins and 1 friend). Some of the people I send birthday cards to, also do not reciprocate. At least my mom, sister, 1 cousin, and my only friend sends me birthday card. My sister in laws do not send me birthday cards, they remembered a couple times over the years and sent me a wish via email but after that, they don't send me email greetings anymore. When they do remember, they like to send a email greeting, they will only acknowlege my son's and my husbands (their brother). This hurts because I am part of the family.
It's just my mother in law who remembers the most (with the help of the calendar I gave her which listed everyone's birthdates and anniversaries). She sends e-cards, postcards, and one time she sent me a floral bouquet. There were some years were my mother in law never sent me a birthday card. My parents in law and one of my sister in law live in France and the other sister in law lives in New Caledonia (french island).
When I gave birth to my son when we lived in NJ for just a year (and didn't know anyone) we sent birth announcements to everyone and only my mom/sisters sent us congratulation cards, money, as well as a big box of baby things. My in-laws just sent their congrats via email. I didn't receive no paper cards or gifts or nothing from them.
Even though they don't send me anything, I still send them some paper cards, write email, and sometimes even gifts (for special occasion).
So I say if you gonna send paper cards and e-cards, do it for you (even though some don't reciprocate). Be the better person because you are more educated than some people.
Edit: If I had stopped sending cards or email to people, I don't think they would care.