In 1843, the first Christmas cards were printed and placed on sale in London. Relatively new technologies - printing and railroads - were enablers to the tradition of sending out cards for the holidays.
For me, relatively new technologies help me with my holiday traditions. An Excel spreadsheet with my holiday address list along with Word’s mail-merge function allows me to print-out my card envelopes with ease. The spreadsheet is something I keep up to date all year as I add new friends and as others change addresses.
The second new technology is the Internet. My 19 month old niece in London and I use a program called iVisit for web-conferencing. It doesn’t compare to a live visit, but it beats a phone call. Everyone with a broadband connection, a $400 PC (or $6000 Mac) ;) and a $30 web-cam (for MAC ~$700) can now video conference with anyone on the planet.
In some ways, these technologies allow us to spread out a little more, so that's a downside, but at the same time, it keeps those real connections going.
Good stuff. Merry Christmas.
