Thank you cards: email or snail mail?

I've sent and received many thank you cards, but I received one on Sunday like none I'd received before. Our friends threw a birthday party for their 1-year-old a few weeks ago and we attended. The kid had to have some bath toys!

The thank you card we received on Sunday didn't come in the mail. It wasn't given to us in person. It wasn't really even a card. It was a PowerPoint attachment sent via email.

I thought it was awesome. We've sent our Christmas letters over the last few years via email on Christmas Eve. If people want to read it they can read it in the body of the email or open the attached PDF if they want the photos included. We keep up with email addresses much better than snail mail addresses. Oh, and the best two parts: 1.) It's free and 2.) No trees (or recycled paper) are used.

It's great to see others willing to start using email to send what used to be sent via snail mail. You don't have to wonder if the intended recipient saw it or if their spouse got the mail and filed it away in the "to be read later" drawer. You can guarantee the date (and time) of delivery. You can easily interact with it. I frequently receive email responses to our Christmas letter.

I know there's probably still a cultural stigma that some have with email. I'm sure there are people who frown on our emailed Christmas letters. But the content of the message remains the same whether it's sent via email or snail mail.

So props to our friends for the emailed thank you. I certainly don't have a problem with snail mailed thank yous and I'm sure we'll continue to send them, but I love to see electronic communication accepted as an equivalent alternative to snail mail.

Social media and email will never replace the phone or in-person conversations, but they should be sufficient to replace many other written forms of communication.