Greeting Card Gripe

[Niamh]

I hate to be a complainer....

Does it bother anyone else to go shopping for greeting cards and find that pagan holidays are completely ignored? I trecked over to Barnes & Noble tonight and was browsing their boxed "holiday card" selection and found non-denominational cards, Christmas cards, Hannuka cards, Kwanza cards, but, alas, no Yule cards! I can't say I'm surprised, but it still bothered me.

I've looked online for places to buy greeting cards for the Sabbats but have come up short. Anyone have any links or suggestions? I have made my own cards in the past... I just felt like complaining tonight! :)

[Mairwen]

You can too get Yule cards! I've gotten cards at WalMart that say "have a cool yule!"

[Laiste]

I have gotten Yule and Solstice cards at my local B & N. I'm suprised your local store didn't have them. Try thier online store.

Mairwen thanks for the Walmart tip!!:p

[Xander67]

Actaully, you bring up a good point!
I think that the stores are to blame, I think this is due to a shortage in supply

if Hallmark were to start includeing us in thier greeting card lineup,
we would find a more readily available supply,

so I think it is a question of,

a. getting the gretting card companies to realise that there is a market for it...

b. we are a culture and we want to express ourselves in our own way which reflects our society especcially around the holidays

C. Awareness, marketing, and also, we need more designers to actually PRINT them... I will adress this very subject in a forthcomming section on my site, "pagan resources" greeting cards, a buisness directory etc....

but i will look up a few companies where you can get them mail order and get back to you!
Xander

[flar7]

You have to convince them that there is a market for them.
They arent excluding pagan holidays because they're pagan, but because they dont think they will pay for themselves.

It is always about the dough ray me with big corporations.

that may not be a fair statement, but you know what i mean


:boing: purple

[Xander67]

it is the truth though,

they want to make money so if we show them there is a demand for it, they would jump on it

it's like the ole "carrot on a stick infront of the horse" metaphore LOL

[Myst]

Yup I've gotten Yule cards there too.

Mind you we also have lots of computers and printers and card software too :)

[flar7]

I really like printing my own cards. :boing:

[Xander67]

Printmaster 10 is great, and if you have MS office
MS Publisher is easy to use al you need is clip art!

PHOTO SHOP , Print master, Publisher, hmmmmm these should come shipped with every new PC :)

[Mariposa De La Luna]

Someone just sent me a beautiful Goddess card a couple of months ago. I can't remember who it was by though.

i think at http://www.bluemountain.com/ you can print out some of thier cards and they do have Pagan holidays.

[Xander67]

Blue mountain is nice, :):)

dont laugh but Yahoo greetings has a nice collection of cards from lots of sites :D

[Niamh]

Thanks everyone!
My computer is still being worked on. It crashed last month, and we've had lots on our plates since then. It's just barely up and running. So I'll be sure to look through our software once it's loaded.

I did email Hallmark from their site. http://www.hallmark.com
Maybe if enough of us do it, they'll listen! I'll have to attack some of the other companies.

I have seen some Goddess cards at boutiques around the New Haven area. And last year I was able to find some harvest cards this time of year that weren't "Halloween" and weren't "Thanksgiving." This year I haven't found them yet! And I feel like I've been everywhere.

I'll keep my spirits up and start designing this year's Yule cards!

[Niamh]

Hey! I just decided to do another search. I found some beautiful cards at
http://www.kelticdesigns.com/Pages/CardsBpart.html

[flar7]

to get Hallmarks attention, then start an email petition or petition site. And send to Hallmark or notify them. There are a lot of pagan websites out there and they would probably be willing to forward an email or add their names to something like that

:boing: purple

[Myst]

Uhm.

Hallmark makes Yule cards already.

They even have an online one you can send - http://www.hallmark.com/hmk/Website/Shopping/Greetings/sim1716_detail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1378438750.1002585658@@@@&BV_EngineID=iadccehfkljebedcfchcgj.0&fromPage=/Website/Shopping/sh_eg_detail_portal.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@1378438750.1002585658@@@@&BV_EngineID=iadccehfkljebedcfchcgj.0&fromPage=/Website/Shopping/sh_eg_detail_portal.jsp

(or search their site, hallmark.com, for Yule)

So why are you doing a petition at all?

[SnowStar]

I don't know if they still do this, but Hallmark USED to do this thing where if they did not have a card for the occasion you needed they'd give you another card of your choice for free. Then I believe they are supposed to report the occasion and if there appears to be a significant demand for it (what qualifies as significant I am not sure) they will start making them.

I may have to ask my grandmother about what the deal is with this policy...she manages a Hallmark store.

[Niamh]

I searched Hallmark.com for Yule and got that "sorry, no results found" message. I'll have to go through their Christmas section to see what I can find.

I haven't gotten to the point where I want to petition the card companies, and Yule isn't the only holiday I'm looking for. I was just making a general complaint that pagan holidays are generally not represented by greeting card companies. And sometimes it makes me mad.

I love to make my own cards for people. It means a lot both to me and to them to recieve a hand made card for Samhain or Lughnasa.

However, sometimes I think it would be nice to trot down to the local Hallmark and be able to purchase cards for the Sabbats.

I was hoping people could share some ideas and links. What they've done in the past, what works for them, sites they've seen greeting cards on, etc.

[GoddessofWisdom]

Hey maybe we could start a petition

Send it to Halmark and then maybe they'd at least concider it.

[stormyray]

I found my yule cards at the local dollar store they say on the cover blessed yule and the center is blank

[Niamh]

You're lucky! Paganism in general doesn't seem to be too entirely mainstream around here... But I'm going to keep searching!

[Xander67]

had to make sure I "READ the thread" ;) right, before I added this

Godess, Flar had a neat idea on page one about a petition,

[Myst]

I just emailed hallmark asking them about their Yule cards.

[Xander67]

BTW Myst, when i reviewed the thread again I noticed that your
link to the hallmark cards is not working it says page not found

[stormyray]

Originally posted by Niamh
You're lucky! Paganism in general doesn't seem to be too entirely mainstream around here... But I'm going to keep searching!

It is not at all mainstream out here I live in a very small berg on the I-5 cordor in Oregon I think I just got very luck. I think this year I will make my own with the help of my kids.

[talamh]

Just a thought.... Do we really want to buy in to the entire commercial, social-nicety, Hallmark world of greeting cards?

Think about it for a bit.... they cost rediculous amounts of money... $4.50 for just a simple piece of paper. And the paper?? How many trees are cut down each year to make greeting cards? How much energy used to print them and transport them?

Aren't there better ways? Why not take the time to actually write a letter? Or drop by for a cup of tea? There are lots of other ways to say "Hi" and show that you are thinking of someone.

My point is that not being mainstream might be a good thing. Quite apart from the energy and pollution issues, histroy shows that the compromise involved in being accepted as a regular part of the community usually involves losing the essential energy and purpose of the origional concept. Just look at what happened to Christianity once it became the official state religion of Rome....

As long as they leave us alone, i'm happy. i'm not sure i want to see paganism become part of Wallyworld. bb talamh