There was a time when postal workers’ bags bulged with holiday cards in December as millions of Americans blasted out family photos and other season’s greetings. In 2002, Americans sent 2.9 billion holiday cards—10 for every man, woman and child. By last year, that figure had decline by half to 1.4 billion, just over 4 per person, according to data that the United States Postal Service provided to TIME.
That follows a general decline in personal mail, as the two following charts demonstrate.
The older you get, the more likely you are to be contributing to that dwindling stock, USPS numbers show, with senior citizens more than twice as likely to mail holiday cards as teenagers, according to figures from 2009.
More Must-Read Stories From TIME
- The Fall of Roe and the Failure of the Feminist Industrial Complex
- The Ocean Is Climate Change’s First Victim and Last Resort
- Column: 6 Proven Ways to Reduce Gun Violence
- Ads Are Officially Coming to Netflix. Here's What That Means for You
- Jenny Slate on the Unifying Power of a Well-Heeled Shell Named Marcel
- Column: The FDA's Juul Ban May Not be a Pure Public Health Triumph
- What the Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Means for Your State
Read More From TIME
