--- title: Holiday Greeting Cards: See Their Decline in 2 Charts description: The number of cards sent has declined by half since 2002 canonical: https://time.com/4151915/holiday-greeting-card-mail-usps/ author: Chris Wilson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-16T20:08:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:26:25.927Z article:section: U.S. og:title: See the 1 Number That Shows the Decline in America’s Holiday Spirit og:description: Far fewer Americans are spreading holiday cheer through the mail og:url: https://time.com/4151915/holiday-greeting-card-mail-usps/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See the 1 Number That Shows the Decline in America’s Holiday Spirit twitter:description: Far fewer Americans are spreading holiday cheer through the mail twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # See the 1 Number That Shows the Decline in America’s Holiday Spirit  by [Chris Wilson](/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Dec 16, 2015 8:08 PM CUT  by [Chris Wilson](/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Dec 16, 2015 8:08 PM CUT 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](https://www.usps.com/ "undefined") 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. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4151915/holiday-greeting-card-mail-usps/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4151915/holiday-greeting-card-mail-usps/"},"headline":"See the 1 Number That Shows the Decline in America’s Holiday Spirit","datePublished":"2015-12-16T20:08:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:26:25.927Z","description":"The number of holiday cards sent has declined by 1.5 billion since 2002","url":"https://time.com/4151915/holiday-greeting-card-mail-usps/","keywords":["Government","Holidays"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chris Wilson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/government/","name":"Government"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4151915/holiday-greeting-card-mail-usps/","name":"See the 1 Number That Shows the Decline in America’s Holiday Spirit"}}]}] ```