Making a List, Checking It Twice

You mean to hit every card-worthy mailbox, but often it boils down to whom you remember the night your writer’s-cramped hand is madly working its way down the list. Here’s how to get control.

Set a limit. Draw the line at 50, suggests Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management From the Inside Out (Owl Books, $15, www.amazon.com): “If you start getting into the 85-to-100 range, the project is too intimidating.”

Cull. “My rule of thumb: Don’t send holiday cards to people you see all the time, like coworkers,” says Ann Hodgman, author of I Saw Mommy Kicking Santa Claus (Perigee, $20, www.amazon.com). “If you plan to see someone during the season and can extend a greeting then, or if a person is no longer active in your life, feel free to scratch him off your mailing list,” adds Stephanie Denton, former president of the National Association of Professional Organizers.

Make a file for your card list. Throughout the year, Morgenstern suggests, toss in envelopes (with return addresses) you receive from people who have moved, as well as scraps of paper with new acquaintances’ addresses on them. At year’s end, everything you need to update the master list (and perhaps also your sadly neglected address book) will be together in one place.

Break card-writing up into three or four sessions. Set a time each week, and stick to it. Not only will this spread the task out into more manageable bites but you’ll also avoid the creative burnout that leads to all those “Love you’s.” Morgenstern recommends starting Thanksgiving weekend: “Do a batch each Saturday for three weeks and you’ll have them all out by December 15.” Says Hodgman, “I like to watch holiday specials or listen to Christmas carols while I write. They get you in the mood, and you’ll keep at it longer if something else enjoyable is happening at the same time.”

Size Matters

Not sure whether one 39 cent stamp will do it? It will if your envelope reflects the U.S. Postal Service’s maximum (6 1/8 by 11 1/2 inches) and minimum ( 3 1/2 by 5 inches) dimensions for a “letter-size” envelope. Exception: Any square envelope within these dimensions requires 52 cents in postage, as it has to be sorted by hand. All of this assumes that your card weighs less than an ounce; if you tuck in a letter or photos, check www.usps.com for rates.

Mailing Deadlines

According to Joanne Veto, a spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service, cards sent by first-class mail on or before December 21 will be delivered anywhere in the United States no later than December 24.

If you’re desperate to get a special card through, you can take it to most post-office locations on December 24 and have it delivered by Express Mail ($10.40) on Christmas Day. Call your local branch to make sure it offers the service and, if so, by what time on the 24th you need to get your card there.

Stamp of Your Approval

You could order the usual Madonnas or Santas in bulk at www.usps.com (much better than waiting in those post-office lines). Or you can add a unique touch to your holiday-card envelopes by creating your own stamps — using that great photo of the new puppy or the one of you as Tina Turner last Halloween — at www.photostamps.com.

Upload a digital image; crop, rotate, or zoom; choose a border color; and select the postage rate. A sheet of twenty 37 cent first-class stamps costs $17 plus shipping (from $3). The more you order, the lower the per-sheet price.

Photo stamps could also be a solution to what to give that guy who has everything. Bet he doesn’t have stamps of himself holding up that humongous bass he caught this summer. Give the gift of transcontinental bragging rights.