Happy e-holidays

I can justify my holiday greeting decision by saying that economic angst has all of us on edge, so we scrimp and save wherever we can, including the cost of postage.
I can justify it by saying I'm "going green," doing my part to protect the environment by saving trees.
I can justify it by saying that the age of technology has grabbed us by the throats, shaking us into sensibility.
No matter how I justify sending an e-greeting this year, even if personally written, I still don't feel quite right about it. Having grown up in a time when pen, paper, and postage stamps provided the only options for written communication, I learned the pleasure of sending and receiving letters in the mail. My mother carefully taught me the etiquette of the handwritten note, and as I grew up, she would not allow me to type a personal letter. Nothing personal about that at all, she would say. She probably was right (again!), for I still have letters I wrote to my grandmother as a child, sentimental keepsakes my mother saved for me. I can see how they might have made my grandmother smile and feel close to me, even though I lived far from her.
Speaking of my mother, even she, at the age of 95, will read my holiday letter on her computer. Kicking and screaming, she bought one a few years ago. All resistance aside, she enjoys e-mail jokes from her friends, and she chats with me online almost every evening.
Happy e-holidays.