Blue Mountain has a wide list of winter holiday cards available to choose from. You select the event or holiday, and then you choose types of cards to look at. Many of the cards are animated, and some can be customized. Once you settle on the card to send, you add the recipient's name and e-mail address, your name and e-mail address, and a personal message. You can also use an address book you've created on Blue Mountain's site to choose whom to send cards to. You can send cards to up to five recipients at a time. Blue Mountain's cards are free, but contain some advertising to offset costs. I've received a number of cards generated from Blue Mountain, and I've never found the advertising to be obnoxious or obtrusive.

How would your holiday mailing list feel about receiving these greetings in lieu of a paper card? I don't know, but you should consider that as part of the equation while you're deciding if you want to choose this route. At times, when I've received these greetings, I've been thrilled that someone was thinking of me. But they were usually times like St. Patrick's Day or my birthday, and not part of a season where it has always been traditional to snail mail greeting cards. I haven't yet received any electronic Christmas cards, but this year may be a first. We'll see.

If you prefer the traditional route, you can still save some time in the preparation of your mailing. During a visit to your local office superstore (or its online equivalent), you'll be able to find prefolded greeting card paper of various sizes, printed on heavier card stock. The paper usually comes with appropriate-size envelopes. You can also find holiday prints on paper that will work in your laser or inkjet printer, if you're more interested in preparing your annual letter. Whichever you prefer, there's paper available for printing the type of greetings you want to send.

Once you have your paper, why not download a free copy of Design and Print Center and design your own greeting card with a personalized message. If you have a scanner and want to make a photo card with your family on it, this program will assist you. The program works through a Web browser, so you have to be connected to the Internet to use it.

Your cards are done and you're ready to mail. Now what? If you don't feel like hand addressing all of the cards or waiting in line at the post office to buy stamps, try using Stamps.com. Stamps.com allows you to purchase postage online through its software, prepare your mailing, check addresses to ensure they meet USPS standards, and then apply postage to your envelopes or labels. I've been using Stamps.com for about a year and have been very happy with the service. For the average consumer, the holiday season would probably be the most beneficial time to sign up, since there are costs involved. You can download the software for free, and probably even get your initial postage for free (this offer varies). You'll have to get a postal meter certificate approved by the Postal Service, which can take up to a day.

The Simple Plan has a 29-day, free-trial period, comes with $10 in free postage (as of this writing), and has a 10 percent monthly service fee on postage used, with a $4.49 minimum. So, yes, you're paying extra for your postage. It may not be worth it for you. With the volume of mailing I do, it has been very worth it for me because it saves me time standing in line at the post office. Once your meter has been approved, you can drop off your mail without the lines. You can print directly on your greeting card envelope, and the program will include the postage, the sender's address, and the receiver's address.

This route of creating the whole card and mailing via computer may seem impersonal, and some people may be offended that you couldn't take the time to hand write your message. But I don't think there will be that many people offended—rather, they should be happy to hear from you. When I first started using labels for my Christmas envelopes years ago, I worried about this, but I've never received any negative feedback. After all, it's not the outside of the envelope that contains the important message—it's what's inside that counts.

Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing (GC), editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists' newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a frequent contributor to Ancestry Magazine. She can be reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com or at gceditor@ancestry.com.