Every year I make some (handmade) digital art and write a letter with it about our year, and then I email it (bcc’d) to all our friends, family, and other people we want to stay in touch with.

It’s not as tangible as a paper card but by being an email, people can just hit reply and answer. Every year a few dozen people write back to our card (out of maybe 350 recipients), and a lot of people have said that this is one of their favorite messages to get all year.

I think people can tell when you actually put time into something instead of just making a quick conventional card with platitudes. It’s helped us keep in touch with people from all over the place, across different continents, etc, who we might not stay in touch with so much otherwise.