Analysis: new research has investigated if sending Christmas cards can tell us something about the mental health of the sender
The Christmas festive season is in full swing. Fairytale of New York and Do They Know It’s Christmas? are on the radio, Christmas movies are on telly and Christmas work parties are happening every night of the week. Christmas is, it seems, is the season to be merry and jolly.
But even though Christmas is a popular (over 160 countries celebrate it) and much-celebrated event, it can also be a season that elicits mixed emotions and can be quite stressful for some. While the majority of us will be busying ourselves purchasing presents and gifts, decorating our homes and gardens and putting on our Christmas jumpers, research since the 1950s has noted that depressive symptoms have been found to increase for some people during this period.
These ideas were captured by a YouGov Poll from 2019 in the UK that found a quarter of those surveyed reported that the Christmas season was stressful and made their mental health worse. It's a phenomenon which psychiatrists have dubbed the 'holiday blues'.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, Twisted Doodles cartoonist Maria Boyle on the ritual of sending and receiving Christmas cards
Research carried out by the author and colleagues from the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick, as well at the University of Liverpool, sought to investigate if one Christmas behaviour, sending Christmas cards, could tell us something about the mental health of the sender. Is it plausible that sending Christmas cards could be considered more than just the exchange of pleasantries and good wishes over the festive season?
One of the first ever Christmas cards was sent by the founder of the Victoria and Albert museum, Henry Cole, in 1843, and since billions of them have been sent since to mark the festive season. While sending letters in general has been in decline, the exchange of Christmas cards actually increased in 2020. Given the prior research and the popularity of sending Christmas cards, we wanted to see if there was any association between sending Christmas cards and depressive symptoms in the senders.
There is some research that shows that card recipients report positive emotions on receipt of cards from someone, but little is known about the mental health of the sender. The loss of pleasure and motivation are key features of depression so a Christmas season laden with these social behaviours is likely to be threatening for those who are already depressed, due to loss of motivation of not getting pleasure from their typical behaviours, in this case sending Christmas cards.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, Prof Stephen Gallagher discusses his research on Christmas cards and mental health (item begins at 22 mins)
We wanted to know would a normal festive behaviour like sending Christmas cards, shed some light on the senders' mood. We also sought to explore if this was evident across religious groups or in Christians only. While Christmas is a Christian holiday, where sending cards and seasons greetings are seen as traditional and normal behaviours, it is also a season celebrated by non-Christians.
What did the study find?
We found that 55% of non-depressed people reported 'always' sending Christmas cards, compared to 46% of those who were categorised as depressed. When we factored in the roles of gender, ethnicity, and religious affiliation of the senders, we showed that the decreased likelihood of sending Christmas cards was evident only for Christians and not the other religious grouping.
How did we examine this phenomenon?
We used data from over 2,400 people who took part in the UK’s Understanding Society Wave 5 dataset. We then extracted the information regarding whether or not these people sent Christmas cards or not. For this, participants saying ‘yes’ to the question on sending Christmas cards, they reported on their frequency of sending cards, with categories ranging from Always = 1, Sometimes = 2, Never = 3 and don’t know what this is = 4). These participants also reported on their symptoms of depression on a validated psychometric scale. On that scale based on well-established cut-off scores, we categorised people as depressed and non-depressed.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Ray D'Arcy Show, illustrator, Caoimhe Hennessy talks about her Christmas card featuring an illustration of President Michael D Higgins
What does this all mean?
Our findings suggest that sending Christmas cards is a behaviour that may be affected by the sender’s mood. Moreover, while the holidays blues appears to be a robust phenomenon, it may be that Christians may be more vulnerable to its effects. While we focused on Christmas behaviours, there may be festival-related behaviours for other religious groupings that reflect those cultural values.
Prior research has found that the prosocial gesture of expressing gratitude in letters and cards has been found to boost positive emotions in both the receiver and sender. Here, we found it was more than just the exchange of pleasantries and good wishes over the festive season.
While the study is cross-sectional in nature, there is a take away message. If you do not hear from someone who regularly sends you a Christmas card, it might be worth checking in with them and spreading some Christmas cheer.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
