Hallmark, for example, has a "Holiday Center" of the site that has all the tools you need to create the perfect card through which you can express your greetings for the Christmas season and the New Year. Everyone on your list will love to receive a photo ecard of you and your family and this is only one of the ways you can personalize your Hallmark ecard this year.

Christmas ecards from these greeting card sites are not as expensive as the traditional greeting cards from the companies. In fact, they usually don't cost anything because there are designs for you to use that are free. You will probably have to sign up as a member, but this is also typically free.

You don't have to subscribe to the site in order to send Christmas greetings by way of an ecard. There are also ecards (http://www.care2.com/ecards) on these sites that will cost you $1 to $2 each. It is easy to see the prices and whether or not the cards are free because this is printed right under the thumbnail image of the card.

One of the free Hallmark Christmas ecards you can choose from in the humorous category is that of Monster Christmas Tree. When you click on the image and decide that this is the ecard you want to send, then you can personalize the greeting to be included in the ecard. After you enter your message, and there is plenty of space to type this in, you can preview it to make sure you have included everything you want to say and correct any mistakes.

The next step in sending Hallmark Christmas ecards is to include your first and last name as the sender of the greeting. This is a change the company has made in the process of sending the electronic greeting cards.

This change was made in order to ensure that the recipient will not think it is spam email and choose not to open your card. It also helps to prevent your contacts from the threat of ecard fraud by gaining access to information they have stored on their computers when they open the message.

Then all you have to do is to enter the email address of the person to whom you wish to send the Christmas ecard. You can choose one or more recipients and for your convenience, you can save the email addresses you use to your Hallmark Address Book. Then when you want to send an ecard greeting for another occasion, you already have the email addresses you need ready for you to use.

Hallmark also allows you to add gifts to your Christmas ecards in the form of gift cards that can be used at the locations of over 350 merchants worldwide. These gift cards start at $10. In this way, Hallmark makes your Christmas gift-giving much easier.

Now instead of having to write checks to those to whom you send money by mail, all you have to do is find out the recipient's favorite merchant and send an gift card so this person can buy whatever he/she wishes.

You select the delivery date for your Christmas ecards. They do not have to be sent right away, which gives you plenty of time to send all your Christmas greetings early and not have to wait until the last minute.

It doesn't matter if you create the ecard greetings early in December because you can select Christmas Day as the delivery date and they won't be sent until this time. Now instead of having to spend the few days before Christmas getting out all your ecards, you can take your time and ensure that everyone in your contact list receives a greeting from you.