CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: AVOID THE RUSH: SEND YOUR MUSICAL HOLIDAY CARDS VIA THE INTERNET

It's a busy time of year trying to get everything done before the holidays, including Christmas cards.

You can cut down on your necessary mailing or send a holiday pick-me-up with electronic Christmas cards. The Internet is full of them.

Joni: How about season's greetings from the American Legion? You can brighten the day of a military person you know with a military post card.

www.legion.org

Peggy: The nine post card selections are cards from past American Legion postcards. You can add music to the card before you send it. The rendition of Jingle Bells was 3 minutes and 12 seconds.

Joni: Another place to find cards is Greet Someone. They have virtual cards, gifts, flowers, holidays and a reminder service.

www.greetsomeone.com

Peggy: What is a virtual holiday? Oh, you, it's like a virtual vacation. Here's a beach scene. But I digress.

Joni: The site has 36 different categories of Christmas cards. You select the color of your card background, the color and font of your greeting.

Peggy: You can select from a wide selection of greetings and poems, or you can write your own.

Joni: Here's something different. You can tell the Internet to send your card on a specified date, now or later.

Peggy: You can send virtual gifts, like money or a new handbag. You can also send a virtual pet -- a horse, a parrot, a dog or a cat.

Joni: I guess those pets would take a lot less work than the real kind. You can also send a virtual card for almost any occasion. You can invite someone to "do lunch" online. You can even send a "Will you marry me?" card.

Peggy: I'm not sure I would like an online marriage proposal, but an online BMW, well that has possibilities.

Joni: Most places don't actually send you the card. They send a Web link to their site where you can look at the card. Let's take a look at our favorite card site, Blue Mountain.

www.bluemountain.com

Peggy: You can also get your horoscope while you are looking at cards. One nice thing about Blue Mountain is that cards are animated and musical -- and free.

Joni: You aren't limited to just Christmas cards. Blue Mountain offers cards for Seasons Greetings, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, winter solstice, and many other assorted winter holidays.

Peggy: Blue Mountain also offers e-mail invitations for Christmas parties and other events.

Joni: Shall I invite you over to decorate my house?

Peggy: I'm sure I'll be busy that night. Let's look at another site, 123 Greetings.

www.123greetings.com

Joni: You may wonder how these sites can offer this fun service for free -- advertising. Do your favorite Web site a favor and click on an ad to help keep it in business.

Peggy: 123 Greetings, like the others has lots of choices for Christmas, holidays and other things. Here's another card for Poinsettia Week. I didn't know there was a Poinsettia Week.

Joni: 123 Greetings also offers a greeting card interface. In other words, you can get the greeting card software to put on your Web site.

Peggy: But for those of us who just want to send cards, 123 has lots of choices of music. Here's a nice choice -- virtual jewels.

Joni: Look at this. Perfect pearls, priceless diamonds, awesome amethyst. If you can't have the real thing, these aren't bad. Some are even animated.

Peggy: Let's see what the card people, Hallmark, have to say on the subject.

www.hallmark.com

Joni: They have more than 1,500 greetings online, and you can customize. These are classic, as you might imagine.

Peggy: You can also download a 1998 keepsake ornament screen saver from this site.

Joni: They have a host of holiday greetings. If you're planning ahead you can check out the Ground Hog Day cards.

Peggy: They have an online reminder service for those with short memories.

Joni: On this site, animated or musical cards are available for a fee.

Peggy: Who would pay? Well, let's look at the free ones. Here's a workplace Christmas card. It tells you very clearly whether it's free or fee.

Joni: You can add your own message, up to 64 words. These look a little too serious for our office. But they have quite a few choices.

Peggy: Here's one that may be more appropriate. "All my friends are getting shoes for Christmas. Quickly tell me your size. I may have to go to the bowling alley 20 or 30 more times."

Joni: These funny cards can be found under the Best Sellers category. I notice several pig cards this year.

Peggy: Here's something very cool and a little different. You can send a video greeting from Santa Claus to your favorite little person.

www.sincerelysanta.com

Joni: The site requires ShockWave. Santa has a vocabulary of 1,800 words. You write out a message using these words. I would recommend writing out the message ahead of time to save time.

Peggy: You can send the same greeting to up to three e-mail addresses at the same time.

Joni: You will receive a number to access your message. If all works right, Santa will speak your message.

Peggy: OK. It's a little cheesy. Maybe you shouldn't send it to your children, but you could have a lot of fun sending this to your friends.

Joni: You can also e-mail Christmas lists from this site. Speaking of letters to Santa, the U.S. Postal Service has a site dedicated to letters.

www.usps.gov/letters/volume2/santa-main.html

Peggy: This is very nice. You can also read presidential letters and love letters.

Joni: Hopefully they aren't the same letters. What's your favorite holiday site? E-mail us at click@semissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

~Peggy Scott and Joni Adams are members of the Southeast Missourian online staff.