COMPUTERIZED GREETINGS: ELECTRIFY YOUR HOLIDAYS WITH E-CARDS

Ancestors offer a blessing on this Kwanzaa card from Blue Mountain Arts.

This Christmas card was copied from the web site for Blue Mountain Arts. A compluter user can listen to the song, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

A Blue Mountain Arts card for Hanukkah.

If tiny white lights on bushes and glowing plastic Santas haven't electrified your Christmas yet, try sending an animated greeting card by e-mail or creating one by computer.For those with the time and interest, many software programs are available at local retailers for designers of all abilities. They range in price from $10 to over $50, offering between 200 to several thousand clip art images that can be applied to cards you make yourself.For those who want to do as much as possible at home via the Internet, a wide choice of Web page offerings are available.A program to make personalized, animated e-cards can be ordered by computer at one site (www.parsonstech.com/cstudio/CardShop). The software sells for $29.95.But if pointing, clicking and then waiting for the program to arrive will take too long this year, there are more immediate alternatives.With variety extending from the spiritually thoughtful to the purposefully disgusting, almost any card that can be sent by "snail mail" is available online.Does Hallmark sell cards with animated, dancing hamsters giggling to a choice of more than 50 Christmas songs that you choose? Not yet. But this and much more is already on the Internet.Options that are not available with traditional greeting cards are offered on e-cards. The most simple sites allow you to create your own message and pick a date to send it to someone else's e-mail address. The latter is noteworthy for procrastinators and others who fear their cards won't arrive on time.But if the receiver doesn't have a computer, you can request that the card you choose be sent through the U.S. Postal Service.Other options are unique to e-cards. Want to experiment with the color of letters on the card or the letters' size? Go ahead. Need to send cards in bulk and get confirmation of arrival? Just point and click.Many e-cards can be sent over the Internet at no cost. One poplar site with a wide selection of cards to choose from is Blue Mountain Arts, which originally was a poster-with-poetry business started by husband-and-wife flower children in 1970. Their Internet pages (www.bluemountain.com) display specialized cards in eight languages for a multitude of occasions and tastes.Cards for Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan and even Y2K are offered.One animated Y2K card shows a man sitting in an overstuffed chair. As the lights go out and his remote is clicked at the television in vain, he begins to sob as a college team's fight song plays in the background. The message on the card reads: "Y2K and Football: It's hard to watch a grown man cry."E-cards can be sent so that a copy of the greeting card returns to your e-mail address.Another site (www.cardcentral.com) offers links to several other greeting card web pages. This is one way to get to the infamous hamster dance Christmas cards. It also offers a link to a pair of Star Trek cards.The starship Enterprise floats through space in one of the cards, with the message "Make it so, make it so, make it so" in the foreground while a predictable Christmas tune about snow plays in the background.A variety of Hanukkah greetings with spinning stars of David, glowing menorahs and a couple of cartoons are available with music (www.123greetings.com).For those who want to stick with familiar names, Hallmark (www.hallmark.com) and American Greetings (www.americangreetings.com) have some selections online.Variety was hard to find for 87-year-old Sue Seals, who was shopping at the Card Factory in Cape Girardeau last week."I could only find one card that I could send to my son and daughter-in-law, now that their children are out of the house," said Seals, who lives in Wapapello.But that's not enough to get her on the Internet."I have enough trouble pushing the buttons on the telephone some days," she said, laughing.