No rule here, hardly even a general pattern. Sometimes I buy tons of stuff, send it everywhere, sometimes hardly any, sometimes something in between. I have in the past sometimes sent massive amounts of cards and other times not. Sometimes it happens early, sometimes late, sometimes Christmas Eve and sometimes Christmas morning.

This attitude was really useful when I was sharing the kid with my ex- who always had expectations that he could/would not express in any simple or comprehensible form.

My general philosophy is 'Do what you like during the holidays.'