I looked with dread at the pile of Christmas cards and the
address book. The same rigmarole every
year. Half a day spent on writing
meaningless platitudes to people one has never seen for years – a bonfire of
the inanities, if you like. There are always exceptions – one or two old
friends to whom every word is sincere, but they are the exception, rather than
the rule. I discount family members too
– they deserve, and generally get, more attention than other folk. I say generally, because I have been guilty
of extreme forgetfulness at times. I
once sent a card to a cousin and his mother when the latter had passed away
eight months previously. I hadn’t
expunged her name from the address book
and, without thinking, had transferred that intelligence to the card
itself. I rang my cousin to
apologise. He was very decent about it,
but I had to lie down in a darkened room for three days before I got over
Captain Berterelli’s ‘What a mistake-a to make-a’.
This year’s cards are all charity cards, and a trick is to work out which offers the best value-for-money. This is done by multiplying the area of each card face by the number of cards in the pack and dividing the result by the pack price. The highest number represents the best deal. The woman in the local Chest, Heart and Stroke looked nonplussed when I walked in with a ruler but her assorted reindeer selection beat paintings of improbable village high streets under a foot of snow by a short head.
I always use a fountain pen to write my message on the cards – this is pure swank, but a ball-point leaves an impression that can be seen from the other side of the card, which is to be deplored and a roller-ball is just too finicky. I started with ‘A’ in the address book and worked may through to ‘Z’, though, in all fairness, I know no-one whose surname begins with ‘Z’ or indeed ‘U’ or ‘X’.
I had then to think of the correct message to write. After jettisoning ‘Thinking of you’ as being too saccharine, and ‘Wishing you a Merry Christmas’ because that was generally the message already printed on the card by the publisher and duplicating that message seemed downright silly, I elected for ‘Kind Regards’, as if I were sending an email.
One or two of my dearest friends from yester-year deserve an annual letter, in which I write, in a very few short paragraphs, how my year has gone. As this year has gone particularly badly, the paragraphs were extremely short. The responses I generally receive are upbeat and positive so when they read my tales of woe, it always improves their perception of themselves. I am most useful in that regard.
It took me four hours to complete the card-writing task. Some of that time was taken up in trying to answer the question ‘Who the devil is that?’ At least seventeen entries in the book were of people whom I couldn’t remember from Adam. Some were easy to expunge – under the letter ‘W’ was ‘Washer man’, and I had no intention of sending him a card.
I hand-write all of my envelopes, too. When you see printed labels churned out by a Hewlett-Packard printer, you wonder how much effort has really gone into the monotonous task of addressing envelopes. I always have trouble with postcodes, but the internet is a remarkable tool. Type the address into Google maps and not only does the postcode appear, but if you select ‘street view’, you can see the very house in which the recipient lives. You might not have seen him or her for 30 years, but at least you can determine whether your dwelling is worth more than theirs.
I hadn’t bought stamps for a while so I took myself off to the local general post office to buy two dozen of the second-class variety. I stood in a queue for twenty minutes whilst various customers had jiffy bags weighed or bought a single stamp to put on an envelope clenched tightly in their fist. Eventually, the teller, if that is indeed what they are called in the Postal Service, a young man with a bouffant Rick Astley haircut called me forward. He gave me my stamps. ‘How much?’ I asked ‘Twelve pounds’ he replied. ‘Twelve pounds - 50 pence a stamp?’ I replied. I could scarcely believe my ears. I told him that this must have been because of the recent privatisation of the Royal Mail. He made no reply, being accustomed to being berated by incredulous customers about the cost of what used to be a public service run for the benefit of the people. I’m sure the last time I bought a second-class stamp, it was fourteen pence or something. Mind you, that was several years ago.
I posted the cards into the pillar box down the street on the 12th December. With any luck, they’ll be delivered before New Year’s Day. There will then be a blissful period of some eleven months before I am obliged once again to disinter the address book, by which time the number of people whom I cannot recall ever meeting will have risen to twenty-three and the nature of my year may be summarised in lines and not paragraphs.
Merry Christmas.
This year’s cards are all charity cards, and a trick is to work out which offers the best value-for-money. This is done by multiplying the area of each card face by the number of cards in the pack and dividing the result by the pack price. The highest number represents the best deal. The woman in the local Chest, Heart and Stroke looked nonplussed when I walked in with a ruler but her assorted reindeer selection beat paintings of improbable village high streets under a foot of snow by a short head.
I always use a fountain pen to write my message on the cards – this is pure swank, but a ball-point leaves an impression that can be seen from the other side of the card, which is to be deplored and a roller-ball is just too finicky. I started with ‘A’ in the address book and worked may through to ‘Z’, though, in all fairness, I know no-one whose surname begins with ‘Z’ or indeed ‘U’ or ‘X’.
I had then to think of the correct message to write. After jettisoning ‘Thinking of you’ as being too saccharine, and ‘Wishing you a Merry Christmas’ because that was generally the message already printed on the card by the publisher and duplicating that message seemed downright silly, I elected for ‘Kind Regards’, as if I were sending an email.
One or two of my dearest friends from yester-year deserve an annual letter, in which I write, in a very few short paragraphs, how my year has gone. As this year has gone particularly badly, the paragraphs were extremely short. The responses I generally receive are upbeat and positive so when they read my tales of woe, it always improves their perception of themselves. I am most useful in that regard.
It took me four hours to complete the card-writing task. Some of that time was taken up in trying to answer the question ‘Who the devil is that?’ At least seventeen entries in the book were of people whom I couldn’t remember from Adam. Some were easy to expunge – under the letter ‘W’ was ‘Washer man’, and I had no intention of sending him a card.
I hand-write all of my envelopes, too. When you see printed labels churned out by a Hewlett-Packard printer, you wonder how much effort has really gone into the monotonous task of addressing envelopes. I always have trouble with postcodes, but the internet is a remarkable tool. Type the address into Google maps and not only does the postcode appear, but if you select ‘street view’, you can see the very house in which the recipient lives. You might not have seen him or her for 30 years, but at least you can determine whether your dwelling is worth more than theirs.
I hadn’t bought stamps for a while so I took myself off to the local general post office to buy two dozen of the second-class variety. I stood in a queue for twenty minutes whilst various customers had jiffy bags weighed or bought a single stamp to put on an envelope clenched tightly in their fist. Eventually, the teller, if that is indeed what they are called in the Postal Service, a young man with a bouffant Rick Astley haircut called me forward. He gave me my stamps. ‘How much?’ I asked ‘Twelve pounds’ he replied. ‘Twelve pounds - 50 pence a stamp?’ I replied. I could scarcely believe my ears. I told him that this must have been because of the recent privatisation of the Royal Mail. He made no reply, being accustomed to being berated by incredulous customers about the cost of what used to be a public service run for the benefit of the people. I’m sure the last time I bought a second-class stamp, it was fourteen pence or something. Mind you, that was several years ago.
I posted the cards into the pillar box down the street on the 12th December. With any luck, they’ll be delivered before New Year’s Day. There will then be a blissful period of some eleven months before I am obliged once again to disinter the address book, by which time the number of people whom I cannot recall ever meeting will have risen to twenty-three and the nature of my year may be summarised in lines and not paragraphs.
Merry Christmas.
