Weekly Lesson: Christmas Cards

For study until 8th of December 2024

Subject: Christmas Cards

Audio: On usual social media platforms

Christmas Cards

One of the strangest things about being British is our selection of cards we have  for every occasion. On every corner, you can find a card shop. They are kind of like pharmacies in that you know where you can get a card in case of an emergency and just like pharmaceutical medicine, it’s good to keep a supply at home in case somebody dies.

Cards take all forms “Happy Divorce”, Happy New Life”, “Sorry your pet died”, “In Loving Memory” and of course “Happy Christmas”. We love sending cards and then giving people space in case they need it after a life changing event.

The Christmas ones tend to be the most popular, to receive a Christmas card is a sign of friendship, shared views and some kind of understanding. If you don’t oblige by sending a return card after receiving one you could land yourself in hot water, it is very political. Personally I keep a book, I write  down the names of everyone I send a card to and if I don’t get a card from them 2 years running then they are removed from my Christmas Card list.  There is a British saying “well I wont be on his Christmas Card list this year” or “I am so angry at him, I’ll take him off the Christmas card list”.

Of course these days there are many things to consider when sending a card. Is the person British? In which case allowances have to be made for those who don’t share our card culture. Has the person expressed any strong views about the environment which may mean he or she has made a decision to refrain from sending cards if they care about paper. Have they sent a text message recently? Postage is expensive now, can the person still send cards? I find myself hesitating before crossing them off my list.

There’s also the message inside the card, should I write a note or be content with the simple message on the card “Happy Christmas”. Should I write a message such as “Hope you are doing well” or should I just sign it.

Last year two victims fell foul to my Christmas card list. One was a cousin. We sent Christmas and Easter cards for many years and then suddenly she announced that her daughter had become an eco-warrior so could not send cards anymore. I was a bit suspicious, I kind of felt distant from her in recent years and it crossed my mind that she was trying to hammer the final nail into the coffin of our friendship. She had been a bit frosty with me in one of the last calls we had. She didn’t sound happy.  I was ok with her decision but she also didn’t send any messages to say “Happy Christmas” digitally and so of course our relationship simply died. We didn’t exchange cards, there was no texts exchanged around the “big day” and we haven’t written since.  I felt kind of sad, I mean she was the only relative I kept in touch with. I suppose there is my Brother who lives less than one mile away from me, but we never sent cards to each other in the past which is perhaps a testament to the kind of relationship we had. He was never on my Christmas card list in the first place.  Put simply we just don’t like each other and despite the British Proverb “Blood is Thicker than Water”. He is still not getting a card.  We went through a phase of sending each other plants at Christmas which was supposed to be some kind of peace offering, but we stopped that thankfully.  It was worse than the card sending.

The other one who fell foul to my Christmas card book last year was my Chinese Friend, we were neighbours and exchanged gifts yearly. Yet last year, there was a stoney silence, he had made a comment that “he was now an eco warrior and was no longer sending cards”. I didn’t believe him, I think with two kids and a wife he was simply busy – either way I respected his decision and marked him off my book one year early. I could have continued sending the gifts every year but on both sides it had become kind of forced.  He seemed to be kind of like waiting for my card before he sent his – I tested him on this a few years back by sending a card very close to Christmas eve, and I didn’t get one back.

What I like about Christmas is that its kind of a “check in” – a way of catching up yet without imposing yourself on people’s lives. I am aware though that it is getting harder and harder to keep up relationships with people unless they are in close proximity and most of them I don’t want to see anyway. We are in a situation where we have communication with the world at our fingertips yet we cant seem to keep in touch with those who mean something to us. Should we just accept that we are all now in touch and forget about sending stuff?

Since moving my teaching practice online, I started sending cards to some students, this revived the dying practice of sending cards and brought my dwindling Christmas card list up to two pages. I used to send cards to my neighbours, but soon realised that I wasn’t getting cards back and after a number of negative events with the people, removed them from the list permanently with a red mark to remind myself never to reinstate them.  That’s a bit like telling the hospital when you go for an operation “do not resuscitate”. Christmas cards are a serious business.

After discussing this Christmas card dilemma with my American friend, she suggested doing it the American way and writing little labels to hang on my Christmas tree with the names of people I am grateful for in order to make a “Gratitude Tree”. So I trotted off to the supermarket and bought labels and ribbon all ready to cover the tree with the names of people I liked.

I started writing, leaving British names aside for a bit and got to  the name number three and then thought “well I’m not actually grateful for that person…. I just put up with them, I tolerate them” and then my tree had two lists. One with people I’m grateful for and one with people I put up with”. Then I got to people I tolerated but didn’t want to tolerate so I had three lists. Then there were people that I recalled, I simply wanted to like bit didn’t.  I asked my  American friend for advice, she seemed a bit confused after that and we never spoke again so I took her name off my list and labels anyway.

Christmas card sending will eventually be killed off by the post office. It costs almost one pound for every card on the mainland. Besides they are a bit dangerous. I almost set fire to the place last year by hanging them close to the lights.

My cat hates Christmas as much as the rest of us, he destroyed my list of labels on the tree as he was doing his King Kong impersonation that he does sometimes and in many ways I’m grateful. But are we really heading into a place where we just don’t keep in touch with people?