Note to self: Buy stamps

Since there are only twelve days left until Christmas, and I had more important things to do at the weekend, I figured that it was about time I bought some Christmas cards today. Since I haven’t made a card list, I’ve had to wing it a bit in terms of how many cards I needed, but I think I have sufficient. Actually, I think I have too many.

I stood looking at boxes of cards for a while, trying to work out which designs were most appropriate. And then I decided “sod that”. It’s not me that will have to have the cards I buy on a shelf or mantelpiece. I won’t have to stare at the little pictures I’ve bought, perched on my TV. The only people that are affected will be the receivers (ie my friends and family).

Nobody actually looks at the outside of Christmas cards anyway. You just rip them open, check the name, mentally cross them off your list of people you are expecting a card from, and then toss it onto a pile to be randomly put up later. So it really makes no difference what particular card I send.

Now boxes of cards were on a three for the price of two offer today, which meant I clearly had to get three boxes. So I have one posh box, one cheaper, not-so-posh box, and one box even cheaper still. Kind of like the English class system, but converted into folded cardboard. Well, when I say “cheaper”, take that to mean “more cards per box” since all three boxes were similarly priced.

But this does now mean I have to take active decisions on what card-expense level each person on my list (once I have a list) should get. This is much harder than deciding on pictures. The class of a card shines through in the quality of the envelope, the thickness of the cardboard, the degree of ribbons and tassles on the front. These things are instantly detectable. To send one of those cards where you can almost see through the cardboard is the ultimate insult (and so should be reserved for very carefully chosen people). Unless you can see through because there is an intricate lace-like network of holes in the front, in which case it’s clearly quite posh after all.

So once I have made my list, I will have to go through and carefully select who gets which type.

If you’re reading this and you don’t receive a card from me that has a delicate woven straw frontage, the scent of cinnamon inside and a padded gilded envelope, then it means I clearly don’t like you.

If you don’t receive a card at all, then it means I’ve either lost your address, never had your address, deliberately eaten your address, you live in some ridiculous foreign country, or I don’t know you well enough to send a card. Or that instead, I really, really, clearly don’t like you.

Or that I do like you and am playing hard to get.