In message snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, T i m snipped-for-privacy@spaced.me.uk> writes
Well yes, but we all only have to argue once - you have to argue with every one of us :-)
OK, I'll bite.
These days, we send and receive around two dozen, although not all via the post.
Two (cards, not percent), and one of them is our postie, whom we have known for many years. He gets a decent bottle, too, but he is a friend as well as our postie.
Pleasure rather than joy, but they all give pleasure in the sense of being remembered, and reassurance that the sender is not dead.
Do you mean, when a card arrives, do I know the person/people who have signed it? All of them.
Most.
Probably half. But isn't that the point? To keep in touch? When I started proper, full time work in 1970 I was quite friendly with a girl who was at least ten years older. Four years later we both relocated with the firm, and were friends. Another two years and I left, and moved away. Have not seen her since 1976 yet we have always kept in touch, letters, occasional phone calls and Christmas cards. No card for the last two years, so I fear the inevitable, but am grateful that we exchanged cards, always with news snippets, for as long as we did.
I may be slightly unusual in that I have moved around the country quite a lot, and therefore have friends from areas that I will probably never revisit in person.
Perhaps a quarter.
Very much so. I'm very much a traditionalist in many ways and yes, I love Christmas. I enjoy writing, receiving and displaying cards, decorating the (real) tree, Christmas lunch, playing board games, singing carols, remembering the 'reason for the season', exchanging gifts (immediate family only - and one postie), admiring the village lights, seeing the joy of the kiddies as they see Father Christmas and his reindeer and all the rest of it.
<grin> My Mum, even at the end of her long life, sent and received far more cards than we do. Four times as many.There are four screws permanently in the wall here, for the strings to hold the cards - and permanent hooks around the windows to hang lights.
Not, I hasten to add, that we go OTT - no exterior lights, illuminated figures etc. We don't have garden gnomes either ...
I write and post most of them.
Well, a range yes, but they are all fairly generic and choice is fairly random. It is (I think) what we write that is important, not the pre printed mush. Personally, I'm not a fan of cards (of any type) with reams of pre printed mushy gushy stuff. A fairly simple Happy (Occasion) will do - I'll add whatever needs saying.