In this day and age, and particularly in this country, we should be grateful to receive any Christmas cards at all. Of course I’m not talking about e-cards. We’ve happily had plenty of those, whether arriving as attachments to Gmail, as Whatsapp missives, on Facebook or as special card senders. But Christmas cards where one has to go to one’s post box to fish it out, use a special knife to open the often rain-sodden envelope, admire the design, and then sit down to read the precious greetings? No, not really. Less and less of them this year. But looking back over ten years ago? Yes, perhaps. There were then enough postal arrivals to decorate ‘card lines’ hung across the sitting room. Perhaps we should re-hang some of them up again to fill up the empty spaces.

So what’s happened? There was a time when buying a card cost a lot more than sending it. And, of course, it was then the only way, apart from the telegram, to send off written messages. Rising postal costs and the arrival of the email has altered all that.I remain amazed at the price it now costs to send a card from England to here. And as for Australia!

However, there is nothing more special than receiving a Christmas card especially when it arrives unexpectedly! Just think of all the people involved in its transmission: from the sender placing it in a post-box to our friendly post-lady delivering it to us at the end of the pilgrimage-like journey of that Christmas card!

Perhaps a time may come when we will thrill again to the sending of real-time christmas cards (and Easter, birthday and anniversary ones too). There are already several reprisals of old-time habits. For instance this year has seen an amazing resurgence of vinyl sales. Somehow we’re getting fed up with streaming and there’s nothing like taking an LP out of its attractive sleeve and placing it on a gramophone turntable, making sure it and the pick-up needle are cleaned. Then, sitting back in the armchair and modulating the speakers listen to the first two movements of a Rachmaninov symphony before turning the disc over for the finale.

Regarding arrivals let’s trust our own local benevolent hag, better known as La Befana, lands safely and doesn’t break her load of sweets and toys before giving them to the children. La Befana who ‘tutte le feste porta via’ : who comes and takes away with her all the nativity’s festivities.