Christopher Idle sees the approach of Christmas as an opportunity to do some good
‘Show you care this Christmas. Send a card.’
For once, this Royal Mail slogan from last year’s postmark has a point. Does it really show that you care, at least for the recipient? Yes, it may do just that, at a time when thousands go for what seems like the simpler and cheaper option of emailing everyone. We don’t have to buy cards, address them or send them at all. You could argue, as some do, that they are a comparatively modern invention (around the 1840s? – so even my great-grandma didn’t get a lot) and have become part of what we often bewail as the commercialisation of Christmas.