My Grown-up Christmas Card List

I'd be the first to admit that I'm lousy at Christmas cards, even the perfectly doable ECard variety. I used to love the whole rigmarole and send dozens and dozens, I don't know when or why the magic faded.

I suppose the way I see it is that the people I'm close to, I speak with every day, or at least several times every week. I'd automatically be sending them Christmas wishes by EMail, phone, Twitter, probably the latter, or however I usually interact with them. It's a weird thing, now I stop to think about it, most of my absolutely best friends, I couldn't even tell you their EMail addresses offhand. They're there, in the stream of my life, as necessary to me as breathing. This isn't to say I take them for granted, at least I certainly hope I don't, it's just, now that I'm looking at why I don't do cards, I want to be a friend 365 days a year and not just at Christmas, and if I'm sending a card to someone I haven't communicated with since last Christmas then it's time I sent something a bit better than a glib little Christmas message with my name on it.

Please don't get me wrong here. I receive thoughtful and carefully picked ECards from dear friends who have taken the time to send them to everyone they know because they care enough and find it a part of the Christmas magic and i'm full of admiration for them. I'm just trying to annalyse why sending cards, like the putting up of decorations, turned into one more hassle which made Christmas a little less fun each year.

Does this make me the archetypal Scrooge? I've thought a lot about it and I honestly don't think so. It isn't that I don't do these things because of laziness or a lack of caring. It's that I want to concentrate on what is important, what makes the season meaningful to me and the people closest to me. Love, friendship, family traddition, the giving of gifts and, most of all, remembering why we all do this every year, as it is very well put by Stan Freeberg in "Green Christmas": "We should remember whose birthday we're celebrating".

As the end approaches of what has been the happiest year of my life so far, I have found myself thinking a lot about Christmas cards. In the flat out rush to get everything done I still didn't send any. But there are people I would have liked to send one to, some of them I don't even know. Some of them will be keeping Christmas, as it says in the festival of nine lessons and carols, on a farther shore.

The first ones would go out to my amazing band of friends who follow me through highs and lows, curmudgeonly outbursts, wit and witlessness, whining and wining. No that isn't a mistake. Smile. No words are enough to thank you for sticking around, I'm so blessed to have such wonderful, loving friends.

The second batch of cards would go out to all the people, here and everywhere, who have to work so incredibly hard at this time of the year. Everywhere I went today I met with frazzled shop workers, overworked waiting staff and people generally run off their feet. Plus there are those for whom Christmas is no holiday like carers, medics, fire fighters, soldiers and countless others. I'd like to thank them for what they do to keep things running for us.

Then I'd like to send some cards to anyone spending Christmas apart from someone they love, or spending it all alone. I've been in both these places and believe me it is no joke! When you're surrounded by a seemingly infinite number of huge, happy families, being sad at Christmas can be the worst kind of sadness. I'll send a wish for Christmas comfort to anyone feeling like that.

I must get a little more personal now and send Cards to those I have loved who are no longer here. My stepfather who raised me as his own, my grandparents and, most of all, my dearest friend Helena who I still miss every day. They all had a part in making me who I am, and I was blessed to know them.

Down to the last two piles. Books play such a huge part of my life and the majority of mine are narated. I wish I could thank all the fine narators, the ones who give hours and hours of their time voluntarily, and the ones who work at recording books for a living. Where on earth would I be without people like Simon Vance, Lloyd James, Nina Holloway, Carolyn McCormick, Joanna David, Stephen Fry and most of all dear, dear Ralph Kosham, heaven rest him, whose voice I can tolerate however bad my head's misbehaving. I wish I could tell them all how essential they are to me.

And so here's the very last card of all. I'd have to send this to my husband. I won't tell you what it says, that's private, but I will tell you that as long as he's with me, our Christmas is going to be a merry one. As merry as I hope yours is.

A merry Christmas to you and yours, and the warmest good wishes for the new year.