Cardilemma

The first two dropped through the letterbox this morning.  I’m so admiring of these people who are organised enough to get their Christmas cards sent a whole four weeks in advance (the smug pillocks), but it does give me issues. 

After some soul-searching last year, and the year before, I chose to continue sending them.  There is sound reasoning behind this not-lightly-taken decision.  For a start, it’s a way of telling them I’m not dead.  (They wouldn’t know otherwise, mostly.)   More importantly, I don’t put up decorations (unless I’m having a party, which I’m not this year (again)), and cards do furnish a room; and you don’t get them if you don’t send them.  Plus it saves on dusting.  But two’s no good, is it?  You need at least a spread-out shelf’s worth.  Maybe a few more’ll drop in tomorrow.

I did some heavy pruning last year.  I chopped people I’d never met and didn’t expect ever to.  I carefully considered those I might have met years ago but who hadn’t personalised theirs (they’re just going through* the motions); and, going to the wire, I suspended those who might or might not send to me but are probably playing the same kind of brinkmanship that I am.  That’s an interesting game, in which you can only tell when you’ve lost, never when you’ve won.  (I lost two last year, by the way.)

Anyway, I went through and updated the address labels this afternoon, and it came to thirty-seven.  Then I opened the bottom drawer in the bureau and found a John Lewis bag with at least forty over-purchased cards from one, two or maybe even three years ago.

So there’s the dilemma.  Do I send those surplus cards, rather than buying a batch of new ones, thereby helping to save the planet but risking ridicule and embarrassment?  Or do I bin them and buy a batch of new ones, thereby impressing my friends and helping to save the economy?

I know my answer, but what do you think?

 

 

*This word typed itself as ‘torhough’, who must mean something in gaelic and anyway is too good to throw away.