Cards

I have a good, long-standing friend who has, as far as I know, never ever been critical of the way I keep my house in terms of tidiness or cleanliness but, because her home is always so beautifully kept, I cannot help but worry what she'll think on those occasions when she comes to my house. And each year, she and her family come 'round for mulled wine at Christmas. And today was the day.

Thus I spent a lot of today tidying up and then cleaning and then seeing things I hadn't noticed before and tidying those up, too, so that by half-past five the place was like a Bizarro version of my house; a complete inversion of the usual domestic chaos. One of the final tasks was to collate Christmas cards from various horizontal services around the downstairs rooms of the house and put them out on the dining table. 

In years gone by, I used to get a lot more Christmas cards than this but, then again, I used to send quite a lot. Last year I sent handful, this year I've sent... none. And, from what I've seen and heard, I'm not the only one, which led me to wonder whether the rise of Facebook has inadvertently hastened the decline of this tradition; suddenly there aren't so many people who we make a point of remembering at least once a year. These days, we know how their kids are, where they went on holiday and, in some cases, what they had for breakfast, this morning. I think that the cards are becoming a bit superfluous.

Actually, there is one exception to this, and that the card from my friend Ash and his family, who always stage a photo for their card. (You can just see this year's, front and left.) It's going to sound lame if I try to convey just how brilliant they are so I'll just leave it there and say that I hope that's a family that I never stop receiving a card from.