No Christmas, New Year cards end of romantic age

The last meaningful mail that box has received was a birthday card from a relative abroad to a family member who marked her birthday in early November.

The grand total of Christmas cards I received this season was five. Yes, 5! One came from a friend in America, delivered via a mutual acquaintance who visited the US recently; another was from a former workplace; the third given by a friend at church; two others from my insurer and from a ministry we support.

None of them came via the post. Eager in anticipation, two weeks ago I went to the family postal box and, thankfully, there was no witness to the shock on my face when an empty box stared back at me.

In the 50 years or so that the family has subscribed to postal services, this was the first there was no Christmas card in the post by December 20.
The last meaningful mail that box has received was a birthday card from a relative abroad to a family member who marked her birthday in early November.

The rest are irrelevant bank statements (who needs stale statements in the post when they are just an ATM finger exercise away?), bits of junk mail, and the odd notification to update one payment or another subscription.

The disappointment of not getting any Christmas cards tempts me to question my worth – “does anyone know that I am still there?” But before I launch into a bout of mournful self-flagellation, two things shake up the self-pity: one, personally I did not send a single Christmas card to anyone, so that should temper my expectations. I am not any better than you guys who did not send me a card.

Secondly, and more positively, I received anywhere over 100 wishes of Christmas cheer and New Year blessings via SMS or calls, on email, via Facebook, and I could have sung carols over Skype with a loved one many oceans away. So actually, I did get Christmas and New Year messages in plenty.

But what would I not give to convert all the texts, emails, and tweets into cardboard and paper cards, the ones I can place around a room in my house? Here is why.

How many of you sent the same, generic text message to people who vary in their relationship to you as a sister, a workmate who you may not ordinarily sit with at lunch, your pastor, your supermarket , even the LC chairman you last saw in January?

These people cannot each command the sentimental quotient as the next person – surely your attachment to your brother cannot be the same as that with the office cashier, so how can you send the same message to the kid bro as the chief accountant?

Is it unfair to say that not much heart is put into composing a text message to send to all people in your contact list, or in an email that goes out to a group on the world wide web?

These tend to be impersonal at worst, and generic at best. Yet when you are to send a physical card, you invest quite a lot: You make time to go to the bookshop, select one card out of dozens, pay cash for it, think through what to write (customise it), put on the best handwriting, lick the envelope’s sticky flap, and where postage is needed walk to the Post Office, stand in line, buy the stamp, lick it, and thoughtfully place it in the postman’s bag. The addressee must really matter to you.

A few years ago, at Christmas, I took my daughter and my nephew, then aged 8 and 6, to the Post Office to give them a taste of card postage. That was my hopelessly romantic self - I doubt that they learnt anything (though the boy posted one to his mother in London), for you only learn by practice and the only thing they practice now is doing various programmes on computer and games consoles.

For them writing in a card and licking the envelope is the stuff dinosaurs do, and they are not dinosaurs. But they do not know what they are missing.
Realistically though the romantic age of the post is gone; the sentimentality of looking for cards, writing in them and delivering them by person or by postage, has been overtaken by the cold efficiency of electronic technological advancement. It leaves us all the poorer.

I have been told of a nice elderly couple in Kisoro who, every year, bring out all the Christmas cards they have received over their long marriage and hang them on a string around their sitting room. Beat that!

Now you can’t do that with text messages or Facebook notifications, whatever apps you and your gadgets may have.