It’s A Cracker!
- 11 Dec 07, 08:33 PM
“Despite any seasonal stress that I might currently be experiencing, I can honestly say that I buy in wholeheartedly to all the Yule tide traditions and seasonal rituals, so you’ll hear no ‘Bah Humbug’ from me. But there are two festive favourites that I simply cannot get my head around – cards and crackers.
I long ago gave up writing Christmas cards in much the same way I stopped sending postcards. Perhaps there was a time, before the age of mass communications, when it was a way of keeping in touch with friends and family. Nowadays you can make a phone call from just about anywhere or log on and send an e-mail, and yet the tradition persists. Why, why, why? All you are doing is adding to your stress levels.
First of all you have to go out and buy them, choosing cards with illustrations and verses that are tasteful enough for you to actually consider putting your name to. You also have to decide whether you should buy charity cards, even though the picture isn’t as nice, and then wonder how much of the money you spend actually goes to good causes and not on printing, marketing and admin. Of course that’s only the beginning.
Then you have to sit down and agonise over who to send them to…if you send one to Joe & Mo Claus will you get one back, or what if the Kringles send you a card and you haven’t sent them one. So, you sort out your list, you check it twice, and once you’ve decided ‘who’ you have to decide ‘what’
Yes deciding what to write can be quite a strain because every card needs a little personalised message, otherwise it’ll look like you just don’t care! And so it goes on ….finding addresses, agonising over whether to send them first class or second class – it really isn’t worth it.
But it’s when you start getting cards sent back that the fun really begins. Putting it kindly…how can there be so many people out there with such bad taste? Worse than that, you have to display these incredibly cheesy and horrible cards in your tastefully adorned home. And how? On a string, sitting on shelves, pinned to the wall…it doesn’t matter because they will look hideous whatever you do. And rest assured that however carefully you have considered your list, the morning after the final posting date for Christmas at least one card will drop through your letter box from somebody you didn’t send one to. So, I guess this tirade has just put me off pretty much everybody’s Christmas card list…and I say GOOD!
Sticking with ugly and inappropriate ….Christmas Crackers! Yuck! Why would you choose to put gaudy, cardboard tubes like elaborate toilet roll middles on your beautifully decorated table? Why would you ruin your carefully chosen Christmas outfit and specially coifed hair by wearing a luminous yellow paper hat on your head? Would your life be less fulfilled if you did not have a plastic comb, a sewing kit, or a miniature combination lock? And finally, the answer to the question “Why does Santa have three gardens?” is “So he can ho, ho, ho!”
No, this year and every year you can keep your cards and your crackers! Bah Humbug!
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