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Tradition requires you to keep those Christmas cards up for another 11 days before heading for the recycling bin.

But will they be returning next year? Of course they will, but in similar numbers?

Corporate cutbacks have clearly seen a scything of the budget for sending Christmas cards.

Even in the good years, it was increasingly common to find companies promising to donate to charity instead of sending cards, making do with an explanatory e-mail hoping for understanding for this act of responsibly green-tinged generosity. One could hardly complain.

This year, in my experience, businesses couldn't even find it in themselves to donate to charity.

And as Christmas cards are reckoned to pump £50m or so into charity coffers, it's the fund-raisers who could be the big losers if we're seeing the slow demise of the Christmas cards.

It's far from being a catastrophe just yet.

Two years ago, according to the Greeting Card Association's (GCA's) most recent figures, 641 million real Christmas cards were sent in Britain - more than 10 for each person.

And Britain is, I'm told, a truly Olympian world leader in card-sending.

The industry isn't keen to advertise the decline of its business.

But the Post Office reckons on a 10% decline in letters posted this year, including that same scale of decline for its Christmas business (while seeing an increase of 10% in packets from online shopping).

That's in line with the US Post Office, looking at an 11% annual decline.

Lots of us have been sent e-greetings card this season. An estimate of the American e-traffic puts it up by 40% over the past two years, but only around 5% of the total numbers sent.

According to the GCA's Sharon Little, e-cards are much less of a concern these days than the threat from the impact on the business from social networking.

The association members also claim attachments to Christmas tradition will keep us using snail-mail and the kind of greeting you can put on the mantelpiece.

And while Sharon Little reports some signs of a slackening in demand for boxed Christmas cards, she says there is strong demand for much higher value Christmas cards sold singly.

Global leader is Hallmark, with Bradford its UK headquarters, and no fewer than 700 designers, artists, stylists and photographers in its Kansas City HQ.

It even has a US cable channel. And it's one of those responding to the e-challenge by offering its own e-greetings card subscription and using its website to offer a personalised, printed product range.

Its closest US rival, American Greetings, describes itself as a "manufacturer of innovative social expression products that assist consumers in enhancing their relationships".

This week delivered third quarter figures that didn't show much dent from either recession or e-cards.

But its finance director said AG's UK brands - Carlton, Gibson, Camden Graphics and Hanson White - are the most significant worry on his horizon, as Britain's economic recovery looks so uncertain.

While American Greetings employs 21,000 people worldwide, and the two giants represent 60% of the British market, the UK has a large number of small businesses making greetings cards - perhaps 800, of which 400 of them are GCA members.

And of them, 280 are tiny operations, often as lifestyle businesses and photographers' studios, while card-making also counts as a top-ranked hobby.

Put them together, and you're looking at a £1.7bn industry in Britain. Christmas accounts for 43% of the volume and 19% of the value.

And who keeps it going? Women, of course. They buy roughly 80% of Britain's cards.

It makes you wonder how the market would change if men were that dominant. Fewer kittens and poetic schmaltz, perhaps.