My Christmas Card list breaks down as follows:
- Family, probably a majority, even though I have relatively few living relatives,
- School friends - a few,
- Friends met through our children's schools, even fewer
- university friends, similar to school,
- former work colleagues - surprisingly few, probably because working in London I rarely socialised with my work colleagues at home, and never had any reason to exchange home addresses
- friends from the village where I have now lived for nearly 24 years - almost none, because I am not a part of any 'community' in this village,
Very few people I have met recently end up on the Christmas Card list. Sending the wretched things seems ridiculously quaint. Once upon a time I had a real need to use a person's address to send them information or money (in the form of a cheque). Now the only reason I would need to have someone's physical address is to visit them, or, to send them a Christmas Card. To contact someone purely for the purpose of sending them a card seems seems very odd.
The only message I communicate in my Christmas cards is "We're still alive". I have to be careful what I write here, as I really enjoy reading the circular letters that a few of my friends send out. Obviously, if you are reading this you know quite a lot about me. However, I never blog about my family because I'm sure they don't want to be identified as the wife or children of that embarrassing guy who blogs at www.stevehemingway.com. Really, if you are interested to know about the family you should invite me for a drink, or a meal. You will then hear about us in excruciating detail. If you are broke, but reasonably tolerable company, then just get me to invite you for a meal.
I have posted on Facebook and Twitter asking for postal addresses. I will make the offer here too. If you get your postal address to me in time for me to post you a Christmas card, I'll send one to you. I promise. Get a move on!!
