My first Christmas card arrived on 2nd December, the last on 3rd January, cases of premature expectation and delayed gratification. In between there were 19% fewer this year, a combination of tight budgets and a reluctance to use the disrupted postal service, I suspect. Pictures on cards showed the usual Christmassy fare: snow and Christmas trees most commonly and with plenty of holly, Santas, stars and so on.
The cards I received showed the increasing secularisation of Christmas: only five (10 percent) showed a nativity scene (14% last year) and no others had even oblique references to the Christian story. Animals did much better at 27% – yes, robins and reindeer, but also a curlew, a starling and a sea gull among others. I wonder if this is not so much to do with general secularisation as the habit of people buying charity cards and the reluctance of charities to be associated with a Christian celebration and massage. Given what Christ taught, I find this ironic, and I say that as an agnostic.
Thanks to Barbara, Claire, Michael and Claire, Nick and Annie and John and Marylin for bucking the trend.