The gifts that keep on giving

IT’S only three weeks since we took down the Christmas cards with the rest of the decorations — and I piled them up to deal with. How?

Channelling my thrifty Fifties childhood, I turn the prettiest ones into postcards and make gift tags from the rest. Yes, I’m the kind of geek who sits watching TV with a mountain of cards and a pair of scissors. But last year I didn’t get round to it — meaning this time there were two years’ worth to go through.

Some people have stopped sending Christmas cards, as a waste of time and money. Others send e-cards or emails telling you they’ve donated to charity. Which is all very useful and so on — but deprives friends of your greetings. So what if somebody writes: ‘We really must get together this year’ — and then you don’t? The fact that somebody thought about me is infinitely precious.

Anyway, carefully going through the 2015 cards was a delight because of all the marvellous messages I found. The latest ones too ... but the previous year was extra special because my little dog had died and people were so kind. Sometimes in the Christmas rush you don’t take in what people have written — all the more reason to keep cards for a while, then read them all again.

I’ll pick just one to share. To my astonishment this came from the son of a colleague, whom I met only once when he was a little boy.

Now a teenager, he wrote these lovely words: ‘I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry to hear about Bonnie and I still remember how much I loved your stories about her. I hope you have a very good Christmas and even though you won’t see her, she’ll be with you.’

There were many other beautiful messages to make me smile — but that one from 14-year-old Luke is intact in my box of Bonnie keepsakes.

See what I mean? Christmas cards are much more than bits of cardboard; they are gifts that keep giving — if you let them.