Niles’s Blog

It’s no secret I’m not a particularly Christmassy person - read here about why I don’t like the orgy of commercialism - but I do like to send cards out. In the main this is to a group of people I don’t talk to much but don’t entirely want to lose touch with. So I send a jokey card from Private Eye, and one of those much maligned Xmas newsletters (here’s last year’s) about what the cats have been getting up to in school, etc.

And people send me cards too. This year, I’m definitely getting organised to do something with them. And getting organised to write down who sent us one.

The thing is, people also send cards to Jenny, who lived in this house until she died in August 2005. There were shovel-loads in Christmas 2005, which we took to the estate agent who (hopefully!) passed them onto the vendors who could marry them up with Jenny’s address book and let people know the sad news.

But there are a persistent handful of cards which still arrive for Jenny, still with bits of personal data (”Phil’s recovering nicely from his second heart-attack…”) but with no address. So we can’t let them know the world has moved on and their contact list is out of date.

So here’s my plea. When you send Christmas cards this year, include your address. Put a sticky label on the outside or your full address somewhere inside. That way, if the worst has happened and someone other than your intended recipient is opening their cards this year, they can let you know what’s what.

PS - one exciting thing this year for my cards… I’ve stocked up on James Bond stamps to make the festive greeting that little bit more interesting! Hmm, Royal Mail website has stopped working, will check link in AM.