Twenty or so years ago I included a chatty hand-written letter with a Christmas card that I sent an elderly in-law and received back a response: “Thank you for your form letter with all the news.” I was shocked - and stung. It was not a “form letter” and I had gone to far more trouble than I probably really had the time to spare. Her brief couple of sentences, the only personal comment made, were scribbled hastily on the bottom of a badly typed and photocopied page roughly folded and put in with her card. Thus began my love-hate relationship with the ubiquitous Christmas letter that pads out most of the Christmas cards we receive this time of year.

I should probably have never fallen for the new-fangled convention anyway. After all, I was brought up to know that a card may be sent instead of a letter, or a letter instead of a card. Sending both together defeats the purpose of either - just as does the repeated sentiment handwritten into the card along with the printed message already there. But these days it would seem churlish to be so correct and culturally determined conventions are constantly changing. One should probably try to keep up with the times when it is not an essential matter of those absolute truths.

There are some letters I really enjoy getting, but others that are far less than inspiring. A gem turned up one year in the account of a friend putting his car through an automated car wash, then at the last moment leaping out to close the boot lid properly. The experience was a nightmare as he emerged utterly drenched, whipped and stung by those swirling brushes and bruised in unmentionable places. There was certainly a lesson to be learned in that well told anecdote. However, it was counterbalanced by another letter detailing the woes of a relative’s succession of haemorrhoid surgeries. Great Christmas fare, and I wondered if the relative wanted that broadcasted quite so widely! But in the bragging exaggerated brilliance of over-achieving kids and grandkids, the exotic overseas adventures told as blasé everyday occurrences, the mundane told as newsworthy, the saccharin seasonal sentiments expressed over and over, I do long to hear something honest, something meant just for me.

Each year the question comes up - will I or won’t I? I am niggled, just as I am when writing here, by the self-centredness of presuming that others may want to read what I write. What are these words to you? Am I not conceited to think that much of what I have to say, that which isn’t already written elsewhere - and that which is already superfluous - really has enough importance to publish? So the same goes for the annual news dump in the form of any Christmas letter that I might consider writing. But perhaps that is too much of a self put-down. Some folks are genuinely interested, and to them I feel that I owe more than just a form letter of sorts. So there is my answer… if you are really genuinely interested, then you do deserve more than just the mass produced, impersonal and non-interactive news dump of the day. But if I don’t feature in your life at any time other than Christmas, then how can I be sure you are genuinely interested in me anyway? A form letter won’t indicate that.

Keeping up with the times, perhaps very soon all these cards and letters will be obsolete in the interests of saving trees and fossil fuels as we all links blogs and hurtle our electronic messages around the globe. Just as quills gave way to fountain pens then biros then keyboards (with slates and lead pencils in there somewhere as well) it will be only the very old-fashioned left to lick stamps and envelope flaps. Maybe they will write letters, real personal letters, or send just the well-chosen card.