It’s time to end the tyranny of Christmas cards

Save money and your dignity this Christmas - don't buy a folded square of card with an anthropomorphic hippo on it

(Clinton Cards)

Outside of the bubble of awkwardness and halting gratitude that is present giving, the greetings card would not be tolerated.

If, during any other moment of your waking existence, you were presented with a print-out of a meerkat in a Christmas hat, a euphemistic joke about dicks or a black-and-white photo of someone from the 50s saying something anachronistic, you’d question, at best, the giver’s sanity, at worst, their intelligence, and slowly edge away, not turning your back until you’d left the building.

But on birthdays, Christmases and other occasions when it is expected that you participate in this inexorable farce, we actually summon a laugh, before placing the card on a nearby surface so we can enjoy the joke for another three to five weeks.

Have the makers of greetings cards been on the internet? There’s some pretty funny sh*t on there you know. We now live in a future where you can watch dogs slapping cakes out of their owners’ hands on endless rotation, for free, and yet we still spend £3.99 to cringe as the recipient of your last-minute card forces a smile over the sentence: ‘Beer! Now I have your attention, happy birthday!’

NOPE

And that’s the real horror of it all, the price. If you’re part of a family of five you can expect to drop at least a tenner a year on this mindless blibble, and the blank, artistic cards aren’t much better either.

Oh, it’s a Christmas tree with the tinsel cut out - £2.50. Huh, it’s a really minimalist Robin - £2.95. Behold, it’s the words ‘HAPPY CHRISTMAS’ written in gilded, vaguely Victorian font - two for £4.

Yes, you could argue that, for the agnostics/atheists among us, Christmas is just one big artifice, but at least with the presents you can accrue some semblance of hollow, consumerist joy, and with the tree, delight in spinning the baubles around on their strings and giggling maniacally, having lost your mind from hours of mind-numbing xmas TV.

In fact yes, you’re alright Christmas, I can deal with most of your surrealist foibles, but I draw the line at cards, and so must you, and so must all of us - as it will take a nationwide boycott to see the back of them.

This festive period, maybe dig out a Pritt Stick and make your loved ones a card yourself, or you know, even better, look them in the eyes and tell them you love them a great deal.