At Christmas, I like to delegate writing cards to Mrs Utley… along with cooking, cleaning, wrapping gifts and putting up decorations says TOM UTLEY

Years ago an old friend and fellow journalist invented a distinctly uncharitable game, which he and his family used to play when they gathered together for the Christmas festivities.

For all I know, they still play it — although given the extortionate price of stamps these days, I fear that their tradition may not survive for much longer.

The rules of the game, as I understand them, are straightforward. Somebody deals out all the Christmas cards the family has received, an equal number to each player.

The competitors then take it in turns to nominate a category for each round. It’s a bit like fixing which suit should be trumps in a hand of bridge.

Categories may include, say, ‘fattest robin’, ‘most Christmassy’ or — more cruelly — ‘most mawkish’, ‘most egotistical’, ‘most blasphemous’ or ‘most naff’.

Which of us hasn’t occasionally raised a quizzical eyebrow at an inappropriate Christmas card — one from an ambitious politician, for example, displaying a photograph of himself, looking smug, or some other picture that has nothing whatever to do with the season or the birth it celebrates? (Stock Image)

Every year since his article, I’ve imagined my journalist friend and his family chortling in a superior, contemptuous way when they open the Utleys’ card (Stock Image)

When the players have each laid down a card, they debate which best fits the category for that round, and a winner is declared.

It’s all innocent enough fun, you may think, for a family to enjoy in private.

After all, which of us hasn’t occasionally raised a quizzical eyebrow at an inappropriate Christmas card — one from an ambitious politician, for example, displaying a photograph of himself, looking smug, or some other picture that has nothing whatever to do with the season or the birth it celebrates?

My friend’s big mistake, however, was to write about his traditional game in a national newspaper (not this one, I hasten to say), describing in detail particular cards he’d received that year, which had provoked his family’s mockery. The ungrateful swine!

I write with some feeling, because one of the cards he singled out for a sneering mention in that newspaper, all those years ago, happened to have come from me and my beloved wife!

Every year since then, I’ve imagined him and his family chortling in a superior, contemptuous way when they open the Utleys’ card.

But while I try to forgive him for his (moderately) good-humoured public rebuke — heaven knows, I’ve committed many a similar offence myself, in my 40-odd years as a columnist — I find it all the harder to pardon him for another sin to which he has confessed in the public prints.

Though he says he much enjoys receiving Christmas cards, he admits that way back in 2009, he stopped sending them himself.

Though my journalist friend says he much enjoys receiving Christmas cards, he admits that way back in 2009, he stopped sending them himself

He assures us that this wasn’t because he was too mean to buy the cards and pay for postage, which then cost a mere 30p for a second-class stamp (though this seemed pretty steep at the time). No, it was simply because he was too lazy to go to all the trouble involved.

In other words, he couldn’t be bothered to send his friends his good wishes at this time of year. But he wasn’t ashamed publicly to mock those who were good-natured enough to send him theirs. Harumph!

Ah, well, as far as I know at least he hasn’t committed what in my book is the worst offence, of which a few of my friends have been guilty in the past.

I’m thinking of those who’ve copied a smug email to all the friends in their contacts lists, saying something like: ‘Tarquin and Arabella will not be sending Christmas cards this year. We’ll be making a donation to our favourite charity instead.’

In short, far from sending grovelling apologies for their unfriendliness, Tarquin and Arabella (I’ve made up the names) seemed to be inviting us to praise them for the purity of their charitable souls. But then why give to good causes instead of sending Christmas cards? Why not both?

In many cases, the answer was not that they were too poor, but simply because they were too mean — or, like my old friend, because they thought sending cards was too much palaver.

Or so I used to think until this year, when I began to think seriously that maybe we should stop sending Christmas cards ourselves.

Indeed, I suspect many readers will have had similar thoughts, prompted above all by this year’s massive increase in the price of even a second-class stamp to an extraordinary 75p.

Meanwhile, only those with vastly more money than sense would consider sending Christmas cards by first-class post, at a blistering £1.25 per stamp — or an even more budget-busting £1.95 for a large card.

With the Royal Mail in its current state, after all, there can be no knowing if a card will arrive this side of next spring, no matter which class we choose.

So has sending Christmas cards simply become one needless expense too many, at what is for most of us by far the most expensive time of the year? With the number of cards we receive dwindling every Christmas, should we perhaps join the many who have abandoned the old festive tradition of sending them out?

Such were my thoughts, anyway, as I considered all the presents and the mountains of food and drink we have to buy for our ever-growing family of daughters-in-law and grandchildren. That’s not to mention how Mrs U’s retirement this year, coupled with the ravages of inflation, has slashed our joint income.

But then I just love receiving Christmas cards, and I feel that while we still can, we Utleys should do our bit to keep this dying tradition alive.

Not only do cards keep us in touch with absent friends, but they cheer up the Christmas decorations no end, while making us feel thought of at least once a year. Indeed, they mean so much more than an electronic card, pinged through the ether (message all) without a thought.

No, the more real cards the merrier, I reckon — and who cares if one or two of them may be thought to offend against the rules of perfect taste?

True, my journalist friend who refuses to send cards has a point when he says it’s a whole lot of trouble. Apart from choosing the cards and writing the newsy messages, it means hunting down up-to-date addresses and — more relevant for us every Christmas — keeping track of which friends and acquaintances have died in the course of the year.

Then you can bet your last stamp that no sooner do you think you’ve sent one to everyone you’ve ever called a friend than cards start arriving from people you’ve left off the list. So you have to dash out to the charity-card shop and the Post Office, and start the whole business again.

Mercifully, however, none of this affects me, since dealing with the cards is one of those little Christmas jobs I like to delegate to Mrs U (well, she has much neater handwriting than mine). Others include all the cooking, cleaning, washing, present-buying, wrapping and most of the festive decorating.

So this year, we’ve coughed up once again for those ever-more-expensive stamps, and my wife has sent out our Christmas cards as usual.

As always, in the charitable spirit of the season — peace and goodwill, and all that — she’s been careful to send one to our mocking friend, for use in his family game. He and his near and dear can decide which category fits it best.

But let me end with a word of advice to Royal Mail. If you want to encourage us to keep using your services, how about trying to make them cheaper and more reliable — instead of pushing your prices ever further beyond the average customer’s budget?

If you go on like this, year after year, you won’t just be destroying a much-loved Christmas tradition. You’ll risk killing off snail mail altogether.

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