I reckons the "plastic" age is spelling the death knell of Christmas cards. And maybe even the one page "what we have been doing for the past 12 months" Christmas letters. My wife and I never sent one of the letters until we received one from old friends and it was about the 9th or 10th we have read on an annual basis.

The letters always extolled the virtues of their highly successful children, described in great detail their latest overseas holiday (always at least a month in some hotspot that my wife and I could never have afforded, flying first class of course) and the numerous society functions they had attended or held.

We could never have held a candle to their magnificent and expensive 12 months (one could have built a modest project home with the money they spent on their o/s holidays). But eventually I had had enough. We had built an ultra modern minimalist new home around our remodelled swimming pool and I determined to fight back!

I wrote an amazing and wondrous letter in reply. It referred not only to the new home, but a voyage I had done solo up the Mekong in Vietnam and Cambodia, the trip Jules and daughter Mia had done to New York (including 3 nights in Las Vegas followed by 5 nights of "mopping up" shopping in Los Angeles), and exaggerated references to social events and the winning of new and plush cashed-up clients for my business. It worked. We never received another of of their outlandish and extravagant Christmas letters. And, into the bargain, they continued on as friends!

I received another one pager recently, but it was a delight, and informed us of what the writer and his family had done during the previous 12 months in a pleasantly down to earth fashion. And the letter actually arrived by post......an amazing fact in today's electronic society!

For the past 7-8 years we have given up on sending cards as we have become swamped by e-cards sent, naturally enough" by email! So these days I have succumbed to the majority....and send the occasional e-card.

But old fashion "snail mail" cards still have benefits. Today I have posted 20 on behalf of the Kyneton Men's Shed. They are what I call "brown nosing" cards, thanking organizations for helping the Shed during the past year, and sent in the hope that we might continue to benefit through their continued help.

I will post more tomorrow. Running out of energy...l