A jolly electronic age of Christmas cheer

Sadly, the chances are probably zero that a pretty card featuring a rather overweight Father Christmas will ever arrive at its destination.

Thank you Post Office for destroying Christmas for many people.

Not only has the Post Office single handily laid waste to a much valued portal of communication, they have also now made sure the Christmas cheer will remain stuck somewhere in a depot.

But this debacle with the Post Office has prompted me to ask another question: who actually buys Christmas cards anymore? In fact, who buys cards of any nature?

Come one, time to be honest. You receive a card, you giggle, you laugh or you cringe, you might wonder what the heck the person was thinking, and then most likely the card is dumped, stored away, recycled or maybe eaten by the dog.

And cards are not cheap. Christmas cards range from about from R20 to even R50, depending on the special effects, glitter and quality purchased.

I would rather have the cash, so that I can at least buy four litres of petrol!

After all, we live in the electronic age. Instead of physically having to go to a store to pay an arm and leg for cheap art work, rather download one of numerous design software programmes to create your own fancy card with dancing reindeer and attach some freaky audio, such as Jiggle Bells.

Then, viola, you sent it through cyber space – costing far less than R30.

And there is no need to worry if postal workers have decided to change the Christmas slogan of ho, ho, ho to go slow, slow, slow, and there is no need to worry if the parcel might become misplaced somewhere in a depot where mice and rats have established their own Christmas kingdom.

Oh yes, by the way, we should remain sensitive to the fact that Father Christmas’ chant of ”ho, ho, ho” could be regarded as derogatory – it could refer to ladies with an unsavoury appetite for certain pleasures.

Many years ago, questions were first raised about how long physical books and newspaper would be able to survive the advent of the electronic age.

Lo and behold (ho, ho, ho), they still are surviving, despite many people choosing the electronic formats of literature.

This is same scenario with other paper products, such as Christmas cards or any greeting card.

A book, one can understand, has appeal as a physical copy, but cards come and go as quickly as the taxpayer’s money when it reaches the government’s coffers.

One can argue that there are certain occasions when a card might be helpful – such as trying to cheer up a patient in a hospital – but what the heck, stick the electronic card design on an I-pad or tablet and just show them the card!

Everybody has e-mail, most likely on hand via cellphones, so why not sent electronic cards from now on?

This will take away the guilt of deciding what to do when receiving a hard copy of a greeting card.

Can you believe that we are actually talking about Christmas?

Drove past a shop the other day with a Merry Christmas sticker on the window, even though it is more than a month to go!

Yes, the big Christmas machine is rolling (has it ever stopped?), with shops already tempting the downtrodden consumer to buy Christmas decorations (they started appearing in early October in certain stores).

Soon, it won’t matter where we go, Father Christmas will be stalking us, trying to make us forget that we live in a land where the chill of the North Pole is nothing compared to the the coldness of party politics.

One cannot but wonder if the Christmas commercial hype will again swallow consumers whole, leaving families in debt and wondering how they are going to survive January.

Sure, the kids want the good stuff, but let us remember: Christmas is about family, goodwill and apparently peace on Earth.

It should not be about pretence, status or ego.

This is why Christmas cards should become obsolete – not just because of the lack of service by the Post Office – but because the endearing human spirit should remain greater than any gift.