When I drew up the graph of the shapes of the christmas cards we were sent this year (below) I saw that we were into our sixth year of statistics. I realised a couple of years ago that most of the categories I’d ordered the cards into were overlapping or arbitrary - the only certainty is the shape and the rise of the square card. The homemade category was at a steady 37% this year, although due to the rise of self printing and the sale of home made cards the title of this category is now ‘card made by the person who sent it’.
The overall number of cards we received was down about 10% and like last year, when we hung them up the display wasn’t very colourful. There were more birds than ever (a wapping 13%) and quite a few animal cards. Among them were two very similar hares, an amusing cat and a totally hilarious pig (below). This isn’t an art or homemade card, despite the real silver braid, but a charity card supporting the British Heart Foundation.
There were three nativity scenes (above), I must have needed cheering up as I particularly enjoyed the little funny one on the left. The best two this year, shown below, are both more 3 dimensional than your average card, and both suitably wintery. The tin star looked great on the mantlepiece reflecting the light from the christmas candles, and the one on the left is a delicate folded screen of a Japanese snow scene - thanks friends for continuing to make and send cards!
