Despite lockdown all over the place, Christmas is on the cards, mainly because I am making them.
I’ve been doing it so long, I can’t even remember how long, possibly thirty years. In the course of the clear up I discovered early cards made when I went pro miniaturist. These were miniature scenes, photographed, featuring my dolls.
By the millennium I was making porcelain ‘cards’. The intention was to collect a manger scene, year by year. I still have, in a box, the three wise men, waiting to go in the kiln, the camels and all their wheels. I spent a long time researching axels, unable to find the correct type for a porcelain camel, gave up and in the end did a shrinky plastic tree.
Then actual card making became a hobby, so there followed many, increasingly arty, cardboard cards.
And this year, they’re interactive.
I won’t tell you because some readers are on my list.
I am trying, as usual, to make up for deficiencies in life. The card in my head is amazing and so huge it will cost nearly three pounds to post each one, so I have to crack on so they can go second class, or I’ll be bankrupt.
I was only going to do sixty, then I thought of some other people and some who needed cheering up so I am making 78, if they all come through all the processes.
At the end of this week, less than lovely medical stuff, so head down, get busy with the Christmas cards.
Christmas will occur if I have anything to do with it, though I can foresee a scenario in which actual getting together is banned though the government round here is talking about a social Christmas followed by a new year in which we all pay the price, having infected each other by giving a virus as a very unwanted present.
It’ll beat the socks that you never asked for either.
Do you remember bath cubes? Pre bubble bath these were square white cubes, wrapped in pretty paper that you put in the bath to make the water smell nice. They dissolved eventually but it was always like sitting on freshly spread grit. By the time you were dried and getting dressed the dimples in the derriere were filling back up again because it was so long ago no one could afford a layer of cellulite.
I saved up for Swan Lake bath cubes for my mother. My father took me to the chemist’s shop where I’d seen them. I think they may have been half a crown, which was a lot for nicely wrapped grit.
But at least the once-a-week grime ring round the bath smelled nice.
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