Christmas Platitudes

The spoken phrase 'Merry Christmas' has become so ubiquitous now that it can often fails have to any impact whatsoever upon receipt - especially if uttered in passing by a stranger (such as a shop assistant, or friend of a friend), or merely used as the sign off to a conversation.

In writing too, 'Merry Christmas' can almost be overlooked - although this is even more context specific. This Yuletide I've decided to rank the ways I've received 'Merry Christmas's, according to what I find most important...

1. A hand-made Christmas card, given to me in person

Cost: 6/10
Effort: 10/10
Sincerity: 10/10

Overall: 26/30

Obviously this method suffers, with no postage cost involved - and was probably made with materials the sender already possessed. Top marks for effort and sincerity though.

2. A shop-bought Christmas card, posted to me

Cost: 10/10
Effort: 7/10
Sincerity: 6/10

Overall: 23/30

Cost of card, ~£2. Probably bought in bulk, so the effort rating here isn't great. Cost of stamp, ~36p, again probably bought in bulk. Then there's also the writing, finding of my address and taking the thing to a postbox to take into account, which gives this form a very respectable score for effort. It's nice to know I was thought of, but I doubt the sender would lose much sleep if I didn't get their message.

3. A shop-bought Christmas card, handed to me

Cost: 8/10
Effort: 6/10
Sincerity: 8/10

Overall: 22/30

Well, as you can see, marks have been lost for both effort and cost - but the sincerity factor makes up for that. A card that's physically handed to you is likely to be opened on the spot, so the sender will have written something fairly interesting, more often than not.

4. An e-card

Cost: 0/10
Effort: 2/10
Sincerity: 1/10

Overall: 3/30

Seriously, just because I work in technology, and hang around on the internet all day, does not mean it's acceptable to send me an e-card for any reason. Ever. If I wanted flashing images and garish text on a badly coded webpage, I'd go back to the 90's. Or Yahoo. On the plus side, these sites are notoriously hard to navigate, and so there's a smallish amount of effort involved.

5. A text message

Cost: 1/10
Effort: 1/10
Sincerity: 0/10

Overall: 2/30

Your text message has interrupted something really important I was doing. My mother is now in tears, the windows are smashed and the kitchen's on fire. I hope you're happy, you've ruined Christmas.

6. Writing on my Facebook wall

Cost: 0/10
Effort: 1/10
Sincerity: 0/10

Overall: 1/30

I get it - you're bored and looking up people online. You want one of them to reply to you but you're not feeling quite pathetic enough to actually call them or send them a message. Or maybe you don't have their number or email address, because you're just some weirdo who stalks them online. So - you leave them a friendly wall post, hoping they'll feel emotionally blackmailed into getting back to you. Not me kiddo.

7. Leaving a picture on your blog for anyone who happens to visit

Cost: 0/10
Effort: 0/10
Sincerity: 0/10

Overall: 0/30

Ok, actually I've never been on the receiving end of this one. Unfortunately for you, that's a claim you can never make again:



Merry Christmas :)