On the cards

I am SO organised this year. Most of my Christmas shopping is done, and yesterday we went out into the outbuilding and fetched in the Christmas decorations. There were about three big boxes of them, built up over the years, but as we seem to be downsizing Christmas a bit lately, and a lot of it is old tat anyway, I decided to have a good sort out. Out went all the plastic baubles (superseded by beautiful old glass ones from a jumble sale); the envelopes of old cards going back decades, the tinsel and beads that are more trouble than their worth to put up each year, the cards without envelopes, the cards with damp envelopes, the stuff that it seemed a good idea to buy in the post Christmas sales... It all went on Freecycle and this morning is off to a local primary school.

Well, not the old cards. I put them in the recycling, but not before taking the pinking shears to them and making about three years' supply of gift tags - a family tradition which I'm very happy to continue, and now finally looks environmentally responsible rather than just mean.

I am left with the lovely, specially chosen tree ornaments collected over the last few years, quite a few from my childhood (although it was a little sad to open the box and discover the shattered remains of the very last one of the set of 12 glass baubles that, for some reason, I was given when I was about four).

Then I wrapped up my presents and wrote my cards, finally nearly getting to the bottom of the Amnesty bargain pack I bought a few years ago, and using all my IWA cards, so I thought I should order some more, as Jim hadn't written any yet. So I went on the IWA website and ordered three more packs of ten, and only then did I read Debdale's blog about how they designed and ordered their cards from Moo, (with a handy link) so I thought, hmmm, I must look into that - and ended up ordering 25 Chertsey cards from there. Well, I've never had such great Christmassy pictures before. (Although ever canny, I haven't put any seasonally-specific greeting in them, so they could be used for wintry birthdays too.) Can't wait to see how they turn out. The site was certainly easy to use, once you get past a slight cutesiness, and even techie-boy was surprised that you can have up to 25 different pictures for your 25 cards. I've shared mine between seven.

Only problem is that I've posted all this year's cards now, so you'll have to wait until 2011 for your exclusive Chertsey greeting.