! A C*******s - Well, Ok, Seasonal - Plea..

Art brings a smile and a message. Thus the art of ‘Christmas’ cards… (and I use the word loosely, as its public use is now disapproved…) A folded card: that’s four smallish sides to fill. An appropriate seasonal smile on Page One; Page Two requires nothing, blank but room for something else to say in lieu of that family catch-up print-out page your children will have helped with; or maybe not.. Page Three offers a seasonal message – but watch out these days – ‘you can’t use THAT for THEM…’ oh of course, they’re, what exactly? Crypto-Buddhists? Lapsed Amish? Richard Dawkins and his, er, dour or smiling family ? Page Four – the great let-out for the card’s – and implicitly your – abysmal grey vapidity… it’s a charity card! No money for the Hallmark millionaires! So spare a thought this season, for those who have to choose those cards for charities… non-denominational, non-racist, politically correct but only in a negative sense – no dolphins or humpback whales with an ambivalent Monna Lisa smile: your Japanese friends might sense a slight… For suspected closet Christians where the charity’s along those lines, it’s back to symbol and the catacombs and secret worshippers – perhaps a burning nightlight, hinting faith, in outer, inner, darkness? or if that’s risky, then the January snowdrop, suggesting hope, continuance.. for children’s charities, you can risk a teddy bear – so far, no pulpit East or West has denounced him as a capitalist, or as American as Roosevelt…or an endangered species thus dismissed… but keep the smiling children off the card.. their faces might betray leanings towards skin-colour preference, adoption difficulties… The 25 charities who have grouped together as the '1959 Group’ have risked this year a Santa, face hidden but for pinkish nose… cavorting on the ice, accompanied by an antlered orchestra; I guess the charities for multiple schlerosis, epilepsy, autism, lifeboats, have agreed… the rink-edge board behind him coyly says ‘Merr….stmas’…hmmm, close thing… The glorious sunlit barn-end in the snow of a Massachusetts farm, ‘printed in USA, finished in Canada’…uh? … tells us that the year moves round; nature, seasons, farm work always with us; as it was in Bethlehem; how sweet the fresh, clean manger smells! we turn as always, to Page Three; where heart warms heart with written words; taste, politics, social obligation, have no place here; it’s simply, love.