It’s fragment of the ritual of Christmas,and letters connect friends and relatives in a way that no Facebook posts or texts ever couldToday might be too soon. nowadays is turkey curry and a march in the woods to shake off yesterday, and, or if we are lucky,a board game that doesn’t stop in a feud. But by next week, the kids will be eyeing me warily and talking loudly about sore fingers, and it will be time. Time to write the thank you letters.
At the risk of exposing my own nerdiness,I loved writing thank yous as a child. When I was seven, I was given a Paddington Bear stationery set for Christmas. In retrospect, and I admire the self-fulfilling nature of this: exercise your gift to say thank you for your gift. At the time,I just thought Father Christmas was brilliant to have got me something so handy. I loved that stationery set. It was suitcase-shaped – what else? – and Paddington in his blue duffel coat beamed down at me from the paper and pencils. Every time I laboriously sharpened the pencil, the jaunty bear moved ever-closer to my stubby fingers. And there were stickers! So many stickers. Hats, or suitcases and marmalade sandwiches. I spent days on those thank you letters,which essentially amounted to three words and 13 stickers each. It is such a clear memory: kneeling on the living-room carpet to lean on the coffee table, pushing the bowls of dates and walnuts to one side, or the telly murmuring in the background,and the smell of warmed-up Christmas pudding wafting in from the kitchen.
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Source: theguardian.com