Do people even send Christmas cards any more? Industry sources say the custom of posting cards to loved ones hasn’t completely fallen out of fashion, but the tradition is declining due to digital alternatives, different habits and rising costs.
We are also deep into several generations who text and send emojis instead of picking up a writing instrument, applying thought, putting pen to paper, sending best wishes, addressing an envelope, affixing a stamp and proceeding in an orderly fashion to the post box whereupon to send said missive to the recipient of their seasonal affections.
Why bother with all that Victorian malarkey when you can click on a Santa emoji, write ‘MC!’ next to it, job done.
Yet some younger adults have become tweedy outliers who are increasingly sending Christmas cards, enjoying the quaint customs and connections of a bygone age where people lived within their means, knew how to read a map and what to do with a pair of clackers.
Like hipsters playing vinyl records or installing rotary phones in their homes, it gives these kids a heritage thrill, albeit an expensive one.
For a first class stamp now costs £1.70, while a second class one is 87p – and the cards themselves don’t come cheap. The Royal Mail estimates it delivers 150million every Christmas, with each person sending roughly 20 cards and to hell with the cost or consequences.
For if you put yourself out there, your choice of card is open to condemnation, snobbery and worse. If you dare to send a humorous one saying I Identify As A Grinch you might even end up in woke jail this Christmas.
Sainsbury’s had to remove these cards from their shelves last week after campaigners complained that it was ‘belittling’ and ‘worrying’ in ‘the current UK climate of trans hostility’.
Surely their reaction, funnier than the card itself, underlines the absurdity of ‘identifying’ as anything?
Then the Prince and Princess of Wales were criticised because the family photograph on their 2025 Christmas card apparently isn’t ‘cheery enough’. Given the year William and Kate have had, that might not have been surprising, had it been true. I thought the Waleses looked charming and happy in their country casuals, sitting mud-free and royally a-gleam in a field of daffodils, as you do. However, some people are never pleased, are they?
All of this to say that deciding who has made it on to your Christmas card list and is deserving of your felicitations is just as fraught as deciding whom to cast out into the wilderness, greetings-wise.
So here are some of those who have made my cut and the others who have suffered the cruellest cut of all – they are off my Christmas card list forevermore!
OFF MY LIST
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves at PMQs earlier this year
Rachel Reeves
No, Rachel. You are certainly not getting a card from me.
The Chancellor has not had a good year; crying when she wasn’t lying, weeping instead of bookkeeping, a hot mess who played chess to championship level – or did she?
She said she wanted to improve life for the ‘ordinary working people’ in this country but steamed on with ruinous, inflation-busting pay rises for her beloved public sector workers.
Then there was the winter fuel payments fiasco, reversing the child benefit cap and raising the level of NI employer contributions to such an extent that many employers had to lay off staff. She spent billions on things we can’t afford with money we haven’t got – and when the day of reckoning comes, we will all have to pay for her incompetence.
Tax and spend, missions and pledges, plans and targets, smoke and mirrors. So jingle on, Rachel. All the way.
The former Spice Girl declared that Girl Power is defunct and that, in the interests of gender inclusion, it should henceforth be known as Inner Power instead.
Thankfully this tiny and unworthy thought was dismissed as nonsense – but what a betrayal of all the little fans who bought into that Spice Girl inspirational dream. Off the list you go, madam!
The then Duke of York with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson at Royal Ascot in 2019
The (former) Yorks
It is sad that the people who could best use the friendly benediction of a Christmas card are the ones who deserve it the least, which brings us to Andy and Fergie, formerly known as the Duke and Duchess of York.
Where to begin? They both lied about their connections to Jeffrey Epstein, promising that they no longer had contact with him when the opposite was true.
Shameless Fergie has been telling people that the late Queen Elizabeth communicates with her via the medium of corgis Muick and Sandy, while their behaviour – the Yorks, not the dogs – at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent in September was an embarrassment to themselves, to the grieving family, to all of us. They treated the occasion like a jolly tea party.
No wonder they have been banished from society, from royal life and, worst of all, from my Christmas card list.
Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon outside her home in Glasgow in 2023
The former First Minister stood down as leader after a decade on the front line of Scottish politics and wasted no time in launching her autobiography and embarking on a literary career.
I’m all right, Jock – but what of the country she left behind? In Scotland, education is failing and the health service is failing while the porridge of progressive gender policies and groupthink left in her wake have weakened the nation.
‘It is bunkum to say I spent too much time on gender ideology,’ Sturgeon said recently, going on to absolve herself of all blame for everything. Yet her curdled legacy is plain to see. No card from me.
Greta Thunberg
In June Greta tried to break through Israel’s blockade of Gaza in a boat and deliver a ‘symbolic’ amount of aid to Palestinians – my guess was two cups of flour and a great big mug of smug.
Twitting about doing performative activism in a warzone? Greta is off my list for this alone.
What made it far worse is that after she and her Freedom Flotilla pals were (predictably) stopped and detained by Israel Defence Forces she refused to watch a 47-minute video – compiled mostly of gloating Hamas footage – of the murder, rape and carnage that took place on October 7. She said it was ‘propaganda’.
No, Greta, it was the horrible, unvarnished truth. Protesters like Thunberg, marinated in their luxury beliefs, are still in denial.
She was at it again this week, trying not to look too pleased with herself after being arrested in London following another pro-Palestinian demonstration.
The mystery is how she can call herself a human rights activist while ignoring the suffering of innocents who happen to be on the side she does not support.
Remember, it is supposed to be goodwill to all men, Greta.
Sadiq Khan
Knife crime is on the up. Mobile phone theft is out of control. Thuggery, mugging and shoplifting are commonplace. As if London didn’t have enough problems, Mayor Sadiq Khan now wants to decriminalise marijuana on the streets of the capital.
This fashionable objective helps absolutely nothing and no one, while encouraging teenagers to believe taking drugs is a respectable and harmless pastime. Can’t this terrible mayor do something more positive for young people in his city?
British singer Lily Allen at the Serpentine Gallery summer party in London this year
Lily Allen
In July Lily, who released her new album West End Girl earlier this year, talked about the number of abortions she’d had. ‘I want to say five? Four?’ she wondered, as if trying to recollect how many of her teeth she’d had capped. She went on to express delight that there was no longer blame attached to her decision to terminate these pregnancies.
Not so fast. You can be pro-choice and fully support a woman’s right to choose – I am, and I do – but still be appalled by this immature and careless attitude to abortion. What a terrible example it sets for young girls.
Buy a packet of condoms if you can’t be bothered to do anything else, Lily. How hard can it be – even for you?
The former Canadian PM, pictured with his mother Margaret, wore a pair of turquoise and orange Adidas Gazelles at King Charles’s historic address to the Canadian parliament in May
Justin Trudeau & David Lammy
This unlikely pair of chancers are on the naughty step for committing the sin of wearing trainers in high places. I used to think that blackface was the worst thing that M. Trudeau could put on his body, but I was wrong.
The former Canadian PM wore a pair of turquoise and orange Adidas Gazelles at King Charles’s historic address to the Canadian parliament in May. It wasn’t just casual, it was rude.
Meanwhile, as Foreign Secretary, Lammy padded around the world stage wearing trainers with his business suits; completely unforgivable. If a female politician had done this, there would have been outrage.
Stephen Fry
Sir Stephen – if we must – stuck the boot into JK Rowling over her trans beliefs. She has ‘very strong, difficult views’ he said, sounding like an Iranian cleric trying to wrestle an impudent girl into a burka, not someone who exults in his laughable reputation as a champion of free speech.
Fry sniffed that she had been ‘radicalised’ and was a ‘lost cause’ not in control of her own mind.
It is doubtful that Rowling will be much bothered by this attack from an old friend who once vowed to stand by her. Look at him, a martyr to the deathly hallows of his own hypocrisy.
ON MY LIST
Actor James Norton during filming for House Of Guinness, in which he plays Sean Rafferty
James Norton
Before she died this year, Hollywood actress Diane Keaton gave her opinion on who should be the next James Bond. And for her it had to be James.
‘He’s got everything you need,’ she said. ‘First of all, he’s extremely attractive, very smart, he’s well educated and he’s a fantastic actor. And he’s sexy, right? I’m not wrong. I mean, women are gonna love him.’ She was correct on all counts. So I’m going to send James a card to remind him of his duty to the nation and the seasonal importance of jingling all the way, no matter what.
JK Rowling celebrates the Supreme Court trans ruling win with a cigar and cocktail on a luxury yacht
JK Rowling
The author continued to stand up for women and women’s rights in the sex and gender debate.
She believes and insists that women are women, and trans women are trans women. And that you can be supportive of both parties and accepting of their choices, but not to the extent that the rights of one group supersede the other.
When provoked by trans activists, as she often is, Rowling has never been afraid to call a bloke a bloke or stand up for the undeniable truth of biology during a time when it has been difficult – even perilous – to do so. And she does it all with wit and eloquence.
King Charles
Charles has had a difficult year but been brave and stoic, emerging from his cancer treatment as a monarch who is more popular than ever.
Surely even anti-monarchists must see that he and the Windsors have a role that is more than ceremonial, one that runs deeper and wider than mere pageantry.
They have a purpose, a magic that transcends politics. Imagine what our country would look like without the royals: a grim Starmerland with all the panache of Finland. So Merry Christmas, your Maj. Don’t ever change.
American pop sensation Taylor Swift in Lisbon during her Eras tour last year
Taylor Swift
The hardest-working woman in the business ended her Eras tour, brought out an album, got engaged, made a documentary series for Disney and delighted millions. She is an unstoppable force of nature, making the best music of her career. The Life Of A Showgirl grew on me like a chain, a crown, a vine, whilst one could only admire her work ethic and the sheer exuberance and ambition of her output. What a show, girl.
Julian Clary is back at the London Palladium, appearing as King Julian in Sleeping Beauty
Julian Clary
Darling Julian is back at the London Palladium, appearing as King Julian in Sleeping Beauty and spreading joy and festive cheer throughout the season.
This is his tenth year at the panto, an event that has become an institution in the capital, a smorgasbord of smut that has them rolling in the aisles.
On the night I went we gasped at the spectacle of Julian’s huge opening and gave him a warm hand on his entrance, as tradition demands. So, a card from me to Julian, the enduring and endearingly camp comedian who is the biggest card of all.
A Merry Christmas to him – and to all of you, too.
