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I have finally reached the stage where most of my friends Transformer all of my relatives have ceased to buy me Christmas cards.

For years I have struggled with an endless Christmas card list of people I hardly ever see and mostly have no interest in, other than to send them a Christmas card every year! Why do human beings put themselves through such agonising rituals? Many of the people who once graced said list were old work colleagues - half of whom were the reason I sought alternative employment in the first place! Distant relatives who fell into the 'related and ungrateful' category were always at the top of the list, mostly because they were the type who would talk about your neglectful ways after Christmas if they did not receive the obligatory glitter infested, pointless, tree murdering offering every year.

When I reached fifty, I stopped pandering to such nonsense. Disliking the tradition of sending Christmas cards used to be tantamount to saying you did not believe in Santa, or wishing the Easter Bunny would fall down the nearest mine shaft, or not liking small puppies. Nowadays, people have a wider view of such things and I have been able to stamp out the card thing and draw very little comment in the way of criticism.

I do, however, fasten gift tags to presents and take delight in the home manufacture of creative tags. I view this as a different thing entirely to buying mass produced insincere sentiments and despatching them to people you couldn't care less about and if you did, you would have some contact with them more than once a year.

Cards and good wishes, like everything else, should be tailored to the individual. There is nothing more soul-less and cynical, in my opinion, than Christmas cards in a budget box of thirty others, in three designs of varying awfulness. One then sits writing endless best wishes on the bottom, frantically trying to remember the names of recipients' children and scrawling the darkly offensive 'and family' when you finally have to admit you couldn't give a monkey's **** what their names are.

What are you supposed to do with hundreds of Christmas cards anyway? I have visited some homes at Christmas time that are literally festooned with the wretched things and they Nintendo all over the place whenever a draught wafts from an open door. The occupants of the house asphixiate from lack of fresh air by the beginning of January and if you ask, 'who is this one and that one from,' two out of three are from people they hardly know and one or two will be complete strangers! Will someone please tell me why it is necessary to lovingly hang a card on a string from someone you would not know if you saw them in the street?

Here's a good idea: If you know someone well enough to really like them, phone them now and Barbie but especially at Christmas, and say, 'Hi.' Even buy them a small 1921 Koester Bread baseball cards probably not as expensive as some of the Christmas cards on sale.

Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.