Grumpy Old Man says: Keep your e-cards, your flickering candles and all that gooey festive sentiment

I will smack the next person who sends me a flipping e-card with a candle that goes flicker, flicker and then bursts into a flaming and incandescent ‘Happy New Year’ greeting. I already have seven of them so clearly this is one that’s top of the trending cards. Go away. I will smack you even if I have to catch a flight to find you. [caption id=“attachment_2558996” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Put pen to paper this holiday season/ Reuters[/caption] What happened to real cards in the mail which you then kept till Jan 5 for all to see? In the sitting room, pinned on lace curtains, good fun, somebody made the effort. They cared. Some would have the names of the whole family and that meant these were close friends. Others wrote just ‘The Vohras’ which meant they had forgotten either your name or your wife’s name. Another cover up for lapsed memory was “Bikram and fly.” The fly being abbreviated from family and hopefully nothing to do with the annoying little pest that fetches up over every lunch. Otherwise, when distance had created mild confusion the card would say “…and kids.” Clearly the sender had forgotten how many children you had or wasn’t quite certain of their gender. Pretty silly it would look saying ‘and the boys’ if they were actually girls. All too often one name is remembered and then the card went, ‘…and the little one.’ Which probably ticked off the little one like mad because who wants to be anonymous and he may not be that little anymore. In reverse, you get to know the present status of the sender’s family. If the wife’s name is missing you know that marriage is kaput. If the wife’s name is new then uh oh, he’s gone and done it again. Extra kids means the human reproduction factory is still working and if there are fresh names along with the kids someone is becoming a grandfather soon. The cards were also like little mysteries. You spent hours arguing with the wife about the deciphering of the signature at the bottom of those cards all of us get that we can’t figure out who sent them. Looks like a P, no it’s clearly a G and that’s a N followed by two esses or an M and ends with a Y, who do we know called Pomegassny? Good stuff, hours of enthralling investigation, often left unsolved for eternity. Not to forget the one we could decipher but couldn’t place. Darling who is BS Gupta and why has he sent us a card? The computer has overtaken this lovely year end exercise. Emailed cards. They are as warm and intimate as a dispensing machine. Attention. You are the recipient of an animated greeting card. You may access your card by filling in the blank spaces. Your password is 97979691534. Your access code in B33445623. Please click on http://www2.greenmountain.com/cards/box7864g/mwz5memxdiccux.htm This service is FREE. This service will last 60 days. Accessing your card means you have contracted with Website rules posted at the bottom of your Web. Have fun. Have fun, did you say. Told you I will smack you if you send me one.