The Christmas card audit

Well, I said I hadn't finished yet with the cards we received in 2010. I didn't have time to do this last year: but here are 2007 and 2008 for purposes of comparison. We never even had a chance to put out the cards we received this Christmas, and I promised myself I would make time to sort through them and enjoy them. Categories as before, unless I decide otherwise:

• Snow scenes 23 in all, comprising:
  • 6 village scenes, of which one with pillar box, one with pillar box, vintage post van AND postman on bicycle (mysteriously not sold in aid of any post-related cause), one other vintage vehicle, this one towing three skiers and Maggie Rowe's elegantly minimal Whittington in Winter
  
  
  • plus a V & A reissue of a vintage card showing stylish lady shopper scurrying through the snow, with a row of Tudor-style buildings (houses? shops? who knows?) very much in the background)*
  
  
  • 3 snowmen
  
  
  • one rather pretty water colour of Durham by Benoît Roman d’Amat (shown here) and a seascape of Hartlepool (no actual snow, but it's so grey and wintery I decided to file it here)
  
  
  • five which major on trees (one glittery, one home-printed photo, the others in between)
  
  
  • one depicting old-fashioned cards of snow scenes, one Eastern city with nativity ('O Lilttle Town of Bethlehem', it says on the back, but who am I to mock other people's typing?), above which a mixture of stars and snow tumble from the sky, two Hiroshige scenes and one which I'm not even sure whether it's Japanese or Chinese
  
  
  • and a view of Corfe Castle in a heavy frost.


• Birds: 18, comprising:
  
  • 8 robins - three with sprigs of holly, and one of those with a pillar box as well
  
  
  • 2 penguins
  
  
  • 2 barn owls (both RSPB cards
  
  
  • 2 geese: scroll down for one of them, and here's the other. Two very different images, but they agree in giving the geese luminous beaks, which I find disconcerting.
  
  
  • Plus one each chickens (an Utamaro woodblock), dove of peace, mallards (RSPB again) and waxwings (good, but I prefer this one!)
  
  
• Animals: 11 - 3 reindeer, 2 very cute cats in snow (this can't be right, can it?) and one tiger, one rabbit (Peter), one Pooh and Piglet (Disney), one red squirrel, a couple of what I think are foxes and - probably the most unlikely Christmas image of the year, though I like it very much - one photograph of mussels (hand-made card).


• Christmas trees: 10, including one with glitter and Father Christmas, another a jigsaw showing the Christmas tree in front of the Duomo in Milan and at least one studded with shiny glass gems and a stuck-on star*.


• Other plants 20: That's 5 wreaths (and two bouquets), three stylised holly designs, including this embroidered hanging from the V&A, (for additional holly, see above, robins) and six other red berries (all photographs, but some with added glitter) and 3 snowdrops. Margaret Brooker's card this year is a golden pear - she says it's 'Mora', an old Italian variety grown at Brogdale orchards, but I wouldn't put it past her to have a little nut tree.


• Baubles Only two; plus Christmas stockings, one, and presents (two, of which one is an Emma Holliday painting of a stack of books at the Lit & Phil)


• Nativity scenes 9: In addition to the Little Town of Bethlehem (above), one rather fine townscape, which turns out to be a detail from Goncharova's backdrop for The Firebird, 3 nativities, one Madonna and child (Fra Angelico, Madonna with lily), one little shepherd and three times three kings.


• Angels 3: and all somewhat heterodox. There's Gustav Klimt's "Harmony" who I've said on previous occasions probably isn't an angel at all; a group of Persian angels from the British Library and Barbara Rae's Choir of Angels, all dark hair, Grecian noses and eye make-up (well, why not?)


• Santa Claus: 4 plus the one already sighted among the Christmas trees


• Twelve Days of Christmas: 2, one of all twelve gifts, one ten lords as children playing leap frog in the snow.


• Musical: 2. One bell, one marginal figure from the Macclesfield Psalter playing what might be a cornemuse, but don't quote me


• 6 others: a family photo, some text-based designs, some decorative foliage...

I'd usually expect to see a few City of Durham Trust cards in there; people may have decided that in the circumstances it wouldn't be appropriate. (On the contrary, but there you go...)

It's not about the numbers, but that's fewer than in previous years, and while that's not altogether a surprise, there are some names I don't remember seeing which do surprise me. Have to check that further.

*Added 09.2.11