For me, the annual sending and receiving of Christmas cards has been particularly interesting this year. If only because this year I've been noticing clear patterns in it.
I didn't, initially, send out a lot of cards this year. Only to family members, pretty much. Otherwise I wasn't as bothered about sending them this year. I was thinking they are just as much a silly popularity gauge, as a genuine Christmas wish or goodwill gesture.
But a couple of things I found out today have confirmed to me even more, how much Christmas cards easily become a silly popularity gauge. Christmas cards can tell you a lot sociologically.
At work, Christmas cards are placed in a timesheet folder each person has, all contained in a lever arch file, as it's assumed people will look in there regularly. I looked at it today and all staff members had a stack of cards or at least one or two. I had none. I noticed one member of staff had put a card in everyone's folder except mine. I can almost say the same about another member of staff. This is what inspired me to post this in an Asperger forum in the first place as it so happens an Aspie is the one who's excluded. This, in the season of goodwill but as I say, Christmas cards don't seem to be about Christmas, they seem to be about popularity. I never thought I was the most popular person there but never thought the gap was that stark.
I went to church yesterday to find I DID have a stack of cards. Today I got round to opening them, nowhere near the whole church of course but a fair few cards. My church has proved to be a tough place to be an Aspie, and I have one heck of a time with people being patronising and condescending. Well, maybe I seem a little popular considering the cards I got - just over a dozen. But I noticed a clear distinction in that the cards I had were from the more genuine people, and not from people who I'd identify as being patronising towards me. Again it might be a popularity thing or, as has been suggested to me lately, maybe a class issue.
I have been busy doing cards to all the people who gave me one. I'm not someone who will blank people if they've sent a card especially at this time of year.
22 Dec 2008, 8:11 pm
