Charities! Take your "Xmas cards" and post them!

Here it is only half-past September and the first packet of charity "Christmas cards" just arrived at Walt's cabin in the woods. A few years back I made a donation to the National Enuresis Society, and every fall since then I get a big envelope of cards and stickers from them... and from a dozen other charities to whom they've sold their sucker list.

Sending out such packages is a time-honoured direct mail fundraising technique. It's an appeal to guilt. Although you're not legally obliged to pay for them, you're likely to use them and of course you feel obliged to send a donation. "Just give what you think they're worth. I mean, you'd pay $10 for a dozen cards at the Hallmark store, wouldn't you?"

Maybe I would pay that much... if I were the kind of person who sends out Christmas cards. But I wouldn't buy cards that had an advertising message inside and/or on the back. I wouldn't buy Christmas cards that are poorly designed and cheaply produced. And I certainly wouldn't buy Christmas cards that don't say "MERRY CHRISTMAS"!

Yet here's what I'm seeing on the cards I got today: "Season's Greetings"; "Not a creature was stirring" (picture of sleeping yellow puppy); "Happy holidays" (GRRRRRRRR!!!); and "Let it snow, let it snow", with some cute penguins rarely seen singing "winter songs" outside my front door.

Noooo... Walt won't be using these, let alone paying for them. If you get a Christmas card from me, it will have a picture of the Madonna and Her Divine Son and the text will wish you a Happy and Holy Christmas and God's blessing in the new year.

I have sent a note to the charity concerned (using their prepaid envelope) suggesting that they stop being so politically correct. Call me mean-spirited if you like, but I think it's about time the Christian majority -- if there is such a thing, any more -- stood up for the proper celebration of a Christian religious holiday!