9 December 2003
Is it really necessary to give christmas cards to everyone on the planet? Some colleagues at work have been coming in with great armfuls of cards for every single person in the department. It's like being at school. Can I get away without participating in this farcical, wasteful tradition?
Meg says:Christmas brings out many characteristics in people. Generosity. Love. Irrational hatred of fellow shoppers. Sudden desire to wear ugly jumpers. Fatness.
But undoubtedly, the worst characteristic the festive season develops in people is a tendancy towards negative reciprocity.
We all know what this means: giving something but only to try and get something better in return. In anthropological terms, negative reciprocity is an exchange (usually between enemies) in which each side tries to get the better end of the bargain, to maximise benefit. In festive terms, it means I give you a present, and if you don't cough up with a nicer gift right away, I'll resent you for the rest of the season.
On the other hand, balanced reciprocity is also rife - giving something, and expecting something in return, but not immediately. It may seem free and easy, but be warned: if you don't follow through with a gift eventually, our relationship may be in trouble.
On the third hand, what we all pretend to aspire to as the Christmas season creeps around is generalized reciprocity: the giving of gifts without expectation of return. Selfless. Generous. We seek no concrete or immediate reciprocation, and yet if one comes, we feel positive.
But is that what we really want? Nothing in return at all? Not even a slight superiority complex, or warm fuzzy feelings from others, or temporary indebtedness?
In London secondary schools in the eighties, there used to be this tradition of card-giving. Each person in the class would buy (or get their parents to buy) a huge box of cards in December, and painstakingly write one to each person in their class. Every single child got one, from every single other. It was unacceptable to miss anyone out - even the smelly kid no-one liked would end up with armfuls of cards to carry home.
Sounds crazy and wasteful? Sure. But the reason that we did it was simple. It wasn't that we actually genuinely wanted to give cards to everyone in the class - he smelt, she was a bully, and those two never let us sit with them at lunch. The simple explanation was that we didn't want to be left out ourselves - didn't want to leave ourselves open to the possibility of social exclusion somewhere down the line.
By including everyone in our gift-giving, we could be sure that everyone would include us. As soon as we left one person out, that fact would be noted and returned upon us. And there's nothing worse than being left out, when everyone else has a square green envelope on their desk after register.
Balanced reciprocity in the playground. More devious than any adult brain can conceive.
Of course, there was a hierarchy within cards and card giving. There was a definite status order to be found within Christmas stationary, and we all knew it.
At the time, the best cards to aim for were generic unbranded ones, bought in WHSmiths or Clintons - robins and skating scenes and snowmen. Fake oil paintings were good, cartoon-style drawings slightly better, ones with humourous messages or jokes were better still and ones with gilt edging or cutout details were especially prized. These cards cost money. These cards showed status. By giving away your status symbols so publically, other kids would respect you more. It was conspicuous consumption of the worst kind - a perfect pupil potlatch, in fact.
The cards you didn't want to pass out to your classmates fell into two categories:
i) cards printed and sold in support of any charity at all (the Spastic Society and Oxfam were most likely to draw ridicule), including those featuring scenes painted using the mouth/toe of the artist due to some unfortunate lack of digital mobility and
ii) any supermarket own-brand cards, especially Tescos, because they were always made of dreadfully flimsy card.
Though sentiments have probably moved on these days, in the dark days of the mid eighties, charities and supermarkets signified cheapness. In fact, the worst thing you could say to someone in primary school in 1982 was that their mum bought her knickers in Tescos. Oxfam came a close second.
Then there was the matter of motif. In a box of forty cards, you'd probably have, say, ten designs, repeated four times, or four repeated ten times. Either way, you had choices to make. Faced with a snowman, a robin, a christmas pudding and a father christmas, you had to decide which design to give to Tough Sharon, and which to Stinky Tony, because you knew that you couldn't possibly give them the same. You had favourites, of course - designs within the set which immediately grabbed your attention as being the "better" or more desirable ones, and those were the ones you saved for the strategic recipients. The bully. The class leader. Your best friend. The second best went to the bully's cohorts, the teacher, the class heartthrob (couldn't be seen to be trying too hard...) and so on.
When people perform the ritual of card distribution in the workplace, they are playing out the same playground convention, but in a suit.
Look carefully the card you have received. Look at where it comes from, and whether yours is the same as your boss, or other colleagues. Do you actually know or work closely with the person giving you cards? Are they one of the most popular people on the floor? Do they chatter in the kitchen and get enjoyment from surrounding themselves with a happy buzz of sociability? Or are they quiet and unassuming, and you've never actually noticed them before they wandered over with a stack of pale envelopes?
Think hard. Are they genuinely sending you season's greetings, or do they harbour a quiet fear in their eyes that they will not receive any festive greetings from anyone, despite their best efforts to sow the seeds of reciprocity, and that they will die alone and unloved in a room heavy with the tang of cat wee?
If so, wish them a happy holiday genuinely and warmly, and then step away.
And whatever you do, don't get dragged into it yourself. If you find yourself up late in the office on a Tuesday night writing a card to Jerry in accounts, who you've met precisely twice and then only because they had you in the wrong tax bracket, put down the pen, get up from the desk, and walk away.
You're older now. You don't need to play silly games. You don't need gilt-edged cards for people to like you.
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