Now you might think this is a bit too early, but today I’m going to talk about our approach to Christmas cards.

First of all (and let’s get this out of the way) unlike many people we still send real Christmas cards. Not e-cards, and not a donation to charity instead. We do this because we like to, and feel it is a good way of keeping contact with friends and family. We also do it because, as you’ll see, we believe our approach adds value to people’s lives – and the evidence tends to support this.

Since 2005 we have created our own Christmas cards – that’s 17 years, including this year. But they are not traditional cards. Instead they are postcards. Many years they’re A5 size; some years DL or square. Each year, a new card.

I’ve included a few examples below, and I’ve also created a full gallery.

Many years the image on the front has been one of my photographs – and it’s quite fun choosing which one to use. A few years we’ve used an image of a piece of art we own (as long as it’s out of copyright). And a few years one of my late mother’s paintings.

But, you say, this is expensive. Well actually it isn’t; it’s a lot cheaper than buying traditional cards, and a lot simpler. OK, in the early years it did feel expensive as we were using a specialist postcard printer; that tended to cost £150 to £200 for 500 A5 cards (so 30p to 40p per card) which was at least competitive compared with traditional cards.

The last few years we’ve used VistaPrint and designed and ordered online – having done it once it is really easy and quick to do again. This year the cost has been £67 for 500 A5 cards (or just over 13p each). Even allowing for the fact that we’ll use only about half of them that’s still only 27p each. Now tell me where one can get good cards at under twice that price. (OK, they still cost a horrid amount in postage, but so would anything.)

But the advantage doesn’t stop there. For a start there’s the fact that we create a postcard; with an image on one side and a greeting on the other. There’s still space for personalising the card, and for an address label. They’re also relatively light weight, thus saving on overseas postage. With printed address labels and no envelopes, they are easy and fiddle-free to write.

On top of which everyone gets something special – and many people tell us they love receiving our cards and often keep them to enjoy. And of course we have the spare cards in stock for later years when we may not be able to produce a new card.

We ordered this year’s cards over last weekend and standard (free) delivery was expected to be in about 2 weeks. The cards arrived on Wednesday (so in 3 working days), and that is typical of VistaPrint‘s service over the years. But you’ll have to wait to see it as the design is staying under wraps for a while yet.

What’s not to like?