I put off writing Christmas cards then I thought of a couple of people I’d like to send one to, then that turned into a list and I started writing the cards and crossing off names but when I looked for their addresses I saw other names I should write to and when I looked up one name in my mother’s old address book I saw her desperate, increasingly large and shaky letters writing out the same name again and again and when I put my address on the back of each envelope I remembered that Martin and I had made a stamp that we used to press gleefully during our annual Christmas card writing evenings.