The great transatlantic gift tag chasm

On our festive flying visit to the UK, I was struck as ever by some transatlantic differences. Here’s a little nugget you may never have considered.

Some people – and it’s honestly not just my family – make gift tags out of the previous year’s Christmas cards. They cut out the nice bits of the picture from the front of the card to make little cards, and write on the reverse. I suppose if they’re feeling really fancy they could punch a hole in and tie them on with ribbon, but otherwise they just get taped on to the present.

I was thinking about what a nice little project that was. Just the sort of thing P and I like to do – it involves making piles of things, looking at pictures and cutting stuff out (witness our snowflakes on Instagram for more evidence of her love of cutting paper). It’s also something we can do while I drink coffee and flick through a magazine. Ideal!

Then it struck me that I’ve never seen an American give a present with a recycled gift tag on it. It could be because they wouldn’t match the wrapping paper. But not everyone cares that much about co-ordinated gift wrap, so it’s probably not that. It’s more likely to be because they would consider it a bit of a waste of effort, given that you can buy gift tags for very little money. Of course by that way of thinking no-one would ever make anything they could buy, and Michael’s would be out of business, and the world would be a poorer place for it. Anyway, I don’t think that’s the reason.

The real reason Americans don’t recycle their Christmas cards is completely unrelated to profligacy or a love of co-ordination. It’s blindingly obvious. It’s because all their Christmas cards have pictures of people they know on them.

By contrast, almost all the cards sent by Brits are shop-bought and hand-written.

My parents' display this year

38 out of the 39 cards we received from Americans had family photos on them. Often so carefully styled and retouched as to look like a professional effort, but look closer –those aren’t models, they are real people!

A sampling of our cards from American friends

How weird would it be to cut out pictures of little Lulu from pre-school and her baby brother and stick that on a Christmas present next year? I’m tempted to try it just to find out.