Twelfth night has been and gone, so as is traditional at this time of year am feeling somewhat bereft of bling now the Christmas decorations and cards have come down at Francis Towers.

Looking through the pile of Christmas cards, I'm happy to report that it doesn’t appear that this year’s selection was noticeably reduced year-on-year, following the big postal price rise. That said, while I may be a print anorak, even I stop short of making a spreadsheet of cards received. One thing I did notice was the number of cards printed in China.

There was a horrible irony in the fact that a chum who doesn’t usually ‘do’ cards sent me one saying that she’d succumbed because “too many printers are going out of business”. You guessed it, her card was made in China. Sigh. What particularly irked me was the disappointing number of charity-related cards that were printed in China, including those from retailing giants such as Tesco and Marks & Spencer. And Paperchase.

I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this. Yes, of course charities need to make best use of their funds, and I can quite understand that some items are only economic when sourced from overseas. But greetings cards?? I simply can’t accept that. As well as looking for best value, charities also need to think about where their donations come from. QED and all that.

So, my New Year’s resolution is simple: I’m going to write to the charities I currently support, and to those featured on those 'Made in China' cards I received, urging them to source their Christmas 2013 cards from one of the excellent  home-grown card printing and publishing specialists we have here on the small island. It’s one New Year’s resolution at least that should be eminently achievable.