The internet is a very wonderful invention. On its own it has done more to revolutionize communications between people than ever before. In addition more and more people are 'chatting' to people they have never met, nor are they ever likely to get to meet. But this should be wonderful for interpersonal relations one might think. Yes and No.

The yes in that the fact that we communicate seems to be a plus, the negative because in many instances we have lost the personal touch. Consider the old ways.

We all have family, friends and acquaintances to whom we have positive feelings. Usually our busy lives, the distance between us and the sheer effort of communicating means we lose touch and many months may go by without any contact whatsoever. And keeping in contact does require an effort. Just picking up a telephone and calling someone means that we have nothing else to do for the next hour or two. We also usually only call when we have something actually to say..... it is very hard to call and old friend or family member to whom you haven't spoken for a year and say "Hi, what's up?" And then continue chatting as if you saw them last week.

Emails make it easy enough to contact one's entire acquaintance as the penetration of the internet into everyone's life proceeds apace. And indeed some people are very good at sitting down and writing a long email giving details of the last year. The major trouble is that most people don't.

Whereas one would think it is easy it actually isn't. When one is talking to a computer one isn't really talking to a person. Facebook and other social media may seem to address this problem but they don't really. Many people may have thousands of 'friends' on Facebook but how many of those 'friends' do they actually know and spend time with? In addition the daily posting of the doings or feelings of each individual on a daily basis on Facebook is like a message on an answering machine. It lets everybody who is interested know something about your day, and some of them may post a message on your 'wall' but it doesn't impart any personal feeling or warmth whatsoever.

And so we come to the Christmas Card. It has been traditional to post a Christmas card with a message of good wishes, and sometimes an accompanying letter to tell everyone on one's Christmas Card list what one has been doing the past year. It is a warm and personal message that imparts thought and care. There is no way that such thought and care can be imparted by an email, which smacks of being the easy and cheap way out.

So to combine the idea of a Christmas card sending a personal message with family photos then the good folk at tinyprints.com have got a solution for you. They specialize in short run prints and can create personal Christmas Cards in high quality and have them ready to send out by yourself in days.