YOU may not have noticed as you took them down but Christmas cards tend to have fashionable themes that change with the years.
Once it was all glitter dust, shirt fronts that Liberace would have been proud of and Elton John still is. Then charity cards which helped fund many an African outside toilet as well as one or two small wars.
This year it was snowy pictures from the past.
Now, I'm not quite sure what this black and white nostalgia is all about. Possibly it is a subtle green dig: 'Ha, matey boy, mend your ways now or you've seen the last of winter wonderlands like this.' But then environmentalists don't do subtle - they do rabid.
This would be strange. Bearing in mind that Britain immediately goes to defcon three if a child's plastic snowdome breaks, what on earth would be so attractive about another 1962? The Beatles, maybe. But 1976? Surely not the Bay City Rollers.
It seems unlikely that we really long for the days when milk froze on the doorstep and pensioners had to be thawed out with a blowlamp.
Do you really want Harold Wilson's Gannex on the news every night and to own a car that won't start from November to April? Most were no better equipped to deal with winter than is a hedgehog.
Oh yes, you had to know how to drive. And a nodding acquaintance with the Common Book Of Prayer was also an advantage. Because in a crash you might very likely die.
These were the days when Britain was gearing up to lead the world in factory gate brazier production. When a heater was called a coat and, with the exception of VW's Beetle, hardly anything on the road was German.
How times have changed. In a snow scene today there would be any number of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis along with representatives form the Health and Safety Executive checking your journey really is necessary.
Bringing us slip sliding up to the cool disposition of the coupe Audi A5 TDi Quattro.
Normally how pretty a car looks matters to me not as much as how it drives but the A5 turns heads. Not women's heads, cute turns women's heads, but little boys heads. Because little boys, unencumbered by family and mortgage, are inspired by an emotion doctors now call 'wow.' That's wow as in squint and there's a little bit of R8 in there.
Not that the rest of the package is going to let you down. For a start it's a three-litre diesel turbo. So as well as being fast it's economical, even at £32,600 without the two grand sat nav, £600 electric seats and £300 park assist.
How fast? 5.9 seconds to 62 and 155mph top end. Consumption just cracks 40mpg.
Inside the A5 has Audi's crystal purity where others are driven slush. Without wanting to make the men at Ingolstadt sound uninventive, you have seen it all before.
Do you want one? Yes if you understand quality engineering and the importance of style over cheap shoes.
Accommodation is airy with a long wide boot and split rear seats and there has been some re-sculpting of instruments but nothing you won't recognise.
Standard equipment includes leather upholstery, electric mirrors, light and rain sensors, alloy wheels, air conditioning and colour driver information display.
On the road the A5 TD is hugely torquey, more so even than the 349php S5 V8. This means life is unruffled and effortless from low revs right through to what can only be called the giggle strip.
Of course it's a Quattro with a 60-40 rear wheel prejudice that produces understeer in tight corners but also offers advantages should the Christmas card days of old ever return. Indeed, so do the heated seats.
As John Lennon didn't write in the snowbound sixties, happiness is a warm bum.