Sir Cliff Richard sang: “It’s a time for giving, a time for getting,

"A time for forgiving and for forgetting.

"Christmas is love, Christmas is peace,

"A time for hating and fighting to cease."

Yuletide staple Cliff uttered the words in Christmas classic Mistletoe and Wine.

Noble sentiments from the Peter Pan of Pop – though I have to admit I’ve never seen Sir Cliff being chased by a pirate with a hook for a hand, in turn being pursued by a crocodile with a ticking tummy. But I digress.

Were the sentiments of this song true, it would be a lovely time of year.

North Korea’s lunatic leader Kim Jong-un thanking his barber for turning the top of his head into some sort of failed school project on angles.

Ed Miliband thanking whoever first compared him with someone from Wallace and Grommit.

Andre Villas Boas thanking the Tottenham dressing room for really trying their hardest .... maybe not.

But there’s a festering resentment brewing. Actually, we’ll take it up a notch – it’s not just brewing, in best tabloidese that resentment is simmering.

But what could be the cause of this powderkeg? Is it some sort of glove on face slap over a lady’s honour?

Has there been a theft of some sort? Maybe a naughty name called?

No, it’s the Christmas card fall-out.

This annual week starts about now in offices up and down the country and runs to Christmas Eve.

The gist is thus: you send someone a Christmas card ... and they don’t send you one.

Or they do, but it’s the day after you sent yours and it’s the most rubbishy card you’ve ever seen.

Santa looks like he’s had a stroke and Rudolph has a leg missing. The robin may well have contracted rabies.

The envelope is so thin you could read the Examiner through it.

Inside is a hurriedly scrawled greeting in the vaguest terms.

Talk about an insult. You’ve worked with this person all year and shared laughs, cuppas and the odd moan.

But they don’t think enough of you to send you a card. The cheek. Feel that resentment begin to boil.

Plus you’ve got friends who haven’t sent you one. Deliberate snub? Maybe.

So what will you do? Do you send one? Do you give them another chance next year? Do you strike their name from the annual list and forbid they are ever mentioned again upon pain of death? Probably.

Christmas cards are lovely things. It makes you feel nice to get one. Do the right thing and send one to everyone. They’re cheap as anything these days.

Avoid the workplace rows and friendship ending arguments that simply being too lazy to write a few meaningless words in a card can bring.

Now, where did I put that box of cards with the pictures of reindeer who seem to be suffering from foot and mouth?