Round about now, they start arriving. You probably already have a few. Cards carrying seasonal images of everything from men wise and unwise, robins, the Holy Family, Santies, angels, Christmas trees, snow-scenes etc etc etc. Some Christmas cards are treasured because of the sender, but few are kept once the decorations come down on the traditional dismantling date of January 6th.

The cards that people do keep tend to be those which are home-made. The words "home-made' evoke first thoughts of a simple card made by a child, but what comes to mind when you think of "hand-made"? In essence, the two are the same, but one has the blas on the other.

Home-made or hand-made, call it what you like, but there can't be many people who don't love receiving a card that has been made specially for them, rather than shop-bought. And if that person is a professional artist, the card is perhaps more special.

Beth O'Halloran is a painter who has been making her own Christmas cards for family and friends since she was a child. "Mum used to get me to do them for her. She used to save the cardboard from the back of tights packets." Every year, the cards are different.

"They'd all have a certain look. This year is collage. At the moment, the work I'm doing in the studio is very magpie-like; I'm borrowing images from urban design. I'm fascinated by billboards and posters and the bits and shreds of paper that are left behind when they get torn down, and the way circuit-boxes are always missing patches of paint. The collages reflect that interest I have right now."

Painter Lorraine Whelan, and her sculptor husband, James Hayes, take it in turns to make their cards every year. "The cards have provided a way of working out ideas on a small scale before I'd go at it in a big way," Whelan says.

In the past, they've made cards using potato prints, collages, and etchings. This year, Hayes's card is a version of a circle of dogs, done in Celtic style. "I've turned the dogs into reindeers," he says. "Making cards is an extension of what I do as an artist. I couldn't imagine going out and buying cards," he says. "Lorraine's cards tend to be real miniature pieces of artwork; mine are usually funny and have no relation to my work. One year, I made a card with cows wearing Santa hats because we were living in Kerry at the time and there were lots of cows around our house!"

Printmaker Cora Cummins makes cards because "it's more personal. They're little artworks, so it's like a present in itself". This year, she's using photography in her card. Last year, she made etching of a Christmas tree, printed in silver ink. "I pasted them onto handmade paper."

Alison Pilkington is a painter, and has been making her own cards for about 10 years. "Why do I make my own cards? Because I'm an artist and have no money," she answers, deadpan. "This year, my cards are very loosely based on the Three Wise Men. They are very abstract." So do people appreciate the thought and effort that goes into these personalised cards? "I love making cards for the same reason I love wrapping presents - it gets me into the Christmas spirit, says Beth O'Halloran.

"I always get really touched when I visit someone and see my card has been given pride of place on the mantlepiece.

"Someone did whisper once to us that only poor people made their own cards," reports Lorraine Whelan. "They didn't place any value on the fact it had taken a lot of trouble. But that was only once." "My friends think I have too much time on my hands so that's why I make cards," says Cora Cummins.

"It's nice to go to someone's house and see my moody-looking card among all the Santas,' says Alison Pilkington.

"My mother saves all my cards and every year, she takes them all out and puts them up again, with the latest one in the middle," she confesses, a tad embarrassed.

Like most of the others, Pilkington doesn't keep any of the cards she makes. "My mother is my record."