Just a thought about Round Robins

I love reading all the letters or emails I receive. They are not all bragging. Several last year told of illness, bereavement, divorce, as well as holidays. It is far better than just a signed card and no news.
Personally I now send most of these by email and I top and tail each one for the individual. Same goes for those I print.

I've only had one RR so far and was happy to receive it. It did include details of several overseas trips but I thought they were interesting, and it also included news of mutual friends.

I'm always pleased that my friend can send these letters - she almost succumbed to a dreadful illness some years ago then faced a life of disability, from which she has made a upon recovery. I'm glad she is still here to have her holidays and to write round robins.

Perhaps none of our friends are smug …..

Yes, get the usual smug letters whose children were head boy/girl, captain of sports team etc etc and traveling the world. The best laugh of Xmas is the one I get from a cousin who sets up camp every year to 'spread the word of God' in a different country and then the locals just don't get them so they think it is gods will to move on. Sorry people but they are insufferable and they will continue to annoy people around the world and tell us all about it every year but they were the first to grab all grandparents belongings on death without a word to any of us. Good christians I think not.

I like the ones I get. How do you all manage to have such smug and boastful acquaintances?

Also, if you know it's a horrid RR why don't you just bin it without reading?

Yes, I agree Baggs, people need to be making better choices when it comes to friends!!

We used to get one of these from a family who moved away telling of their children’s marvellous achievements - cubs badges, goals scored, swimming medals, GCSEs , the lot. These all ended when the eldest fathered a baby at 18.

Because we've moved around a bit we have friends that we don't often see and I do like to hear their news.
However, instead of sending a Round Robin I am determined to phone them all in the New Year this time!

and meet up if possible.

My New Year's Resolution.

I dislike phone calls that are not for what I heard an Amish woman call "conversations of purpose", i.e. arrangments*. I find chatty phone calls quite stressful.

*And actually, texts are as good as anything for those nowadays.

This has given me a good laugh thinking I was the only mug who suffered 4/5 pages of " me myself and I " RR's annually.
The " cushion fluffer-upper ", ex SiL's adventures on her 5 holidays yearly. Big house, garden " room for a pony ". Her only son went off with a woman/divorcee 20 odd years his senior and didn't produce any grandchildren.

I just think that they're sad people with nothing else in their lives as their only pleasure is to brag about their hols and outings with nothing much in between. I wouldn't swap my life for theirs even though it's a hard slog at times.

I only get a couple now possibly because I drop the culprits off my card list.
Before they died earlier this year, some very old friends wrote RRs complete with holidays and job changes of their friends and grandchildren whom we'd never met. Will we miss them? Maybe. I had wondered if their children would carry on the tradition like a soap opera.

Now, from a cousin, I've had the first letter "written" by the dog!!

I suspect that Simon Hogarth's Guardian columns and, especially his books on RR's meant that most people got the message that they're generally seen as boastful, dishonest and unwelcome.
We had a particularly awful year some time ago, at a time when we were still receiving about 10 of the RR's every Christmas time. We cheered ourselves up no end, by composting a RR that accurately set out just how tough things had been. It was the year when we began to feel whoever was writing The Archers knew us well and was basing Kate on one of ours. I'll stop there but Glastonbury and babies featured .....

We only get one these days, it's a series of photographs of our wealthy pals, showing them in various exotic locations with laughing loved ones. As we know them well, I know it reflects some exotic trips but not their lives in the round. I write a quick note in Christmas cards that go to friends I don't see often and love getting similar notes from them.

Yes, I agree Baggs, people need to be making better choices when it comes to friends!! grin

Friends dont send them, that's the point! They're invariably from some distant cousin or inlaw or ex colleague who emigrated 15 years ago who you don't hear from the rest of the year.

By definition they can't be sent by friends because quite frankly, if it gets to december & I qualify for a RR because I didn't know that your DD got married/ had your first grandchild last May, well, we're not really friends are we. I know what my friends get up to, the major things at least.

If they're not from friends then why open them in the first place? Either send them back with 'Not known at this address/dead/dead drunk' on them or bung them into the junk mail bin.

I've moved house seventeen times over the years and consequently I have friends all over the world, many of whom also move a lot. I'm not au fait with all the intimate details of their family life so I welcome it when I get a RR from them, plus I love hearing about life in distant countries and other cultures.

Why open them?

Because if I didn't I'd spend the rest of the day wondering, hope against hope, if their dog has bitten the postman, the house has dry rot, the travel firm they booked with has gone bust and their closely clipped hedge around the parterre has box blight.

Why open them?
Because they're HILARIOUS that's why!

P.s. I have friends all over the world too. Its easy peasy these days to keep in touch. But even back in the days when only snail mail or ££ phone calls were at ones disposal, if you didn't even know that someone had a major life event, you were an acquaintance not a friend.

I get one every year from someone i havent seen since our children were at school together 30 years ago. It details every golf tournament they've been in; where it was; their handicaps and what positions they now hold in their golf club. It's tedious in the extreme. Particularly because k don't know one end of a golf stick from the other.

Makes good kindling for the wood burner I suppose.

Then why are people complaining if they're hilarious. You should be welcoming them as bringing some entertainment to your life!

Not everyone is on the internet, Notanan, even in this day and age. I don't agree that if you don't know about major life events they're not a friend. I lost touch with one friend when we both moved to other countries, about a decade ago, but we recently managed to locate one another and when we met, it was as though not a day had passed since our last meeting.

But you MET. Thats not the same as exchanging RRs year after year with no other contact!

You should be welcoming them as bringing some entertainment to your life!

I do!

Not everyone is on the internet, Notanan

I know that SueDonim I wasn't just thinking of the internet! I was also thinking of how much cheaper international phone calls can be now that we're no longer a captive market to one or two phone companies!

But you never know if you'll meet up again in the future, do you? I was able to meet someone last year who I hadn't seen for over 25 years, for many reasons. We exchanged RR's for all those years and again, it was as though we had met just last week. Except she didn't look any older than she did 25years ago, while I did.

Good luck ringing Nigeria, Notanan! We were lucky to have power and water there, let alone phone connectivity.

I actually don't like to phone people now, it seems intrusive, because you don't know whether it's convenient, especially if they have children. One of my AC never ever answers their phone and rarely returns a message so I don't bother call now . When I've stayed in their house, I've answered it to his MIL and she's always been astounded to hear a voice reply to her. We don't speak a common language so that's always fun, doing hand gestures to explain yourself on a phone.

I do send a page of photos of our year (usually involving the DGCs!) with a few captions . They go to family we cannot see often or distant (but good) friends who are not on a FB private group & do not see the DGC. I always add a short handwritten letter on the back. I would not dream of sending to people who I did not otherwise communicate with!