Just a thought about Round Robins

I came online just after ripping up a smug one from someone I've never actually met. The triumphs of her AC and DC in are just too much.
A friend of mine married a woman who sent RRs mainly about her hospitalisations and medical procedures, TMI! They're no longer together and I don't miss the RRs.

Great responses. I'm not a miserable old bag.....honest.

I like to hear from friends and relatives I wouldn't see otherwise. However, it should be brief and funny - not a list of ailments.

I have just received one and I have to say it falls in the bragging bracket. I suppose there are some who achieve a lot and others who don't. It was good to hear about them but oh dear how unBritish.
Does the Queen send one?

Round Robins question the notion of what friendship is.

365 days in a year. 8760 hours. 525600 minutes.

If, over the course of the last year, two people haven’t managed to find, say, thirty out of those half million minutes to actually TALK to one another, write an email, even a letter or a quick text asking “How are you?, then are they really friends?

I got one recently from an old school friend. We havnt seen them fir many years. . It was full of their frequent holidays, in depth descriptions of hotels, food, children, grandchildren, micro detailed info about what everyone is doing and have achieved, all came top in whatever they did apparently. Then more, their own second home in the mediteranean ....on and on it went, covering holidays already booked for the new year, it seemed so smug and self satisfied with not a single question about our lives. We have had a terrible couple of years and she knows this.
It was obviously sent to everyone she knows regardless, who probably have also had their share of problems too. Not sure why people do this.

I receive 2 RR's every year and I love them. Self effacing, very witty and no bragging at all, I look forward to their arrival, sit down with a cuppa and enjoy.

Sorry that so many of you seem to resent good news .. I’m always grateful that anyone remembers me, It depends a lot on how the recipient interprets the news. Actually I find it very difficult to converse with people who only want to do all the talking themselves and declare they are bored hearing about holidays, family, health work etc . Eventually one becomes neurotic and fears to write or say anything just best wishes and a signature which is rather formal and rather sad.

My goodness, there are some miserable people on here.... I love receiving round robins, it must take ages to compose these newsy letters, even if a dozen are printed off at once. Having travelled around quite a bit it is lovely to hear from people I've not seen in ages and I too send to them.

If anyone needs a good read, I’d recommend Hello From The Gillespies, by Monica McInerney. It’s the story of an Australian mum who sits down to write her usual round robin email while she’s feeling a bit fed up with life, rattles off a brutally true account of the horrors that have really befallen her family then, before she gets round to deleting it and writing the usual upbeat stuff, it gets sent out to all her family and friends. Great book.

I tend to view the RR’s as an alternative kind of blog ~ a yearly one. I always enjoy them.
I don’t send any, but usually add a personal comment to those I don’t correspond with during the year.
I’ve had a tumultuous year, and am actually looking forward to news from afar!

To be vulgar, some people are so far up their own a..e they can't see out any more.

I'd be tempted to write back to say that you won the European Lottery that was with 3 rollovers so you've been travelling the world, have a house in the Caribbean etc etc.
Just like it on...I hate thosr type of round robin things anyway.
At the end just say that as you have no time to be interested in het "perfect" family life as you are having far too much fun

Oh be honest all you RR haters. You LOVE reading them. And they do help keep in touch. One of our friends used to send really funny ones listing the cute things his children had said.
I’ve never done one except one very grim year I was so sick of the parading of wonderful exam results that I sent one out listing all the negative things that had happened to my family, the exams failed, the bullying, the non-voluntary redundancy etc...and ending with something like “so we struggle on”.
My friends (those I had left by New Year) thought it was hilarious.

I always innocently thought my friends and relations would like to hear what I and my children had done in the last year, but now I will never send one again.

Annaram, you mustn’t stop doing what gives you, and doubtless most of your friends, pleasure just because of the views of a few strangers on Gransnet. There are plenty of us on here who would miss keeping up with absent friends and family at Christmas.

Thank you ladies (?) your comments have raised a smile on an otherwise dreary day (day 2 of bed-ridden tonsilitis and grotty cold).

I too get a few round robins -one however, received this morning, in fact, has resorted to a cursory message in a Christmas card! Last year I got a lengthy missive about how fabulous her husband's business is doing and how they've moved into a bigger house and got a holiday home, how they'd finally got a dog, after her daughter (who was always terrified and demanded that we locked ours out in the garden when they visited) has overcome her fears! How amazing her two children are thriving - one at university the other the cleverest kid for miles around ... you get the picture.

I sent a spontaneous gushing message back saying how absolutely thrilled I was for them and how we must be living in a parallel universe as our eldest son (now 15 with special needs and still in nappies) was still under-achieving - and that keeping him out of hospital was our biggest aim, that the other two kids were thriving as best they could despite bulling, constraints that 24/7 caring for their brother puts on family etc, and that after losing two parents and caring for the other one - getting madder by the day due to mixed dementia - made us realise what is truly important in life!

I think round robins are generally a bit of an opportunity for a brag - to my knowledge as a recipient .... though I often send them (especially this time of year) usually to apologise for the lack of Christmas cards (no time to write them), missed social engagements (our eldest son is often ill, and as he needs a specialist carer to sit - it's often impossible).

Sorry peeps there's more to life! I think the remainder of my round robins will be flying up the chimney with yours @merlotgran.

My husband and I sometimes play a game of 'reading between the lines' over a glass of something alcoholic ... some of the ones that we get give us some wonderful giggles - as (as per social media) no ones lives can possibly be that fcuking perfect surely!!?*

Return the card saying "not at this address", and then maybe they'll just think you've moved and not bother again.

I have mixed feelings about RR. We get RRs from 2 sets of people, one friends one old neighbours.

For the past 25 years our friends RR has always lovely to read. Funny, honest about the sad and painful times, up beat where is appropriate and factual about the major events in their year informative about what the AC are doing and where they are etc.

But what I have always liked is she (yes it is the wife who writes it) makes a point of saying they know for some of their friends it has been a year of difficulties and sadness and even thought we are spread across the globe help is only a plane ride away.

A call or an email is all it takes and that Love knows no distance. And we all know she means it, they as a family mean it.

We have been to see them in the USA twice, they have been back to UK twice and so have 2 of their AC. One worked in Cheltenham last year for 6 months. DD2 goes most years either to see our friends or the AC so we do have an ongoing friendship and the RR helps fill in the gaps.

The one from the old neighbours is just full of what car they bought, where they went how much the spend on GC. I don't even read theirs fully any more.

I think there's a place for the RR but it's all about how it's used. So often it's clear what the sender wishes to communicate and it's not always about keeping people connected. Ho Hum

PS I love the idea of spoof RR.

I hope Damien's needlework skills are full honed before Her Majesty evicts him

I used to get these from a schoolfriend, she had the perfect job, her kids did really well at school etc fast forward a decade she grew to hate her job, nearly had a breakdown waiting to get another one, her eldest son had a high flying job in the city but his girlfriend's visa ran out so they've moved to Amsterdam , a move to Australia is on the cards. Her daughter did an Msc and still can't get a job in her field so has moved back home, now we see each other before christmas so it's no longer received

What the heck IS a RR....? And why haven’t I had one?

I'm all for receiving RRs too, there are friends and relatives too far away to visit, but I love to hear what they have been doing over the year, I can't recall ever receiving a bragging one. The one we send contains news of our triumphs and disasters treated in a hopefully humorous fashion, with appropriate pictures, and I get complaints from people if I forget to include one in their card. I always ask people to send me their news back.

I can't see the point of sending a card with only our names in, unless it is to people who know all our news anyway, and I feel frustrated if I receive a card from someone I haven't seen for ages with just their name in - I want to know if they are okay!

With my information governance hat on, do be careful sending out emails to a group of people with names in the 'To' field, you could be breaking the new data protection regulations. Put the names in the BCC field and they won't see each others. I'm sure I am preaching to the converted on GN, but I am horrified at the number of email addresses I have been presented with, by friends and even organisations, that I should not have access to!

I love round robins and look forward to receiving them. We’ve moved round the country quite a bit and it’s the only time now that I get news from some of the friends we have made over the years. Yesterday I was late for an appointment because I’d just opened one from an old friend of over 30 years, and couldn’t bear to leave the house until I’d read it. Life is so busy, and these letters are a gentle reminder of happy times past.

Pamela and anyone else, I've asked the cats and they've waived copyright on their missive so feel free to plagiarise!

I like round robins too - after all, what is the point of a card with only Happy Christmas and New Year, love NN?

I want to know what those I keep in touch with have been doing and experiencing since last I saw or heard from them, and why should I write twenty odd letters by hand and pay postage for them when e-mail exists, and one document can be sent to them all?

Obviously, if I know some-one has had a difficult year, I send them a carefully edited edition of the round robin, or write them a more personal letter.

I usually send the e-mail individually, as I do not like the thought of passing on friend A's e-mail address to 19 people they don't know.

We used to get two or three, but now we only get on from someone who doesn’t do fb. The other two families keep in touch on and off through the year via messenger.