Just a thought about Round Robins

aunts...

Oh dear ........ we love them. We just love receiving them especially if time has sped by and there is a lot of catching up to do. What pleasure there is in being remembered by friends and being updated on the good, the bad and the in between. As long as there is a balance that is fine. Perhaps the ones that come over as bragging are in fact “too good to be true” .... pause for thought? And perhaps some people are reluctant to put in sad or negative events and feel obliged to be upbeat. We do not send one every year, just alternately. We find that they often stimulate responsive phone calls either because we have missed a year or have a piece of news worth following up. I see them as a once a year diary entry and love them nd love my friends too - just a question of being sensitive enough to find a balance in what we send.

Victoria Wood told a marvellous story about the first card that always crashed onto her mat on 1st December, containing a RR, was always from "some woman I met on a ferry years ago; we exchanged addresses - hers went straight in the bin, but she's been sending me Christmas cards ever since!" Wish I could find it (very funny). I always think about RR's - if I was that interested I would already know these things as I would have stayed in touch but I wasn't so I didn't !

Those of you who send them, may I ask if you think/know about the recipient's circumstances? I get the feeling that a lot of them (I don't mean from posters on here) are sent out to people in the address book who would get a Christmas card but there's no other contact throughout the year.

We have friends from way back who write a brief note inside the card asking us how we are etc., etc., and sending their love. Sometimes there's a photo of a new grandchild or good news about somebody who has been ill.

The couple who sent the RR haven't a clue how we are or what we're doing and that's what I find annoying. I love hearing news from my real friends. The ones who keep in touch throughout the year.

Personally I just feel a tiny bit sad for them, because they need to have a moment to puff the chest a bit. We used to get one regularly, then suddenly it stopped. We thought we might have been dropped off the list, as we were not friends per se, just someone who lent a helping hand. Not long after my husband answered the phone and it was the lady concerned. Only she did not have a clue who he was, and it became evident that she was suffering from dementia. I would have rather the letters kep coming, they hurt no one.

What pleasure there is in being remembered by friends

RRs dont remember the recipient at all!

I only get one, from a 97 year old aunt in Canada who I only met a few times, she and her husband stayed with us one year and she managed to dislodge our bath from its cradle and rupture the sealant around the edge. She was a large lady and her husband used to raise his eyebrows and say "I married a shadder" (he meant shadow ?)
Anyway, she still sends an annual RR full of news of people we've never met, church stuff, choir stuff and in her younger days, their trips to Florida.

Last year I noticed that instead of the usual typewritten one, the latest was done on a computer by her son. Bless him, he's now his mom's secretary!

It good to get them though, only way of knowing she's still slive!

I actually talk to my friends and know their ups and downs etc. A Christmas card in my view is not an appropriate medium for condensing a year's news. I don't want my card to contain the minutiae of someone's operation etc.

I probably have about ten friends who I speak to or see fortnightly who know our ups and downs. Then there are a circle of slightly more distant friends from uni days, working or friends met along the way. This is the group I tend to send RRs too. I am extremely lucky and have a wide group of friends but I work hard to keep in touch with them. One needs to be a good friend to have a good friend. I am a people person and love to keep in touch with friends including school friends. I find this thread a bit sad ( although compulsive reading!) Surely one wants to know the joys and sadnesses in friends lives. I agree some RRs are too detailed but they are probably the folk who tell you too much over the phone too. I thank God for my lovely friends. They keep me going!

mumofmadboys and I seem to be in the minority!! We lived overseas for 20 years so have friends in far flung places and I do like to get the 'dreaded' RR from most of them! I try not to bore with ours and we only do one every 2 years.

I heard a great quote from Jan Ravens on 'Quote/Unquote' yesterday - her mum's comment on a boastful letter from a friend about said friend's children - "Oh, all her geese are swans!"

I think of everyone to whom I send cards, as I write the cards and envelopes, often reminiscing about when/where we met them.

This year I'm anxiously awaiting a RR because the sender was diagnosed with cancer around Xmas last year and despite my trying to make contact over the months since, I've had no response. I fear the worst so a RR dropping onto my doormat would be very welcome. And for those of you who wonder why we stay in touch - this person's 5yo daughter died some 30+ years of a disease that didn't even have a name until a few years ago. She told me she values our friendship because with the passing of time, I am now one of very few people who ever knew her dear little girl.

We get a few but the one I always dread is from somebody who persists in telling us all the awful things that have happened to the family including their AC mental problems which I feel should be private, as its unlikely they have been asked if they mind all their health details being passed round. We hardly ever see them and it is always a sad story.

We get 2 or 3 RRs most years, and I do like to hear about people's news. One of them is a bit boastful but then we have DGC and their DC are so busy doing exciting things that they don't have time to settle down, so I would rather be me. And I would rather hear from them than not.

Other friends write a quick note inside the cards, as I do, and although we very seldom meet these days, it would be much easier to take up again if we did.

I used to write (and receive) individual letters with a lot of the cards, but nowadays it is just the short note. This year, I have sent emails early to some friends. One got a letter as she has been having rather a difficult time recently.

The spoof ones are great fun though.

I've only had one and that from a man (prompted by his mum whom I bumped into) I knew when he and I were children. She thought we might hit it off as we were both divorced. I heard all about his exploits in Dubai working for an oil company, his home on the palm, his social life and his ex (a 'doors to manual' he met on a trip home)
He asked if I'd like to visit (at my own expense (not likely) as he gave advice re cheapest flight prices) but I replied thanks, but no thanks. His boss was my ex. The ex pat community there is not huge.

The body of text was a photocopy and a two line invite added by him at the end.

I receive one of these every year from the daughter of a friend of my late mother-in-law. I have met her once and have no idea who these amazingly successful children are. My lovely late father-in-law used to call it ‘the annual boast’.

- a man sent a round robin and it was presumably enclosed in a Christmas card? - even more !!

I'd avoid him Gabriella especially after you wrote prompted by his mum

I know how you feel, I've got a cousin like this. Not only in Christmas cards but on Facebook as well. Serves me right for going on FB I suppose. All I can say is that I'm convinced no one could be THAT happy. It honestly make me feel that I wish someone misfortune would bring her down to the level of us lesser mortals. I feel that you can't be the only one who is irritated by her, so take comfort in that. Nothing worse than someone who boasts to boost themselves.

I think I'll settle down to write a RR tonight. I'll mostly make it about people on Gransnet and I'll direct them to this thread.

Jalima1108
I agree but this was about 9/10 years ago when I was visiting my old home town. His mum was a model for a local 'boutique' and when we were children, she'd often be seen going to the shops, immaculately dressed, hair moulded to within an inch of it's life, we children sitting on her garden wall watching her husband on his old motorbike and she regally waving from the battered sidecar. 'Bye-
bye ducky' she mouthed over the sputtering engine.
Mum said she was all fur coat and no knickers.
Her son was not my type anyway nor me his. Too naice...
I enjoy being single again.

Have to laugh at RRs I receive ....and then get my own back by returning the favour !!! Mine is not exotic ...been nowhere, seen no one, done nothing ...another year gone......if there are no more communications, I have departed this mortal coil for somewhere better .........I also received one from a friend backed by a studio photo by an exotic caribbean backdrop ....she had a laugh and said it was a backdrop in her local supermarket especially for photos ....loved it !!!!! now makes me wonder if all those exotic cruises and beaches with palm trees are actually a photographers back drops !!! I do like genuine ones though as friends who don;t have e mails write reams about their illnesses, friends, children, family (none of whom I know !) ..........Merry Christmas ...I would tell you I am in the garden of my chateau in France enjoying champagne and canapes by moonlight in the covered swimming pool complex lit by my magical fairy lights and being waited on by my staff ......................how do you know I am not ? I could SAY anything ..........best read tongue in cheek are RR's ................

I like your thinking violette I may try that. Do you think I could also include some mythical gruesome operation.
And no momb I don't want to read all the details of the families of acquaintances who I hardly know. Think I'm not really a 'people person '

I only used to receive one from a lady I worked with, we were very good friends, I also met her DH & son who had almost died from meningitis as a baby, this left him deaf. It was nice to here about his progress, this year I only got a card.

Other friends I receive a brief note if there's news or a quick note in the card. I do the same, unless I've got news & as most of my friends are on FB or my email contacts I cba, writing the cards is chore enough

We receive an RR every year from one of my husband's cousins, and have been getting one for about 15 years now. The very first time we received one I found it amusing as it was only a few weeks since we had seen them, and I had never heard of these until then.
The usual topics are the grandchildrens" achievements, lots of golf, the annual holidays etc. But since they started opening their garden to the public each year, we now have a much bigger letter which includes all the details of the event.
I used to get a bit fed up up with them at one time, but now our parents generation within the family are no longer alive it does bring us up to date as we don't see each other as often as we used to at family gatherings.
I just scribble a few lines inside the card itself and occasionally send an email.

Are you not tempted to write 'return to sender' on the envelope and put it back in the post box OP?
My mum used to receive a stealth boast RR from her brother each year. She didn't see or speak to him any other time. He didn't keep touch with the family accept for this 'we went here there and everywhere on this cruise or that'.
He died this year. I wonder if his widow will keep up the tradition.