Got the ' sad ' Christmas card today

HollyChristmas · 2025-12-10T17:11:35+00:00

Every year we get a Christmas card addressed to our house but for the people next door . We've lived here 15 years and I was happy to deliver to our neighbours even though they never put the sender right to the correct house . Then the male next door neighbour died ( they are an elderly couple ) the card continued to be addressed to Mr and Mrs so obviously the neighbour didn't think to put right the sender that her husband had passed. Fast forward a few years continued to receive Mr & Mrs xxx cards . For 3 years we now have new neighbours as next door female neighbour moved into care. We still get the card addressed to Mr and Mrs but I have no idea where to send on. Last year I opened it for hopefully address of the sender so I could do a not known at this address and send back. The very sad bit is it's a brother and his wife card 😢 Our deceased male neighbour's brother has been sending a card to him for around 5/6 years not knowing he has died and his sil never thought to let him know.

Fionasapples · 10/12/2025 17:13

That's awful, it would make me feel sad too. The poor man will be wondering why his brother doesn't contact him.

anicesmellycandle · 10/12/2025 17:13

Oh my goodness that is so sad.

Runrunrudolph · 10/12/2025 17:18

That is very sad.
Possibly your neighbours didn't have an address for the brother that was sending the card so couldn't let them know. Your neighbour may have possibly been sending a card to the wrong address for his brother.

IndigoIsMyFavouriteColour · 10/12/2025 17:22

We still get a Christmas card every year for the man who died in our house 14 years ago

Tryingatleast · 10/12/2025 17:24

Ah that is so sad

gucciandscandal · 10/12/2025 17:32

Oh that’s so awfully sad! Is the postmark local? If so I’d be inclined to try and track him down.

Justnotsureaboutit2021 · 10/12/2025 17:39

We have lived in our house for 20 years and still get christmas cards for the previous occupiers. It does make me thing why are they bothering, as if they haven't spoken in 20 years to know they have moved house then is it really worth the effort of sending a card! To make matters worse we use to deliver them to the previous occupiers and now don't bother as clearly the relationships were not that important to them if they didn't tell them they had moved. Perhaps this is the same case here.

Original poster

HollyChristmas · 10/12/2025 17:40

gucciandscandal · 10/12/2025 17:32

Oh that’s so awfully sad! Is the postmark local? If so I’d be inclined to try and track him down.

No postmark just those printed black wavy lines .

OP posts:

Original poster

HollyChristmas · 10/12/2025 17:42

Justnotsureaboutit2021 · 10/12/2025 17:39

We have lived in our house for 20 years and still get christmas cards for the previous occupiers. It does make me thing why are they bothering, as if they haven't spoken in 20 years to know they have moved house then is it really worth the effort of sending a card! To make matters worse we use to deliver them to the previous occupiers and now don't bother as clearly the relationships were not that important to them if they didn't tell them they had moved. Perhaps this is the same case here.

Yes going from when I was able to hand the card over to his wife/ widow , I used to get the feeling she was not pleased to receive it .

OP posts:

spiderlight · 10/12/2025 17:45

That's so sad 😢 We got a card every year for 18 years, until last year, for a couple who hadn't lived here since the late 90s. The neighbours vaguely remembered them but didn't know where they'd moved to, so we couldn't pass them on, and the names were too generic to find them on social media. We rather looked forward to the cards arriving in the end. It's heartbreaking that someone out there has no idea his brother has died though.

queenrollo · 10/12/2025 17:59

Do the nursing home have a family contact for your old neighbour? They might be able to get a message across if so.

honeylulu · 10/12/2025 18:03

Oh that's sad and also mystifying that the brother makes that effort but none other.

When we moved into our old house we bought from a young family. They'd lived there 14 years and mentioned the previous owner had been an old lady who'd gone into a care home. Every Christmas for about 10 more years a card arrived addressed to her, simply saying "From Cyril" so I had no way of returning it and had no forwarding details for the lady though she may have died years before. I used to put it up with our other cards. Finally one year Cyril's card didn't come and I felt oddly sad about that.

somenerves · 10/12/2025 18:14

Possibly the deceased neighbour was no contact with the brother. My husbands evil bio father sends us a Christmas card every year and this year will send it to our old house (he doesn’t have our new address) and I’m sure someone would open that and think “how sad” but in reality it’s only sad we had to put up with it for so long.

FutureMandosWife · 10/12/2025 18:19

I get a holidays news letter for the previous owner however the strange part is they talk on the phone.

Original poster

HollyChristmas · 10/12/2025 18:19

queenrollo · 10/12/2025 17:59

Do the nursing home have a family contact for your old neighbour? They might be able to get a message across if so.

It was arranged via her family . I don't know where she went and I don't know them.
Also is she even alive herself now ?

OP posts:

Parsleyforme · 10/12/2025 18:26

That is very sad. I think I would ask on the local Facebook group whether anyone knows the brother as they may have grown up locally. Maybe he is an evil POS and the couple were NC with him, or maybe not, but at least he’d know what’s happened if someone can tell him. I think that’s all you can do really

ErrolTheDragon · 10/12/2025 18:29

yes, we had a few cards for MiL which we had no clue about.
If you’re sending to someone elderly or you didn’t get a card from the previous year, try to remember to put your address on the back of the envelope. (I got sent a load of little address labels by a charity I support, they’re perfect for the job)

RememberBeKindWithKaren · 10/12/2025 18:41

Yes that's very sad..I expect the SIL could have dementia or at least not the ability to let people know her husband has passed away..

Nevernonono · 10/12/2025 18:43

Oh that is sad 😢

Rageagainstmywashingmachine · 10/12/2025 18:50

We had this in our last house. Every year we'd get a card to the previous family - mum,dad, 2 kids who lived there before us. We always opened it to see if there was an address etc to send it back to. One year we opened it and the message inside was to say they'd heard about the mum's cancer diagnosis and how sorry they were. Then later in the year we got a card and it was to the dad saying how sorry they were to have heard the mum had passed away. There was an address with that card so we sent it back and wrote that the family had moved several years before. It was so sad.

FeelingFineNow · 10/12/2025 19:32

Oh that's is sad. We've lived in our house for 29 years and still get a card every year for someone who doesn't live here.
I hope the story behind our card isn't that sad.

OneNewEagle · 10/12/2025 20:09

That really is sad. Family estrangement’s are hard, I’m estranged from mine.

I do have a way you can probably find them though. The surname for the couple will be on the front of the envelope for example to mr and Mrs jones.

inside will say from brother Tom wife sally for example so you know the sender is a Tom and sally jones.

If you use ancestry or anyone else you know does this alone is probably enough to find them on the electoral role. if you don’t mind posting the name I could look for you x

OneNewEagle · 10/12/2025 20:10

Rageagainstmywashingmachine · 10/12/2025 18:50

We had this in our last house. Every year we'd get a card to the previous family - mum,dad, 2 kids who lived there before us. We always opened it to see if there was an address etc to send it back to. One year we opened it and the message inside was to say they'd heard about the mum's cancer diagnosis and how sorry they were. Then later in the year we got a card and it was to the dad saying how sorry they were to have heard the mum had passed away. There was an address with that card so we sent it back and wrote that the family had moved several years before. It was so sad.

That’s awful too as they were trying to be such supportive friends and didn’t even have the correct address. Our family and friends are similar even though whenever we’ve moved I’ve sent the new address to everyone I know.

RescueMeFromThisSilliness · 10/12/2025 20:21

honeylulu · 10/12/2025 18:03

Oh that's sad and also mystifying that the brother makes that effort but none other.

When we moved into our old house we bought from a young family. They'd lived there 14 years and mentioned the previous owner had been an old lady who'd gone into a care home. Every Christmas for about 10 more years a card arrived addressed to her, simply saying "From Cyril" so I had no way of returning it and had no forwarding details for the lady though she may have died years before. I used to put it up with our other cards. Finally one year Cyril's card didn't come and I felt oddly sad about that.

We've lived in this house since the mid 1980's and every single year we would get a card addressed to a couple we'd never heard of. Every year, as regular as clockwork. The people we'd bought the house from had no idea who they were either. Every year the card came, and every year you could tell that the handwriting was getting more and more shaky and was clearly written by someone of advancing years. Every year we displayed it with our own cards and it became a sort of tradition to give it pride of place.

Until last year, when it didn't come.🙁

mathanxiety · 10/12/2025 20:26

That's shocking. Very sad for them all.