Got the ' sad ' Christmas card today

[HollyChristmas]

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.

Oh some sad stories here 😔

My brother lives in my deceased parents’ house and still gets a card every year for them (this will be our 13th Christmas without them). There is no return address and no surname so no way of knowing who or where these people are. They were obviously in my parents’ lives at some point but clearly a long time in the past. I often wonder how they haven’t noticed they never get a card from my parents anymore. (Or they’ve noticed but haven’t questioned it). Kind of reaffirms to me how pointless sending Xmas cards is- certainly for that generation who seemed to just send cards to everyone they’d ever known or met for 5 minutes. My ILs have just spent £80 on their Christmas card postage. Recipients include a couple they met in Lanzarote in about 1980 and never saw again 😂

I know, exactly. I felt so bad for them that their messages of support never reached the family. Then when they received the card back and realised that they had been sending the cards to the wrong address all along, that must have felt terrible.

That is a shame, especially for the person who is sending a Christmas card every year.. However I have never 'got' how or why people send Christmas cards, year in-year out, to people they no longer have any contact with, and no longer see or hear from.

DH and I kept getting a Christmas card for 'Alan and Sue' at our home that we moved into some 12 years ago, and 2 birthday cards a year in March and June, (yeah we did open them,) and it only stopped a couple of years ago.

The person who lived here before us, was a lone woman (who had lived here for 7-8 years before us) who was called Mandy. So Alan and Sue had not lived here for almost a decade even when we moved in. And the cards kept coming - even 20 years after Alan and Sue had left...

How and why do people not know that people have moved on, and died if they are close enough/friendly enough to send Christmas cards and birthday cards? Why do people continue to send greetings cards to people they've not had any contact with for a decade .... or more? Even 20-25 years (or more!)

I always put my return address on my cards, and it’s amazing how many people don’t register it because I get ‘not sure if you’ve moved yet’ (I always get my mail redirected too). I’m like ‘it was on the envelope’!
I’ve also received cards for years for previous occupants and with no return address there’s nothing I can do. Once I got a child’s birthday invite but I texted the RSVP number to tell them they had moved - didn’t want the poor lad to think he hadn’t been invited if still local!

That is batshit. 😆 Especially the couple from 1980 who they met on holiday!

I rest my case, so many people send Christmas cards to people they've had naff-all to do with for many years. Even when they don't get one from them (and haven't had one off them for many years too.)

Why?

It's like people turning up to someone's funeral and 'mourning' them when they have had naff-all to do with them, and haven't seen them or spoken to them for 15-20+ years. Really pisses me off. You didn't care about them while they were alive. Don't pretend you give a shit now.

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I dont get this either - you are close enough to send cards but not close enough to speak to the person ever or ever visit them or ever text them or ever contact them on social media or ever phone them etc

I find it so bizarre - and I am sorry, but you dont really care that much about someone if you havent spoken to them in literally 20 years so why bother?

obviously, sadly, they did not have the chance to go to their brother's funeral. That is a pity, as it would have been a chance to reach out to this brother and let him know where she was.

Can you do any detective work via Google to find the brother's address?

Do you have a local radio station or Facebook page? Someone might know who the relatives are?

I really don't think you should interfere.
If they have not updated him then there is going to be a reason. You don't know what it is, you don't know if the brother did something awful, you don't know if his christmas card is his annual fuck you, or intimidation, you don't know what he might do if he finds out, and it's not for you to decide your neighbours should have updated him or that you should do it on their behalf.

Yeah, exactly!

I always got a card from an elderly ex colleague but when I hadn’t received anything for a couple of years I put a note on the back of the envelope asking anyone who knew anything to text me. I received a lovely message from the new occupant of the flat telling me that my friend had died and giving me contact details for her family.
But of course I did have her address.

There's a story behind this! A brother would know under normal circumstances so something must have happened in the past that he wouldn't even not quite knowing the right address!

We got a Father’s Day card in the post once from a little boy. His dad never told him he’d moved 😭

When my mum died in the October a few years back, we still had her house at Christmas and she still had lots of cards from old neighbours, friends, friends of my late dad, extended family that had emigrated. We managed to find and contact some of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new house owner is still getting some years on.

😔 very sad

We had cards and letters from a lady I didn’t know for my Gran, after Gran died. No address on them. The address and phone number for this lady in Gran’s address book were old. She had an unusual enough name that I found just one on Facebook and sent her a tentative message asking if she had been writing to Gran (using real name obvs). Turned out she was Gran’s goddaughter. Her father had been in business with my Grandpa. I didn’t even know Gran had a goddaughter. We’ve kept in touch.

My parents exchange cards every year with the next door neighbours of a house they moved out of in 1985. Haven't seen each other since they moved, and no other contact besides the Xmas card.

When we.mov3d into a new house in 2010 we used to get a Christmas card every year. For over 8 years.

No return address on it.

The suddenly it stopped coming.

Maybe they figured out the old occupant had moved?

Never considered they may have passed away.

This is a great suggestion. Maybe I am misunderstanding it a bit but if the sender of the ‘to my Brother and his wife’ card is a sister she might be married and have a different surname to the couple. It’s got me thinking because I have a half sibling and we have different surnames.