Round Robin Letters

[DrSeuss]

It's that time of year again. The Christmas Letters are arriving now. We get three a year, only one of which is worth the effort of reading it. Today saw the arrival of the usual missive from one family who feel that very little is too insignificant to tell us. Can't decide if they are very arrogant or just very boring. Then comes the one from husband's cousins who moved to Canada two years ago. The subtext of this one has been the same for the last ten or more years, "We are wonderful, our entire lives are wonderful, our children are wonderful, it's just so wonderful". Cousin seems to forget that her sister and mother are still in the UK and tell us what's actually happening. And they shocked the hell out of me a few years ago when the death of cousin's dad only made paragraph three, beneath the description of their holidays! The only one worth reading is from university friends who have two kids, one with Aspergers, and who talk about their kids in a warm, interesting manner but don't boast.
Am I alone in disliking these letters? I love everything else about Christmas and spent a good ten minutes today teaching Year seven how to use the Portable North Pole, so I'm not exactly in the ba humbug category. I only once sent out such letters when my dad had recently died and I couldn't face writing that 25 times. And yes, he was paragraph one!

I didn't know that these kinds of letters were common practice, my mum gets one every year from a friend of hers and I thought that it was very rude sending the same letter to all dozen of her friends..

Apparently, they're also known as "brag & gag" letters according to my friend Mr Wikipedia...

Send it to Simon Hoggart, he will put excerpts in a book and the senders will be roundly humiliated .

I don't mind getting them, but I can't bring myself to actually write one.

I've never gotten one- I don't have any friends that are posh enough :(

I love these letters.

Wouldnt write one myself though.

DH and I really look forward to the Xmas round robins and laughing in a patronising way at how uncool some of our acquaintances are.

We get sent several of these, the worst one was from a few years ago. The senders made a tree shaped crossword puzzle with clues.

Each clue was along the lines of

1)Where did Emma and George get married?

2. Where did George first work?

3)Where did George's brother live in the US?

and so on.

Unfortunately we didn't know any of the answers and nor did we give a shit either.

On that basis,we decided the the best place for this puzzle, was the toilet.

We still get letters from them every year, even though we never see them or send anything back.

I do send letters to a few people each year with their Christmas cards. People who live too far away for me to meet up with, but with whom I'd like to keep in touch. And I do write these letters on the computer and print them out - however, I do edit each one to make it specific to the recipient, and try to make them fairly brief and not brag about how wonderful everything is (usually it isn't, so that's not too hard ).

I hope this is an acceptable compromise. I receive several round robins a year. They vary from the family who always have wonderful exotic holidays and over-achieving kids, to my cousin, who is split up from her pain-in-the-arse husband, has adopted her grandson (from her daughter who takes drugs, is mentally ill and can't cope), the grandson has ADHD and has been excluded from school several times, and her other daughter has recently moved in with her after splitting up from her husband. This letter always makes a refreshing change from the smuggery of the others, particularly as said cousin works very hard to raise money for local groups etc without making a big thing of it.

it totally depends on how they are done

like you, we have friends who send detailed letters (read 6 pages of close type) with paragraphs headed:

"June saw Bill and Fiona rediscovering the joys of flyfishing" and "A trip to Bruges in May" and "Scarlett passes Grade 8 piano and clarinet with flying colours".

Boak.

But, we get another letter from a family with four kids and their letter is funny and informative and great.

YANBU - I bloody detest these!!
The type of person who USUALLY sends these is the smug git you are glad lives so far away from you in the first place!

Snow, your letters sound lovely, very like the one of the three I actually enjoy reading. And your cousin sounds like an amazing woman who has been handed the shitty end of the stick. I'm sure I would be delighted to receive either of them. Sadly, I don't get anything half as nice!

Dr Seuss - the one from my cousin is always the best, because there is no pretension in it. It tells it like it is, and she manages to retain a sense of humour even when life has been shit....

I don't really see what's so wrong with them to deserve such scorn (not particularly in this thread, but from Simon Hoggart et al). They're not a major imposition on your time, you can always skim, or mock, or ignore, but some people seem genuinely irate about the entire concept of them.
I don't do them myself, but some people I know do, and I'm usually curious to know what's been going on in their lives.

"I do send letters to a few people each year with their Christmas cards. People who live too far away for me to meet up with, but with whom I'd like to keep in touch. And I do write these letters on the computer and print them out - however, I do edit each one to make it specific to the recipient, and try to make them fairly brief and not brag about how wonderful everything is "

My letters sound exactly the same as yours. I generally write about our health, work, daughter's education, where we went on holiday (UK), family news and this year I will probably write about the weather. My letters are chatty and not smug or braggy at all.

The one thing I hate most is when the sender of these letters writes about themself in the third person singular.

YABU - I love them and am soooo jealous that we don't get any

Please message me for my address and pass them on

My parents used to get a wonderful (read terrible) one from a family of four who all used to write a section on another member of the family and then the two girls hit the teenage years and the marriage broke down and the whole thing got a bit tense

I love Round Robins and worry that people will stop sending them because they are considered naff.

I feel that Facebook can be like a year round Round Robin for some people.

Yes, now we have facebook and twitter, surely the days of the round robin are numbered?

I would love to receive an interesting round robin letter, but I really don't care that my uncle bought a new printer (yes really!), or my 3rd cousins daughter has passed her Grade 2 Clarinet exam.

Funnily enough, my friends who have I suspect have very interesting lives never seem to have time to write such letters.

Personally I don't write them, as "DS1 was excluded twice from school in the spring term, and DH went bankrupt at the end of the summer", would just be shit.

Depends how self-congratulatory they are. Some of the ones we get are OTT but on the other hand I am pleased to know how people are getting on. Sometimes they ask to be remembered because of hard times and that's something you can hold in your thoughts, which means something.

I also know there are people I send cards to who genuinely would like to see what our kids look like now (older folk mostly), and are actually interested in what they're doing (and tell my parents to tell me off if I don't send pics). I try to either hand-write something and print off a few small pics on ordinary printer paper, or type something individual and personalise it with more handwriting at the bottom. I try to put something informative in about our lives but try not to say too much about what the kids are doing whilst not ignoring them either. It's a fine line to tread.

I write about what I'm doing, a sentence or two about each child, and OH's work, and that's it. Nothing about holidays or other family (unless I'm writing to someone who knew my parents/siblings back in the day).

Thesecondcoming, too funny, this is what my dad would threaten to do each year on receipt of the umpteenth smug round robin!

We have a family acquaintance - not friend for we only met her once for an hour or so - who sends us the round robin. She keeps such a detailed diary that every day of the year is accounted for, basically a print out of her daily diary. It involves what her cat ate that day and its toilet habits. It involves tidbits like 'neighbour left at 9.48 but was back just after 10am so assume he just went to corner shop'. She isn't a lonely old lady; she has 7 kids and a toyboy and we hear all about their sex life, kids' puberty, and personal hygiene. Where she explains things for people who don't know her well, or to make a jokey comment about the 'entry' she calls herself 'ed' as in 'editor' (e.g. I showered today, wink, and hubby didn't!!!! Boak!!! - Ed.) Every time. Except she isn't the editor, it's just her diary.
Totally inappropriate and too intimate. I hate getting it, yet my and DM curl up and read the ream of paper together every time.

I have a friend whose husband writes a spoof one every year . It is hilarious

Muum, that is priceless - in a bad way!

My dad sends one to people every year.
It amuses me how his version of the year is vastly different to how I see it!!!