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Original poster

Round Robin Letters

113 replies

DrSeuss · 06/12/2010 22:00

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!

OP posts:
webwiz · 07/12/2010 13:09

We get nice ones from friends who live in different countries and a very very smug one from one of DH's relatives.

I always fancy doing the warts and all version, especially the year DD1 was 16 and was a complete nightmare - I could have included all the stuff about having to sleep on her floor as she was so drunk I thought she might she might choke in the night and when I caught her skiving off school when I was shopping town. That would have trumped all the smugness about music exams and exotic holidaysHmm.

TheNextMrsClaus · 07/12/2010 23:04

God that reminds me, must start composing mine.

LadyBiscuit · 07/12/2010 23:09

I absolutely love them but we don't get them much any more. Either because the senders are now a) dead b) have alzheimers or c) have been sectioned (honestly)

Those bits don't get documented of course

maktaitai · 07/12/2010 23:24

I love them all. Hope nobody stops sending them. Poo bish to Simon Hoggart and his wizard wheeze of actually making enormous amounts of money out of sneering at other people and making my life worse by stopping people sending them.

lololizzy · 08/12/2010 23:31

I think they are rude / a touch arrogant / usually very smug.. I hate seeing the name handwritten in (worse if spelt wrong!) as if it's almost a big effort, whilst same letter sent to many people. Would rather have personal letter or phone call when they have time, or not at all. However..they are almost always a great source of hilarity , my mother and i love to pull them apart so.... i would miss them! Love how no one ever writes about the crappy stuff though unless a detailed account of aches and pains of course. Simon Hoggart's book is awesome!!

proudfoot · 09/12/2010 02:46

I love them! The smug ones are the best and we get some corkers.

Kristingle · 09/12/2010 03:22

I lovethem

We just get very realistic ones, full of family news, elderly relatives, kids leaving home, looking for work etc

Boring perhaps, but that's RL isn't it?

Litchick · 09/12/2010 09:40

I have never sent one, but love to receive them.

I'm just very nosy, I think. I also love reading day-to-day blogs.

donkeyderby · 09/12/2010 10:06

I love Round Robins more than anything else at Christmas! I hardly get any - except a funny one from friends - but my mother gets lots, most of them boastful crap 'Lucinda is still doing well in the City', and 'Oscar passed his common entrance with flying colours and started at Marlborough in September'. I think they are a scream.

I started to write my own a few years ago - a bit more honest and gutsy than the above - and if people don't like them, they are free to put them in the nearest wastepaper basket

toddlerama · 09/12/2010 10:26

I never get them, but I get my mum to save them for me to guffaw uncharitably at. I love them. I am waiting for the day that one of my friends does this eagerly.

Ariesgirl · 09/12/2010 10:27

Look on them as comedy gold. When my sis and I go home for Christmas we have a really good laugh reading them, especially the smuggest ones. When my parents' old friend died a few years ago, we were really sad because it meant the death of his frankly hilarious Christmas letter. When I say "hilarious" what I mean is jaw-droppingly self-congratulatory and and boastful.

Someone wrote a book about them once, having asked people to send him their worst ones. It's a hysterical read. I'll have to dig it out

Ariesgirl · 09/12/2010 10:28

Oh, must read thread. Simon Hoggart has already been mentioned Blush

Galena · 09/12/2010 12:50

I write one, had no idea I was doing something so frowned upon. Xmas Sad I hope the people who receive them aren't as bitchy about them as some of you!

Our extended family span the globe and we are all rubbish at keeping in touch. I'd like to think that people appreciate a little news with the Christmas card, and with a young child I don't find the time to write to everyone personally.

I like reading them too - I have an old uni friend and I know how many children he has, and what he's been up to, despite not receiving any 'personal' news for years. On the other hand, I have other friends who I discover have more children than I thought they did because I haven't heard from them for so long.

KERALA1 · 09/12/2010 12:57

Oooh I love them they are fantastic. My parents are very popular and get millions. Therefore I get to sit with a cup of tea and find out what the children of my parents friends are up to from the grandparents POV always amusing. The veiled criticisms and shameless boasting of the baby boomers is a highlight of my Christmas Grin.

We get a few from friends who are overseas or very grand but sadly they are not that funny just nice and informative. Just cant quite bring myself to do one and anyway if I did am sure DH would want a divorce.

bensonbutnohedges · 09/12/2010 13:00

We get quite a few each year and I love them. One of DH's erstwhile colleagues sends one with such minute details of their lives and full of people we have never heard of that I am afraid it gives us quite a laugh. Others are just a really good way of keeping in touch with people we used to know but rarely see- and I love the photos.

FindingAManger · 09/12/2010 13:00

Goodness, I feel pressured enough doing bloody Christmas cards .............. (reminder must buy some TODAY & make sure I get the foreign ones off on Monday!)

Katisha · 09/12/2010 13:02

Well the first of the year has just arrived.
Why their children are not already running the country I do not know.
I feel exhausted (and inadequate) just reading it.

Gleeb · 09/12/2010 13:04

My mum gets an awesome one from somebody she was at primary school with who is really rich which talks about their yacht and spending Christmas with Michael Winner in Barbados.

My other favourite is the smugness at the change in tone over the years from the mother of the family whose over-achieving, fantastic-at-bloody-everything children, all had failed marriages in their 20s and various non-exciting jobs and personal disasters. Ha!

Gleeb · 09/12/2010 13:05

OK, that makes me sound like a terrible bitch Xmas Biscuit

GabbyLoggon · 09/12/2010 13:09

I am a big letter writer. often thought of doing a spoof butnever got round to it...There wa s a good book many years agoabout A writer who spoofed bigwigs. Henry Root???

Katisha · 09/12/2010 13:11

Can someone here do a spoof template that we can all crib please?

DasherandSmugly · 09/12/2010 13:12

I have never had one and am rather Xmas Envy now.

Bucharest · 09/12/2010 13:14

I love them in a carcrashy kind of way.
How can people think they're OK?

My (ex) friend writes one in her child's voice. Freakoid. "I have had a lovely year learning to go to the toilet without a nappy. Mummy and Daddy are very proud"

Boakety boak.

These are the same people who have Erasure boxed sets and a showcase of Chelsea football shirts arranged in chronological order.

Not a coincidence I think you'll find.

Bue · 09/12/2010 13:14

These letters make my holiday! We still call the grown children of family friends the BLGs - bloody little geniuses - because of the yearly updates on how gifted and talented they were. Brilliant stuff Grin

mummytime · 09/12/2010 13:15

I also get a lovely one from a University friend with two Autistic kids. Maybe its just that it doesn't set off the guilt/worry of others, with their trumas of getting the second twin into Grammar school.

I sometimes feel I should do one, but then it would take months to compose so I didn't sound bragging, or like I was washing dirty linen in public.

What do you think of: We're all a year older. DCs seem to be doing okay at school. DS sitting GCSES which is aging and scary. DD1 uses us as a Taxi service the most. DH has a new permanent job, and seems to be enjoying it. Most exciting thing of the year is our new Sofa!

What do yo think?