To utterly hate those self appreciating, smug Christmas Round robbins

[pigletmania]

You know the ones that begin with "As another year draws to an end, I find myself sitting trying to find a few mins, to tell you how many wonderful holidays I have been on, and what gifted little children Jonny and Jane are blah blah blah, bahhhh humbug

@ teahouse!

were you not a little tempted to print up a fake one just for her about how much better your life is now that you're not married to someone who insisted you went dogging in car parks every weekend? and how you've heard he has married some poor girl and you pray for her, poor pitiful thing!

Best of the bunch so far this year,

"DD2 makes us so proud, the way she is bringing up our two lovely grandchildren and still holding down a professional part-time job is just amazing - what a multi-tasker!"

Anyone else spitting feathers??

Had an absolute cracker recently from some very evangelical relatives. Along the lines of:

X and I have been enjoying our semi retirement and spreading the word of God in Africancountry, while watching our thischaritableorganisationinAsia or "churchplanting"projectinAfricancountry grow. God has blessed us with little granchildX in May and our son X is now the Managing Director of thisbigcompany. X is now completing her recent bigresearchpaper and will take over as head of thismedicalestablishment in June. God bless you, you are in our hearts and prayers etc

No, honestly, it was that bad.

We're not religious at all. My Dad reads these over the phone to me and has me in stitches at the sheer self-congratulation going on! He will also insert his own commentary while reading them aloud (No, I think it was X and X copulating which blessed you with little X, not God...)

I think that's kind of nice timetosmile!

I think charity can be carried out far better without a mandatory religious aspect. All of their projects combine the good with the religious, so those who benefit must also engage with the religion.

And isn't one of the facets of Christianity to carry out charity without really mentioning it, let alone listing it all in a Round Robin?

We never mention our views regarding religion and therefore don't like them pushing God's blessings and their prayers on us. I also don't think my post shows any religious intolerance - but I sure am irritated by evangelism and find the 'spreading of God's word' a bit much.

It's funny how when you're not religious people think it's okay to push their religious beliefs/words/activities on you. If I was Muslim, for example, and wrote a similar card to them about /my God/, they'd be similarly non-plussed.

I like reading RRs. We have lots of far-flung friends who we only see every couple of years or so, and they're good for reminding yourself of how many children they have now and so on.

Lots of RRs are so long I drop off by the time I'm halfway though.

We send one, but aim for wittiness and brevity. DH has to write it as I'm dull & verbose. This year's was 3 sentences long. We usually get positive feedback about the length of our RR.

For us it's a good way to give headlines about job changes / new babies etc to people you don't see often, and give opening gambits for conversation to relatives we'll see over Christmas.

I'm very sad I don't get any round robins

Oh how exciting, I just got my first one this year! Was looking forward to coming on here and quoting the funny bits, but actually it's just really sweet.

I hate them. I was bl**dy furious when I discovered (from my in-laws) that my mother had written about me and my family in hers. Oh, that and the fact that my brother is getting divorced and his children (and ex-wife) are very upset about the whole thing. I don't wnat people I don't know reading about my business.

Sorry - that was a bit ranty, wasn't it? Thing is, I hate round robins anyway - to think that I am the subject-matter of one infuriates me.

I usually enjoy reading them. However..... just received one today that made me feel as a family we are a little lacking. Had a brief 'Loser' feeling.
Mmmm....

am at my parents for christmas. they recive loads. most of them of the clerical/spiritual kind and quite boooooooring.

bradbourne
one of the reasons I started sending my own one was to stop my mother sending her version of my life out
it is the best way to deal with it

on my parent's version I'm not even mentioned this year on the 5 (small print) pages. but on the family photo I have my hand by my face and it looks like I am picking my nose

I love getting RR from far away friends, I feel quite disappointed if they don't include one! But I HATE my DMs missive. Thank fully this year she obveously couldn't think of anything positive to say about me and I was not mentioned at all :o
My DSIL has written her first one this year. I nearly PMSL it is written in the style of Jane Austin and for the first two paragraphs I thought she was taking the piss, but as it carried on I realised she was serious! I would love to post an extract but she would be terribly upset if she saw it and I do actually really like her.

We get to read a classic one every year, sent to my parents from some old family friends. (My dad's godson, in fact, despite the fact that he is a) not Catholic and b) not religious at all.) The friends are very, very religious and have very, very many children, all with rather wild and wonderful names. They're mostly home-edded and all the children do 'stuff' outside of that. Actually, though they're often very funny, I think they're written with tongue in cheek and give an insight into what it's like to live in an enormous family.

My own mother sometimes does one, to massive cringing from me. She demands photos of the DC in mid-December (running late) and these are distributed god knows where. I suspect, because I never actually saw the thing, that last year's missive contained a photo of me and DS2 in the bath, an hour after his birth at home.

YABU

I love them. One of the great joys of christmas is going home to my parents and sitting down on the sofa with the pile of round robins to catch up with the exploits of long unseen friends from childhood.

We are all in our 30s now and our Mothers are still sending the letters. My Mother thinks printed round robins are gauche (she is a raging snob) so she handwrites a letter to each person but I suspect as she has to write more than 50 she just reiterates the same information.

On the odd occasion I have bumped into any of these people IRL I managed to establish that they too had been tracking my life for the last twenty years via the mummy-vine christmas letters.

We had a laugh about it. Agreed it was tragic but that we didn't want it to stop.

My parents had a nice smug one this year.

From my mum's brother who does tend to drone on about his holidays and cars.

They put in there's that this year they kept their holidays 'local'.

We all live in the West Country. 'Local' is Devon or Cornwall. Isle Of Wight at a push.

They went to Spain and Turkey.

Fecking 'local'!!

My mother receives one every year from an old friend who emigrated in the 80s. Every year, the same 'Jeffery still hasn't found a girlfriend'. I mean, literally for the last 30 years or so! But this year....'I am delighted to announce that 'Jeffery' got married this year, to 'Eduordo' (photos enclosed)
This RR then gets passed round from my mum to all the other old friends, but one wouldn't even look at was too 'disgusted'

My SIL used to get a corker from a friend of hers. I used to beg to read it every year because it was so hilariously bad. It ran to several sides of A4. Kids merited a paragraph, partner a line. All the rest was devoted to friend's unbelievably tedious life. I think someone must have been rude about it because it stopped a few years ago - I really miss it.

YABU. I love getting these letters and am quite sad that no-one writes them anymore because they are considered naff. Having said that my parents did receive the best one ever. It was from the son of a woman who Dad had stayed with in Canada back in the sixties. The whole letter described his proposal. He'd taken his girlfriend to the top of the tallest building in Toronto then at the opportune moment had switched on the CD player he had hidden in his pocket to play 'their song'. Sadly she said yes so the round robin included the entire lyrics of the song bawk

My parents do them, basically the same every year. Boak.

Firstly 2 sides of A4 about all their expensive holidays. Then "DD1 is as beautiful as ever and has passed her beauty, charm and wit on to DGD1 OUR FIRST GRANDCHILD who has now learned to dress herself [insert numerous photos of party dresses]. Dearest son in law got a promotion and is now earning X hundred thousand. [insert 2 sides of A4 about DD1 and DGD]. DD2 still lives overseas and her partner still has a job. Yours sincerely, ..."

At least I made it back into this year's one, they wrote me out last year because I had 4 whole weeks of being unemployed....

I did go through a phase of doing one,but once we got to the year where DS2 was diagnosed with Aspergers, was excluded from school more times than we could remember and gave up all extra curricular activities we became a lot more choosy about who we shared the information with. Somehow knowing that Suzy is under 14s gymnastic champion,Lydia is auditioning for the Royal Ballet School and James is Head Boy at his Prep school, and all three have fantastic social lives, made me realise we weren't exactly on the same planet.
Doesn't stop me enjoying receiving them though.

jandymaccomesback I sort of understand where you're coming from, but I'd share the info anyway if you feel like it.

My parents are embarrassed about me because I'm 35 and STILL not married, I don't have children, and I am not beautiful and socially delightful and married to a lovely banker, living in a lovely house in a lovely suburb, like my sister.

The fact I work my arse off, have a lovely DP, we have between us two MA (Cantab)s, an MBChB (Cantab) a PhD (Cantab) a DPhil (Oxon), an MRCS, a clinical lectureship and an associate professorship, seems to mean nothing. I'm just the dead-cold one sentence about still living overseas, at the end of the letter every year. I started out as the charmless younger sister with no personality and nothing interesting about me, and am still clearly seen in that role.

Your DS with Aspergers might have a particularly intense interest that is taking up lots of time, that could be mentioned in a letter?