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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To utterly hate those self appreciating, smug Christmas Round robbins

255 replies

pigletmania · 21/12/2011 16:46

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

OP posts:

Auntiestablishment · 22/12/2011 07:07

YABU - they are the best thing about Christmas! They really cheer me up.

sunnydelight · 22/12/2011 07:11

YABU. I look forward every year to a friend sharing a particularly smug/hilarious version. I have never met these people but am intimately acquainted with just how clever their children are and how amazing their life is. I would feel quite cheated to be deprived of the next chapter

jandymaccomesback · 22/12/2011 08:14

I love them for the wrong reasons. We have friends who go into Pooterish detail about every little event in their rather humdrum lives and the lives of people they know, but we have never met. They even number them so we can refer back to the previous chapter. My Christmas wouldn't be complete without it, although this year DH gave up reading after August

boschy · 22/12/2011 08:28

We had one this year which started with details of the husband's prostate surgery. you will all be pleased to know that the surgeon was marvellous and it was all on the NHS...!

but I love 'em, and I do write one which seems to be well-received.

MovingGal · 22/12/2011 08:55

We get three each year, one is half boasty half newsy and I like the sender so I think its ok.
The other two, I like the senders and they don't boast or sound smug when I see them but their letters are full of each childs Olympic Medals, Nobel prizes, saintly qualities that would rival Mother Theresa, the whole families' faaaabulous careers, holidays etc etc etc. Nobody ever seems to do anything without being an absolute champion. Their lives sound exhausting.
My MIL gets one from an old family friend who obviously favours one DD eg "DD1 has enjoyed her time as world champion netballer but had her work cut out to win the most intelligent child in the world award!!!!
DD2 does not try hard enough with her school work and has had a very challenging attitude this year" (only slightly exaggerated, I swear!)

Whatmeworry · 22/12/2011 09:04

Sent out my own PFB bragging one with all the hols, in technicolour - took months to compose just the right tone of self satisfied smugness:o

Done well they are a good catchup wth people you hardly ever see now, or once knew, but we love snorting through the OTT ones best!

troisgarcons · 22/12/2011 09:08

I send really funny ones! Bugger about what we've been upto - more like Victor Meldrew on a rant..

Mind you I have very aged rellies abroad who send me CDs of their holiday photos - set to music - telling me this is Phyl and Fred they met in Florida - quite funny actually!

stinkingbishop · 22/12/2011 09:11

We did a p*ss take this year which seems to have gone down rather well - though I spent so long sniggering over its composition seem to have done things like forget to order a turkey...

Some real stuff, and then laced with news of the cat's modelling contract, DS being sponsored through Harvard, likely name contenders for the embryos etc with prizes for guessing the fibs...surprising how many people have got it wrong! Maybe our lives are (seen as ) weirder than I thought!

Scuttlebutter · 22/12/2011 09:27

My ILs always get a fantastically rich haul . My DMIL has been given very strict instructions to bring them with her when they come to stay for Christmas. They are howlingly funny, and one of the highlights of the festive season. I particularly enjoy the toxic combination of smugness (Tarquin has just passed his Nose Flute Grade 8 with Distinction), boringness (" the new garden shed has been a great success") with the additional twist of the occasional downright weird/bizarre. "Roger's model railway society enjoyed their annual summer day trip to the Satanic Rituals Musuem and we are especially thrilled with the souvenir goat he brought home".

Long may they continue to brighten the festive season.

AnotherMincepie · 22/12/2011 09:54

Self-deprecating very purposefully can be a bit annoying as well. It's just people who really want to boast but are having to really restrain themselves!

katedan · 22/12/2011 10:05

I get one of these letters from my sister! A person I speak to at least once a week and know all their family news. It is a total boastfest and I have no idea why she sends it to us. The funny thing is a couple of years ago when her husband had lost his job she had put in the christmas letter that he had voluntary left to pursue his own business which was very successful! I knew he was out of work, they were struggling with money and were desperate for him to find work which thankfully he soon did so the next years letter had to say he had received an amazing offer to work for this new company so had put in is own business on the back burner!!!

However she is not on FB and I am so I am know better as that is also a massive boastfest!

moonbells · 22/12/2011 10:12

I'm down to only one this year, sadly. The sender has carefully queried whether people want to continue receiving it: I must remember to say yes! They are a bit 'we went for X holiday and husband has been to Y for work' but I've known the friend for over 30 years and this is her life. I always feel a bit country-cousinish as we do very little/have a small cramped house/never go on holiday abroad but if anyone offered to swap us round I wouldn't do it!

PostBellumBugsy · 22/12/2011 10:22

I hate these for the most part (apart from the really funny ones). It is as though the writers are incapable of realising how incredibly smug & boasty they end up sounding.

I got one in the post yesterday & it just oozed smugness from start to finish about the achievements of my friend's four children. There was no wit, no humour just a huge brag fest. I realise it is no mean feat to raise four children, and of course they are all lovely - but OMG - does she really think that anyone, other than grand-parents, wants to read a full A4 page of size 10 font densely packed paragraphs about their achievements? Really??????

WreckOfTheBeautiful · 22/12/2011 10:28

My parents gets one every year from their neighbour. Not former neighbour. Neighbour who they have seen and talked to almost daily for the last 25 years.

I've typed the word neighbour too many times and now it doesn't look like a real word.

LePruneDeMaTante · 22/12/2011 10:33

I just got one from a lovely old family friend.

He has a son and a daughter. Son has quite a glam job travelling the world. Cue about three paragraphs alluding to him. Daughter is getting a new kitchen. Half a line.

He has two grandchildren. One is artistic and has the inevitable eye for detail and delightful sense of something or other. The other one likes raking leaves

Idratherbemuckingout · 22/12/2011 10:49

I get one from a distant and very boring cousin who tells me all about her boring holidays, her boring choir commitments and her boring daughter, son in law and their dog. Kind of boasting, but boring at the same time so not in the least bit funny to make up for the boast fest. Sad.
I get another from an old friend who has always seen her family through extremely rosy tinted spectacles which seem to be getting thicker each year, and whose adult children still refer to her as "mummy", which I hate. You would think the pair of them were absolute paragons, but at least she is not boring, so I get a good laugh, puke etc.
I find myself wondering, do these people actually see their lives as being like this? Are they kidding themselves as well as us? Or is it just one big sham that they know they are doing?
TBH I think both the above think their lives are so wonderful we must want to share them with them. Shudder.

WinterSleeps · 22/12/2011 10:51

I hate them too. We get one or two. One we get 'written' by a male friend that only talks about the wife's successes.... we are convinced it is actually written by the wife as she is REALLY self obsessed. This year we had three paragraphs detailing her (many) wins in her sporting events, and not a word about the husband.

I love the idea of a made up family and updating it every year.

LePruneDeMaTante · 22/12/2011 10:53

Maybe he is uncomfortable blowing his own trumpet?
I've written lines in cards this year all about dh and dc, nothing about myself - I don't think it's my place to somehow.

WinterSleeps · 22/12/2011 10:58

I would say yes, perhaps LePrune but we see them fairly often- 6-7 times a year and it is always about her. (Mind you, he does facilitate that. I think he is desperately proud of her, which is lovely. ) I roll my eyes because every conversation comes back to her and what she thinks, what she does, how she thinks other people should do things (or eat at restaurants). The round robin is an extension of that really.

Mind you, this year I am particularly sour because we have had redundancies, a house that is about to be repossessed and serious illness, so the litany of 'how great I am, just ask me ' just kind of bites .

LePruneDeMaTante · 22/12/2011 11:08

Ah, it's lovely that he worships her but also a bit gross. I think it's unseemly to show total adoration except in private (based on a couple I know who paddle their hands together after dinner, ick)

Roll on 2012, hope it gets better for you

WinterSleeps · 22/12/2011 11:16

Thanks LePrune Hope you have a great 2012 too. :)

Actually, I have to rein myself in for the open, overwhelming adoration of the DCs..... I am SO going to be a source of embarrassment for them, I know it!

dickiedavisthunderthighs · 22/12/2011 11:19

Why do people assume that someone who hasn't seen them for 20 years gives two shits about where they went on holiday or the new dog they've got?

These are presumably the same people who spend all day on Facebook telling people what they've had for their tea.

My mum gets some absolute beauties. I am practically salivating at the prospect of this year's from Mr and Mrs Doom who between them have had practically every bowel/bladder/genitally-related infection ever in the world.

Gonzo33 · 22/12/2011 11:21

My Nan always does these (she is 85 so I will forgive her), but she does only send them to distant relatives that I have no idea who they are! My Mum recently celebrated her 60th and all these elderly distant relatives were coming up to me talking to me about my life, and all I am thinking is "Who are you?". Not even my Mum could tell me who they were!

OhYouBadBadReindeer · 22/12/2011 11:24

We get one every year from a wonderfully accomplished couple who are amazing at everything, travel to the remotest parts of the planet and do astonishingly wonderful and active things for charity. Even their pets are talented.
I'm rather that it hasnt arrived yet this year. I do like a good giggle.

HoHoOpotomus · 22/12/2011 11:42

feeling really left out that I don't get any ........ will live vicariously through MN round robin threads :)

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