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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that if it's SEVEN years since you heard from someone - maybe you shouldn't be sending them a Christmas Card?

32 replies

BonzoDooDah · 03/12/2012 20:22

"Mabel and Albert" and their family lived in our house for more then 30 years. Sadly Albert died and then quite a few years later Mabel died at a ripe old age. We bought the house nearly seven years ago from her children.

Every year since we moved in we have received a posted Christmas card to 'Mabel and Family' signed x and y (but no return address). Obviously they've not had one off Mabel in the last seven years ...

We've just received this year's card Sad

So, seriously, how long would you keep someone on your Christmas Card list if you hadn't heard from them? A year? Two? Seven???

OP posts:
TidyDancer · 03/12/2012 20:23

My mum still sends Christmas cards to relatives we haven't seen in years, and former work colleagues, etc.

I don't really see the harm tbh.

StinkyWicket · 03/12/2012 20:24

I wouldn't no, but plenty of older people do. Out of tradition maybe? I still get birthday cards from my mum's best friend even though I am thirty!

Also, older people (IMO) seem the think cards are very very important - my mum was most put out a couple of years ago when we didn't do cards!

StinkyWicket · 03/12/2012 20:25

Tidy I read that as former wok colleagues for some reason Grin

squeakytoy · 03/12/2012 20:27

We have lived in this house for ten years and still get a card addressed to the previous occupant. They are still alive as far as we know.. but clearly dont have much correspondence with their old friends!

Annunziata · 03/12/2012 20:28

That's quite sad. But I suppose it's easy to forget who actually has sent you a card, if it's just maybe someone they used to work with, so you do it out of habit.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 03/12/2012 20:29

My mum still sends and receives an xmas card from a lady she worked with before I was born. And I am 25! They always write a little update on their lives in the card.

redskyatnight · 03/12/2012 20:30

The majority of my parents' Christmas cards are from people they haven't seen or spoken to in approximately thirty years. They consider the annual Christmas cards as "staying in touch".

Maybe the card senders do see Mabel and Albert on a regular basis but just haven't worked out their new address yet? I'd imagine once it gets past a year after you've moved you assume everyone knows.

PuppyMonkey · 03/12/2012 20:32

It's because, as I've always said, people don't actually click whether or not someone sends them a Christmas card.

I still get cards for previous owners of this house - we've lived here since 1999. Grin

QuietNinjaTardis · 03/12/2012 20:33

Redsky Mabel and Albert have been dead for 7 years.

PuppyMonkey · 03/12/2012 20:34

Redsky, Mabel and Albert died... So I don't think the senders do see them.

Fakebook · 03/12/2012 20:35

Maybe the card senders do see Mabel and Albert on a regular basis but just haven't worked out their new address yet?

Oh the jokes I could make about that sentence, but I won't. Grin Grin

TidyDancer · 03/12/2012 20:36
Xmas Grin
Original poster
BonzoDooDah · 03/12/2012 20:36

Puppy 1999 is fab! 13 years ... you do wonder!

And Tidy I don't see the harm I just think it's terribly sad really.

OP posts:
Original poster
BonzoDooDah · 03/12/2012 20:37

Redsky I'd be bloody amazed if Mabel and Albert were sending cards from where they are.

OP posts:
HassledHasASledge · 03/12/2012 20:38

I'd quit after a couple of years :o. Seven years is extreme Christmas persistence.

I'm in a quandary re some very elderly friends of my long-dead mother's; I have a vague idea the wife wrote a couple of years ago that the Colonel, her husband, had died. But I'm not 100% I haven't imagined this - do I send no card, send one to both given that the Colonel might have ceased to be, or send one to the wife asking how the Colonel is?

emsyj · 03/12/2012 20:38

Someone, somewhere sends our next door neighbour a birthday card every year addressed to our house. I am hopeful that one day she will tell the person that she lives at no.5 and not no.3, but until then I dutifully put it through her door! It doesn't bother me to redeliver it (she is a very nice lady) but it does make me wonder why she doesn't tell the bloody sender that the address is wrong?? Confused

I can understand why people keep sending the cards - probably 'just in case', they aren't sure whether Albert and Mabel are still around, they still think of them, so still send the card. It is a bit Sad though.

McKayz · 03/12/2012 20:38

Trying not to laugh but it is times like this that I wonder why people don't read the threads properly.

RedSky, unless the card is from Derek Acorah I doubt they see Mabel and Albert.

JustFabulous · 03/12/2012 20:39

It's worse when you get a card from someone you haven't sent one too as you don't have their address.

blanksquit · 03/12/2012 20:42

Yes we still get one or two for the former owner of our house who died 7 years ago. You'd think if they didn't get a card back and knowing he would be in his nineties now, they might have guessed. Usually with no return address. It's lovely that friendship with no contact lasts so long. I did get one with a return address last xmas and sent them a note saying sadly he had died. Then felt bad that I might have ruined their xmas.

FairPhyllis · 03/12/2012 20:48

My parents sent cards to a friend for donkeys years and never got anything back. Then one year they happened to put their address on the card, and in a flash they got a letter back saying he'd lost their address xxx years ago and had been really sad he couldn't send any back.

KittyFane1 · 03/12/2012 20:53

It's so sad that they don't put their address on :( It's so sad that they think of this couple every year and don't know that they've gone :(

KittyFane1 · 03/12/2012 20:55

Do you have Mabel and Albert's DC's address OP? Maybe they know who sends these card and can contact them?

Original poster
BonzoDooDah · 03/12/2012 21:01

I know - If they only put an address on it I could have sent a note (a sad note at Christmas it would have been - yes).

When I saw the envelope this year I thought "oh dear" but then maybe I can find the son and tell him. But when I opened the card it said

"Dear Mabel and Family

"

Nothing else!! This year they haven't even signed it. I suspect a poor 'old dear' contemporary is losing it a bit (sad)

OP posts:
maddening · 03/12/2012 21:02

And it'll be sad when it stops as it means they've died too :(

BOFingSanta · 03/12/2012 21:04

You're a cheery soul, maddening Xmas Grin

We get this too- eleven years I've been here now.