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

[BonzoDooDah]

"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

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

[Janeatthebarre]

My mother sends and gets tons of Christmas cards, lots from people she hasn't seen in years and years. I think it's a generational thing. I only send and get about twenty or so cards. A lot of my friends just don't bother but will email during Dec or send a Happy New Year text.

[DeWe]

My dgp one year got a christmas card perfectly addressed to them (by name), asking after their dc (by name) from a couple they didn't know at all. It was unusual names for all four, so they must have met them somewhere. We went through all their contact lists for the previous 20 years and couldn't find them.
They only sent one that year. Maybe they were upset at not getting one back.

[BonzoDooDah]

Fryone that's quite a co-incidence. Nice to finally solve the mystery :)

Aww soopermum at least you put a return address on so you'd know it't not got there but how sad when it doesn't.

[Soopermum1]

I send a Xmas card, with a letter, to an old neighbour every year. She's getting on so I always put my return address on the back. To date, she always sends a card with a letter back, but every year I do wonder if I'll get one back

We bought our first house from her friend, who had died and in the first year we did get quite a lot or cards, but no return addresses. They soon dried up, though.

[FryOneFatChristmasTurkey]

We got this too, but actually a card for not the previous occupants, but the ones before that....

However, I eventually had a breakthrough. One of the TAs at DS's school mentioned that she had lived in our house, and it turned out she was the one the card was for, but she'd divorced and remarried (house was sold due to divorce) so I asked if she was Mrs X previously. Gave her the card and this year didn't get another one so she must have written back.

[Speedos]

We used to live in a house that used to belong to someone famous and would receive christmas cards from other famous people for 6 years of living there!

Some of these people had very bizarre photos of themselves of cards! We kept most of them too and dig them out on display every year for a laugh.

[TeeElfOnTeeShelf]

Seven years is certainly keeping the faith, I must say.

Why don't people put their return address on things?!?! I just don't have that much faith in our postal service.

[BOFingSanta]

You're a cheery soul, maddening

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

[maddening]

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

[BonzoDooDah]

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)

[KittyFane1]

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

[KittyFane1]

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 :(

[FairPhyllis]

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.

[blanksquit]

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.

[JustFabulous]

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

[McKayz]

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.

[emsyj]

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??

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 though.

[HassledHasASledge]

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?

[BonzoDooDah]

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

[BonzoDooDah]

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.

[TidyDancer]

[Fakebook]

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.

[PuppyMonkey]

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

[QuietNinjaTardis]

Redsky Mabel and Albert have been dead for 7 years.

[PuppyMonkey]

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.