To hate smug round robins at this time of year

[lastqueenofscotland]

Seriously, do people really think I give a shit if their insufferable teenager passed their GSCEs, their vile adult children haven't been fired from their jobs or their toddlers have successfully mastered the art of occasionally shitting in a potty.

Why do people send these? Does anyone care? Surely they are only the object of ridicule?

Tarquin playing instrument at school. Family walked up x in the Peaks. Cat that got run over. Tarquin birthday cake. New replacement cat. Tarquin passed another exam. Family picture with grandparents. The end.

These people need to either move or stop getting cats!

I am very jealous of people who get these - I've never seen one in the wild and would very much like to.

I don't get them but quite enjoy reading the ones my parents get. My friend writes a beautiful poem of their year which I love reading. Sorry as others have said in the age of Facebook where I actually saw a video someone had posted of their toddler pointing out different colours (I blame myself for watching it). I think they are quite sweet.

Paddington

I'm amazed people still send these. Surely they are outdated given Facebook etc where bragging opportunities are continuous throughout the year. I don't really understand the big deal some people make about their children and their relatively normal achievements. I don't use Facebook and only ever send information on things the DC have done to their grandparents. Why would anyone else be particularly interested?

Paddington your music room isn’t soundproofed? For shame!

I'm not sure what we'd put in ours "Mummy was so hungover she had to go to bed for two days while the children survived on haribo and pringles, then she fell over skiing (because she was still so hungover) and broke her arm, meanwhile the oldest child started High School and told his RE teacher that Flat Earth believers are "frigging lunatics who should be locked away" and the youngest child recently sat at his Christingle performance picking his nose and delicately wiping it underneath his bench in between his solo performance where he burped in the middle of his words and laughed like a drain at his own disgusting ways. Happy New Year to you all".

No. I think it's a good thing these have died a death. Ours would just bring more shame on the family and MIL looks about at her limit already.

Namechanger I'm so sorry, that made me feel really sad. It can be such a horrible time of year. I have two close friends who have lost their mothers in the last two months.

My MIL sends them. She'll list all the things that have gone wrong this year, all the things she suspects are going to go wrong in the next few years, then bemoan the state of the economy, Trump, Brexit etc.

I'm always curious to receive ours and find out how we've let her down this year.

Paddington

We once featured in a relatives round robin, 'The Cacleberries still haven't had a baby'. I was gobsmacked at the intrusion and impertinence.

'The Cacleberries still haven't had a baby'

WTF?!

My sister is racked with curiosity at the moment as she always gets a round Robin from a married schoolfriend which is always lots of pictures of the kids and then "love from John, Jane and the kids" (names changed!)

This year there is the usual letter with pictures of the kids BUT it''s signed "love from Jane and the kids". No clue as to where John has gone since last year. Dead? Divorced? No one seems to know and my sister feels it would be a bit insensitive to message and ask what's happened!

We get a couple each year, I rarely glance at them. I do appreciate friends who include a couple of handwritten lines giving us a quick update on the parts of their lives we'd actually be interested in.

We once got one which wasn't news, but about five of their favourite recipes nicely typed up with photos. I thought that was a lovely idea.

what on earth? I've never heard of these before

@lastqueenofscotland, thank you! The outrage in your OP gave me a much needed laugh.

The smugness and the lack of awareness of people who send them is astonishing. Funny that the people who have genuinely exciting and interesting lives never seem to send them. It's always the dullards who seem to think that others are interested in their dull lives. Bonus points if they include cringe family photos as well.

I get one every year from an old friend. It is always in (abominable) verse . I look forward to it every year, but the hilarity is slightly spoilt by how guilty I feel about dh and me laughing at it (and quoting it to each other repeatedly). They are lovely, lovely people and not pretentious at all, just really sweet and enthusiastic about stuff. But it really is staggeringly twee and poorly-rhymed.

I obviously have different friends to you lot. We receive a few from people we don't see often and have usually a few photos and a few snipits of news.
I don't see them as smug and boasting-they're reporting little things that have changed over the year. Mostly good, occasionally bad. But I like my friends, so can feel pleased that they/their children have passed their exams well/done something unusual this year.

I don't do a round robin (my life isn't very interesting) but as someone who lives quite far away from a lot of my friends and family, I really like receiving them.

Having said that, DFIL sends one which we feature in and I hate that a bit - although it is quite amusing to read how someone else summarises a year of your life. SIL (jokingly) accused us of cramming loads of stuff into one year (last year, we got married, got new jobs and moved countries, and this year we bought a house and got pregnant!) deliberately so as to get more room in the round robin!

I still remember my DM telling me about the round robin she got from friends when I was a small child and my Dad had just died after a long illness. She got sent a card all about how hard they had had it that year. I can’t believe she didn’t dump them as friends.

crackleberry I would have gone nuclear!!!

I love them. We get one every year for the old owners of our house. For the first couple of years we genuinely thought it was a spoof one as it was just so ridiculous - Tarquinius had a hard summer working with lepers in Mongolia so we treated him to a little mini break to Fiji to recuperate, kind of thing. This will be our seventh year receiving one and I’m really looking forward to it. Mostly because each year I think they won’t be able to top last year but they always do. Last year their 18 year old daughter was planning a trip to the North Pole. I can’t wait to hear how that turned out.

I should really write back one year and tell them the old occupants have moved but it’s gone on too long now I feel.

I receive one and look forward to it. But then I outgrew jealousy when I left the playground.

Oh, I love them because they're almost universally absolutely hysterical and absolutely cringe-worthy, in equal measure. They make me want to shrivel up inside and to burst with hilarity at the same time, a bit like Alan Partridge.

I love round robins!! How can you hate them?