Posted Christmas cards addressed to first names

[cjt110]

We've had 2 Christmas cards through the post so far.

At least one of them were addressed to CJT and CJT as opposed to Mr and Mrs CJT or anything else formal.

It reall gets on my nerves. You know my last name. You've known it for fucking years!

AIBU to think its shoddy, and weird, not to address a card properly?

It's a sodding christmas card, it's about as informal a thing as you can get. Hell, on the infrequent occasion I send my folks anything through the post i address then firstname lastname. Because that's my mum and dad's names. Refering to them as Mr and Mrs Lastname would be fucking weird to me.

As problems go this certainly puts brexit and world hunger in their place!

I like it

For family or close friends I’d use first names too so I think YABU.

If I put surnames on it would be very formal.

I often address address cards to Bob & Sue rather than Bob & Sue Smith. Why the formality with friends? If the card is misposted to a neighbour they are more likely to know Bob and Sue rather than the Smiths. The surname is irrelevant to the post office sorting. Withholding surname is more secure. What’s really going on here OP?

I do that all the time, and I so wish people did it to me!!!!!

Very useful with families where everybody has different surnames (foreign / wife did not change name on marriage / etc).

Also the other day I sent a card to a friend (plus DH & kids) who got married very recently and I'm not sure whether she changed her name or not (didn't ask and don't like to assume!)

Straw - surely unless you get a card after a wedding stating that there has been a change of name and/or title the only polite thing to do is assume that both remain the same as before.

I too was taught formal letter writing, and I’m one of the few MNers who doesn’t get upset by Mr and Mrs B Cumberbatch.
However I now send cards to Mary and John when Mary and John aren’t married.
It felt rather odd.

I like it and do it unless I am sure they are married and have the same name and are smug about it in which case I address it to The Smiths. You would wince when you see that if I can remember the child's name and not the father's I address the card to child'sname and family.

I am shocked that some people on here would return or refuse a card simply because it used the formal method of address of Mr and Mrs B Cumberbatch.
How utterly ungrateful and petty. The chances are that is if from an older member of your family who is simply using the formal method that they were taught. I hope you miserable fuckers get written out of their wills.

And who the fuck is ‘smug’ about having the same name as their husband?

I’d be grateful for any Christmas cards regardless of how they’re addressed. Only get a few these days. From immediate family and a few close friends.

surely unless you get a card after a wedding stating that there has been a change of name and/or title the only polite thing to do is assume that both remain the same as before.

I don't think I know any woman who kept her name, even the known feminists around me, and I have never once received an announcement about a change of name, so no, in real life, I would never assume the name remains the same.

Same as Straw
You can't really assume anything. Although even in 2017 the default is still to take the husband's name in most cases.

I agree with you Hiding

Well, perhaps what I should have said is if you aren't notified of a name change you should ask before assuming. I do think it rude to address someone as a different name unless you have been told it's changed, no one would dream of doing it to a man.

Yes, I would always ask.

no one would dream of doing it to a man.

Well no of course they bloody wouldn’t because it hasn’t been the case then men have changed their names for 100s of years and it is still the case in most marriages that the woman changes her name. The idea that this no longer happens is the result of the Mumsnet perspective field where women don’t change their names and no one answers their front door.
Yes some women don’t change their names, and were I to be getting married now rather than 16 years ago like I did, I wouldn’t change my name. However of all the people I have know who have got married over that alast few years exactly none of them have kept their names.

I have kept my name. Trouble is, absolutely no-one acknowledges that and everyone uses my husband's name when writing to me.

It's so anti-feminist and patriarchal, the most patriarchal symbol of all really. Even if you don't feel like a possession or appendage, changing your name is a hark back to a time when that's what you explicitly were and nobody questioned it.

I think a lot of women like to feel they belong to someone, it makes them feel safe. A friend of my mother's once told me a married woman held a higher status than a single one and using Mrs is a way of confirming this. She said this after her divorce when a lot of people assumed she'd go back to her own name and Miss or Ms.

I did it because I wanted us to all have the same family name. If one person keeps their name, then the kids will have different names to at least one of you. Our names wouldn't double barrel and my maiden name would be awful as a middle name.

To those who think this is a non-issue, it becomes an issue if you move house. Redirection is based on surnames so any cards that are just addressed to first names don’t get redirected.

I hate Mr and Mrs. I think most of our cards have come addressed to us as that though, but I havent thought to look.

Thinking about it, I addressed most cards to older relatives and family friends as Mr and Mrs; cohabiting couples as Sarah and Michael (or whatever); and cards to my friends as just their name ie Belinda Bycroft, but inside the card, I’d put the whole families names down.

I had no idea this was something people gave a shit about. I have a lot to learn.