AIBU to really dislike Round Robin updates in Christmas Cards?

[ShinyRuby]

I mean the printed list of family achievements that some people insist on putting inside their cards. I had one today, a printed A4 sheet from someone who I haven't seen for a number of years. It had a paragraph for each member of the family detailing all their achievements over the year. I just found it all so very boastful & braggy. Obviously there's never anything negative &, reading between the lines, the achievements seemed to be no more than any average family. I know the letters go to literally everybody she knows. I can't see the need but maybe IABU. Anyway, it went straight into the recycling!

Oh please someone find the Janet and Roy one - I remember reading that and really laughing. Also this is the year I am going to send it to SIL

@NegroniOnIce here's one:

Janet and Roy 2015 http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/Christmas/2514516-Janet-and-Roy-2015

The effort that went into some of them is outstanding

I absolutely love them.

Unfortunately none of my family are wanky enough to send them but we get a couple from people who send cards to our house in error for previous occupants.

They are hilarious

One family is particularly brilliant with their incredibly mediocre adult children that they portray as Nobel Laureates. I've particularly enjoyed reading about their 'property' (ooh could be a house, could be a castle, could be a grotty bedsit) in Southern France and the woes they've had buying it, especially having to move some of their 'funds' (again, could be a million quid, could be £3.85) around.

Tossers.

There is no thought given to the recipients as individuals. Not even a 'how are you?' in most.

I think they're probably assuming most recipients realise it's not an personal letter to them. It would sound disturbingly fake to be personal in a letter everyone knew was also addressed to 50 other people.

I think the only funny thing about these letters is that the technology is a bit archaic. I bet some people sneering/laughing at them either send or receive similar information on facebook, without reacting in the same way.

We love getting them (and send some ourselves ) Okay, so some of them are funny, due to unintentional bragging. But I love getting an update from people that I haven't seen in years, due to distance and other issues.

We send them to friends and family of my late and much missed MIL - they are mostly elderly and don't use social media, so it's a good way to let them know what we are up to. We're not a high-achieving family, so it's just titbits about our (usually UK-based) holidays, getting a pet, but also bereavements and difficult times.

I know why some of you find them hilarious, but I think it's rather mean-spirited to hate them. Just throw them into the recycling if you don't want to read them

@MrsBobBlackadder

Brilliant! Thank you

I love a giggle at RRs. We used to get one from a very smug couple who had a (lovely) daughter and loved boasting about her sporting achievements. These boasts tailed off after she failed to reach the Olympics. My mum sent one once, after we'd had a very hard but busy year and she felt the need to explain to ppl what had been going on. She pointedly started it with "Gosh, I usually hate RRs but..." to try and stem the boast. I'm crafting them a J&R this yr and getting a friend in the Cotswolds to send it. .

That said, we get a nice one from someone who waited a very long time for her Dd. Theirs is a nice update of family news- she mentions what her Dd enjoys rather than what she excels at- along with a general "doing well at school, happy, still prefers English to maths, like her mum!". She's light in tone, funny and there are no big boasts, just happiness. I don't begrudge that woman a single second of her joy. I love her updates.

My ex's family also used to get a smugfest from a cousin. The ritual was that the younger DS would read it out in imitation of the Queen after Xmas Dinner. They greatly enjoyed the skimming over that happened the yr one of the Cousins wunderkinds got knocked up young & had a shot gun wedding. Think Ex's DM did feel "moved to inform" the yr Ex got his PhD in Physics. None of the wunderkinds, to my knowledge, has topped that one!

I'm doing one this year, I haven't done one in ages. I'm doing it with the most ignoble of motives. . .

They don't go in the bin, they go in the shredder

What kind of people do these? Is it a middle class thing? I have literally never heard of this and I don’t remember my mum ever receiving one?

What is this round Robin nonsense?

Thank goodness I'm not the only one wondering, I was beginning to think I lived in a different universe . I've never had one and highly unlikely to as I stopped sending cards years ago my husband still sends some though.

I've never heard of anyone doing this Round Robin thing, how cringey though

I like them, it’s nice to hear what people that we don’t see often are up to. The ones we get are not boasting, just a few photos and an update on where their lives are. I’d much rather that than wading through millions of Facebook posts.

I love round Robin letters. I give them a quick read and then slip them inside random Xmas cards for my friends. They do the same with theirs. It makes it much more interesting.

I am feeling distinctly evil after being reminded of the Janet & Roy RRs. I'm going to do some this year, but sent to utterly random addresses of strangers, in the first week of December to see if I get any back.

I don't like or use Facebook either...

Hahaa
We get one each year from friends in the USA.

Wouldn't mind but they are FB friends so I know all this anyway from their posts throughout the year.

Our old neighbour used to type up a fortnightly newsletter and post it through about 100 letter boxes in the area, It was an A4 page providing us with updates on her daughters progress at school and in her after school sport, at the end she would let us know she would be in random alley way at XXXX time in the next town over, to clean it up and she would appreciate some help.

This was the mid nineties, everyone thought she was bonkers, it was a really rough working class estate, and some thought she only done it to showcase that she had a PC and printer at home (a really rare occurrence back then) and that she only picked these clean up places as no one would actually go and help or check up if she'd actually cleaned the place up.

Thinking back on it now as an adult makes me realise how nutty it was... I suppose people just post this random crap on facebook these days. The majority of people who received her newsletter wouldn't have known her from Adam.

My 'D'M writes these with heavily edited or greatly exaggerated news about me. I only found out by chance, because she carefully hid the fact that she was doing it.

There is a wholly imaginary Ambidexte going around doing all sorts of invented stuff. God knows what her friends think when they actually meet me.

I miss these, we don't get them since my parents split up and my Mum died but when we did..

'We cycled the length of Japan 'en famille' this summer, Cynthia passed her grade 84 Flute and Violin on the way (and still only 8 years old), and Irene (Charlottes grandmother, Cynthias great grandmother) enjoyed the trip on the rear seat of the tandem.

We are wintering in Outer Mongolia this year so no mince pies for us, just yaks milk and boiled horse, what fun!'...

Etc etc. We seemed to have a LOT of friends like that.... hmmm..

I know why some of you find them hilarious, but I think it's rather mean-spirited to hate them. Just throw them into the recycling if you don't want to read them

But the vast majority of the people you send them to are likely to find them either hilarious or awful the fact that you like receiving them and sending them that makes you unusual so equally you could simply not send them, if the idea of people hating them or laughing at them upsets you?

What kind of people do these? Is it a middle class thing? I have literally never heard of this and I don’t remember my mum ever receiving one?

I'm Irish and currently live in England, and I've never had one from an Irish person. The ones we were sent when I was growing up were all from England I don't know whether it's something that's far more done in England (and the US?) than in other countries? From what I see here, it's predominantly older lower-middle-class people who are completely without irony, who either list their children's achievements as though compiling a Wiki entry, doggedly listing triathlon, promotion, a lovely holiday on Crete, the birth of little Harrison or who go for the 'We're kerrazy, us!' approach and do lots of puns, always sign their Christmas cards including the dog, and include a photo of themselves wearing matching Christmas jumpers.

Oh, and I thought of a better analogy, for people who've never encountered round robins. They're sent by the kind of people who, in former times, used to make slides of their holiday snaps, and if you visited, they would get out the projector and go through all of the slides one by one, with commentary. 'That's Roy on a camel. Roy, what was the camel's name again? Can't you? I can't remember either. Roy on a camel again. And again. Oh, both of us on camels, about to start our trek. Terrible breath -- or was that our guide Mohammed? Ha ha! There's the sunset from our balcony. Aaand the moon from our balcony. And our sunlounger with a cheeky cocktail! etc etc etc.'

Hell may actually be other people's holiday snaps.

Oh I love round robins. A lot of our acquaintances have very high flying offspring. It's like playing bingo in what phrases they use.you could almost make a league table in which family are on top. Also also i love being nosey in that way

Boast by Post is a good term for these!
We had one from a very religious friend, training to become a vicar the previous year but he had decided not to proceed, lack of spiritual calling etc etc.. Unfortunately for him his Bishop became our Bishop hundreds of miles away and the mention of friend's name didn't go down well, we later found it involved some very secular hanky-panky.