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!

I really like them. I can’t be bothered with social media, so it’s a good way of hearing people who I don’t see very often’s news. I like the photos too.

I don’t know anyone that does them apart from some America family friends. I thought they were purely an America thing!

ShinyRuby you obviously haven't read my mothers Christmas letters... The last time I read one it was so demeaning of me that I told her in future the only thing she can say about me is I'm well. I was so upset by it I burned the bloody thing.

k123 - I know exactly what you mean, I came across one my mother had sent and she had told everyone in my family that my daughter had been diagnosed with Processing difficulties (she hasn't) and about my marriage difficulties, information that it is up to me to share with my family if I wish, not for her to fill her Christmas card with.

A family friend of my grandparent's used to do this. She was very quaint and hahaha expat, joining all the church socials and a"all that". She used to send round robins. My gran, my mum and I thought they were awful. When we read them I could hear her voice and the false laugh hahahaha. I was a teenager back then, but actually, now I've read this thread I'v had a "jolly good laugh" as she would have said...

DH's cousin sends one every year and they are one long brag. It used to make me cross, now I just laugh. You can always tell which child has pissed her off most because they only get a passing mention! 😂
My parents had a friend who sent them too. As teenagers we used to beg her to send ones back bragging of our (obviously made up) dodgy, illegal activities! 😁

I think they've mainly died out now though Christmas cards themselves are much less in fashion generally.

A lady I used to work with used to send them. She was a nice lady but they were very braggy. Her husband earned well and so there was lots about the renovation of their 7 bedroom house, the holiday home they were buying, how well the girls were doing with their private school and violin lessons (yawn).

One year we had one to say that eldest girl had dropped out of uni after a term because she missed her boyfriend and younger had decided not to do A levels and was working in Nando's. I almost thought it was a spoof. That was the last one anyway.

I'm not sure it counts as a round robin as its not a standardised print out in every card, but my parents & some of their cousins use xmas cards to exchange updates. They like their cousins but now all have grandkids etc of their own so just don't have as much time to regularly catch up.

They aren't really boasty tho, it will be genuine news about family or mutual interests, eg. "Oliver's moved to Manchester with his family, they are enjoying it and sadly the youngest has started supporting United" , "karen's changed job and is pregnant again", "We finally got around to doing that walking holiday in the peak district and stayed in that b&b you recommended, it was lovely".

I can see the point of this. We are all busy people and we don't all get the time to share news.

My mum gets two, one of them used to be so so braggy
One year the eldest graduated from oxford and the annoying youngest got a first in her first year at Durham

But the year after the eldest had failed probation in his graduate job and the youngest had been kicked out of Durham for some sort of conduct issue.

The card that year spun it that they were going to set up a business together

If you think round robins at Christmas are bad, then be glad my dad doesn’t have your email address. He loves photography and every time he and mum do anything vaguely interesting he sends out an online photo album (he calls it a “photo journal”) to a very long contact list. A single weekend in Amsterdam was considered interesting enough for four separate albums. I can barely bring myself to look at them so god knows what his random acquaintances think