Christmas "round robin" letters? <shudder> Why oh why?

[Bonsoir]

Am I being unreasonable to wish that the government would impose a punitive tax rate on offenders?

One of DH's cousins is a missionary in some god-forsaken place and every year we get a begging letter very thinly disguised as a round robin.

Is both hysterically funny and vaguely annoying at the same time.

I have no idea what a round robin is but I want one after reading this.

If I cat you all my address will you send me some?

I could do one of my own as well. (am assuming its a newsletter type thing addressed to everyone you have ever met/talked to in a supermarket queue/had casual sex with etc etc.

Dear all,

well this year has been fab, since my double redundancy it seems dp has finally got his drinking under control, lack of finance is such a motivator!
Our sex life is well on track again, in fact, we have been trying out a few new ideas which I have listed below using bullet points;

I've never had one myself but MIL writes them to people every year. She rang me the other day to 'check a few facts' as she was writing her RR. The 'facts' she wanted to check were exactly which shapes my 22month old DD knew - was it all of them or just circle, triangle and square? Ummm.....just those 3 actually. And secondly, what exactly did DD1 do when she won a competition to attend a film review workshop in London a couple of weeks ago?

I was absolutely cringing at the thought of what she was writing in her RR - can you honestly imagine anyone being remotely interested in those snippets of information? The people she was writing to would never have even met said grandchildren so why would they care which shapes they know?

I would love to receive a RR though - it would put the 'cheer' into Christmas I think

Ha ha! This thread is excellent. I would never dream of writing an RR, but I adore receiving them. Most of our family friends write them in third person, which adds to the hilarity. The most cringeworthy though? One distant acquaintance of ours writes it about herself, her husband, and their five kids. Amidst the excruciating detail, she makes 'jokes' and attributes them to the editor - herself...

e.g. 'DH is not working abroad this year so will be at home with us (working even harder! - ed.)

What a twat! But it is the highlight of going home to my parents' place at christmas.

I never send them, receive quite a few. Don't mind the concise, newsy, down to earth ones. Get one from someone every year which runs to at least 2, sometimes 3 pages. Usually give up reading after a couple of paras. Got one from a family a few years ago which went "(Daddy) doing fantastically well in his career (lots of detail about how wonderful everyone at work thinks he is); (son) actually isn't doing anything special from but letter hams up ever last little thing; (daughter) is a superstar, teacher commented she is a delight to teach; and (Mummy) continues to be the most amazing wife and mother. That last bit is word-for-word what it said.
Who the hell wrote it then?

My favourite ever quote was from some friends of my parents: "Rachel took a short break from living it up on the beaches of Goa to volunteer with a small charity in Kerala that uses puppetry to teach children about The importance of positive body images. She was so inspired by her time there that she plans to bring psycho-puppetry to the children of Minnesota when she returns. We are less convinced than her of the demand, but have decided to sell our Winnebago to fund her first year's work. In other news, our cat died."

We look forward to their letters each year, they are a charming mix of the prosaic and the totally bonkers.

I can't believe I forgot to tell you the best bit! The RR from the 'editor' is 24 pages long which she photocopies for everyone on her list. I kid you not. Two pages per month.

My uncle sends one in verse

This years had such classics as:

Alas for our neighbour dear Dolly it proved far too cold for her age.
She took to her bed and soon was quite dead
While round us the blizzard did rage.

and

Now DS he decided to move house, from West unto fair London town.
From one bedroom flat with a baby that was sure to cause him a frown.
His nice two bed place was all waiting so DS he roped in his dad.
The ganga-laced van was too small for the plan, so the move took all weekend, its sad.

It goes on in this vein for 2 sides of A4...

We had the best one this year. It opened with, and I paraphrase, 'we've had such a wonderful year, with RelativeA turning 60 and having such a fabulous party. The surprise discovery of an illegitimate grand daughter made the first half of the year very interesting.'

It then moved onto announcing RelativeB's unborn child's name (not confirmed, no one else even knew the sex).

After giving us the sad news that the dog had finally popped its clogs, it ended with (I promise I'm not making this up, you couldn't), 'we've found this year very difficult, so we're getting divorced.'

Priceless.

Redbug, that is fantastic!

Mr Echt has written an RR from us for a few years, all real stuff, just the random observations of life, but from the point of view of an elderly, slightly right-wing and intolerant whinger. Naturally our early years on Oz provided him with reams of bizarre material, but it all seems so normal now.

The trouble with this is, how do we tell about all the other stuff that would find its way into a real RR? Especially now we're so far away from everyone?

We do get a few of these from his rels, which kicked all of this off, but the best one is from one of his workmates;six sides of closely-typed detail. Excruciating.

love them

Norks - that's awful!
Most of our friends are pretty normal and not boastful. We tend to put in a pic of kids, and a line or so about everyone, like "dk2 started school this year and loves it".
We don't put it in cards of people who're well up to date with us, but then, we don't send cards to people we see everyday (that's a whole other topic, isn't it?). A lot of friends are close enough to be interested, but as we've moved round the country (and so have they), we probably only catch up with half to a third of them each year.

MisSal - one sentence is fine! That makes all the difference. I get a card each year from someone I worked with 9 years ago, who writes nothing, so I know nothing of her life since then, and I don't really see the point of that.

MerryMerryKitten - that letter would be great, much like ours.

i dont send any fuckign cards so there is no issue

Me neither and I have ben accused by some of being very bah humbug

we love reading the boasty and mocking - we are mean

on the other hand we got one one year though where she was saying that her daughter (13yo) wasn't very bright and her son (about 11) didn't make friends easily and thought that was a bit - poor children having their mother advertise their shortcomings in a letter sent out to all sorts of people

so yes they should definitely be banned - 99.9999% of people can't get it right (I'd never be able to so I don't send em. And my life is crashingly boring)

I always look forward to the one I get for the people who used to live here.
I can see why they haven't told her they have moved!

The women is single and has a son of about 20 who she worships.
Last year she was obviously really pissed off as he moved out of home to live with his pregnant girlfriend.
The round robin I got this morning shows all tensions have eased and she is very happy with her baby grandaughter and even gets pn with her DIL. Her dog however still can't walk very well and after trying internet dating for a year has decided it isn't for her.

snickersnack, we're all laughing at that one. cheers

psycho-puppetry

i always get one from an old friend and it makes me cringe - everything is so perfect. this year when her and her boyfriend bought a house, we got a picture of the house and how wonderful life is email......

just bought simon hoggarts book for my mate and sister for xmas, hope it comes soon and i can read a bit!!!! lol

Reading Out The Round Robins is the annual highlight of Christmas at my parents. They get better with age, as the original writers acquire new sets of grandchildren and great-grandchildren to brag about, while skipping briskly over redundancies and divorces to leave more room for chronic ailments. One favourite has 'Sid's marrow updates'.

i actually like getting them - if they're from people I know reasonably well, I can compare and contrast with the version of events I heard at the time, and if they're from acquaintances, there's hours of fun in speculating about what's between the lines. Pitching the tone to fit your entire Christmas card list must be v hard though. I resist them myself - we're still not married or "blessed with little ones" (top grandparental round robin phrase), and not that much really happens. It's a slippery slope from telling friends you've moved to 'updating' everyone on your puppy's near-perfect house-training and bewailing the hilarious trials of TTC.

Redbug - that is hilarious!

I think it's quite nice to hear people's news.

That Simon Hoggart book has absolutely ruined the good old Round Robin. They used to be absolutely hilariously awful, but now they're generally pretty bland and people don't feel they can boast quite so shamelessly in case they end up in a book!

One friend of my parents' goes so far as to underline what he thinks are the particularly important parts of the letter - eg 'This year I have finally got to grips with email.' Or 'We had a lovely summer holiday in North Devon' Just in case you're taking notes presumably!