Any good Round Robins yet?

[UnquietDad]

aka Boast By Post.

I'm sure they will start to arrive in the next couple of weeks. All those Tamaras doing Grade 8 violin, Jocastas going to work on kibbutzim (look, I know the proper plural!) while passing their advanced scuba diving exams, and Tarquins passing the entrance exam for St Nob's.

The funniest thing is that the friend who unfailingly does the best one and has us (unintentionally) snorting with laughter has just had an affair, split up with hubby and moved out. So theirs should be a great one this year.

Yay! Send it to me!

yep, got one today, not very interesting though. Even the person writing it said it wasn't very interesting

rofl at 'What a year for team Smith!

BratNav - your post reminded me of a few Christmases ago when FIL stared proudly around the table at Christmas lunch and launched into a speech about how it had been the best year ever for the family - a sentiment not appreciated by either me or BIL as both of our father's had died but a couple of months before Christmas.
DH's family have a long tradition of tactlessness but I felt that took the biscuit.

Mines on the christmas topic

PMSL Pyjamagirl. I dare you to send it.

I cant I will get sooooooo done my sister can't take a joke either

Mine arrived today

DS has succeeded in 12 different sports; Music; school etc

DD is getting married (far too young- my opinion, not her mothers). One very odd line reads

DD has been on a first aid course on behalf of {a large store}(easy when you consider her lifesaving qualifications). Is it me or WTF?! What lifesaving do you do in a shop?

I always feel inadequate after reading them.

Perhaps she works in a flood prone area

My dad always gets a great letter from an old friend of his. Not a RR but a really long letter usually detailing what jobs he has been doing throught the year. He is an engineer (and so is my dad) and it usually has something to do with sewage works etc. Not boastful, but incredibly boring and unintentionally hilarious. I always ask my Dad if I can read it.

i got my first the other day. very affected writing style, let down by the poor grammar and limited vocabulary. it's a hoot.

would love to quote it but I think one or 2 MN regulars may have recieved the same letter and i wouldn't want get back to sender.

It would deprive me of one of my annual opportunities for derision and laughter.

My God. I just received 2 FULL pages of how someone's rabbit was up to....

I only get one from my SIL.

Its very American / californian and definitely NOT something I would ever send .... BUT

I love reading it and bitching about it afterwards ....

My parents get hundreds as they have millions of friends. I am really nosy - its fascinating reading them. There is one perfect family that trumps them all, who are intelligent, attractive and saintly. On top of Oxbridge attendance and dream weddings family members have obtained pilots licences and adopted disabled children.

However you look at it they are abit cringeworthy.

I think it's a horrible idea. It's purely showing off! We get one from friends abroad and I hate it because a) I don't care about their weather/shops/schools etc
b) she tries to make it "funny" and it really isn't and c) it's sent to 101 different people - frankly if she can't be bothered to tell me personally what they're up to then I don't want to know.

A nasty American (I assume) idea which really shouldn't be copied. IMHO, obviously.

that said, I still love getting it, just so that DP and I can take the p**s out of it!!

They are hilarious but I would rather scrape my eyes out with a rusty spoon than send one . Yesterday's has made me view its writers in a totally different light. I used to think they were lovely people.

You can only fit 'swimming pool', 'holiday' and 'number of bedrooms' so many times into a single letter without being vulgar .

Ive never heard of them

I read the S.H book and loved it. Dispite this I sent my first ever RR this year. In my defence we have moved to Scotland this year and I found I was writting the same things to a lot of concerned friends in England. I did start by saying I wouldnt make a habbit of it but felt that this year the evil had to be embraced.

WE had one this year which I suprised when it seemed to mention a lot of illnesses - nothing major, just chest infections, coughs, colds, etc But all intermingled with several holidays. Just seemed odd thing to include.

I love getting them and generally send one, too. They don't have to be boastful. I try to tell stories against myself, as does my cousin, e.g. when she was ill: "Dh looked after me really well, cooked me all his favourite meals and now I'm like the side of a house."

One friend, tho, said her dd had been practising her French on hol by asking for the pain DU chocolat in the campsite shop each morning.

So I am not averse to the odd scoff, if it is merited.

I've mostly just scribed a few lines in cards this year but some people, like my mum's aged cousin, expect a full run-down of our year. A Round Robin is the least bad option for me but I can't be arsed to buckle down and write one.

I sent one last year, with a photo of all of our darlings with blacked-out teeth, black eye, wearing prison uniform. It was a sad tale of our broken home, alcoholic father, how I'd run off with the one-legged circus man, then changed my mind after dd2 lost a finger to the lion... that sort of thing. Didn't get any in reply from usual suspects, so perhaps it worked.

we always seem to get loads, having moved around a bit. some are great - one friend does it as a spoof newspaper & it's genuinely funny & a quick way to catch up.
another friend writes it all in the first person, from all the family members, even the babies!
i would like to say that i steadfastly refuse to get sucked in. i think honesty dictates that i am too lazy to bother - a quick sentence to everybody will do.

I must admit, if I didn't get the usual RR from marathon-running friends I would be disappointed. I love reading about their various sports injuries, which means they weren't able to shave 0.000000013 seconds off their best marathon time, and in latter years they've added yachting to their pastimes which has produced a whole new crop of bizarre injuries for me to look forward to reading about!