Neighbours at Christmas

[Openedallthechocolates]

I don't really know my neighbours beyond a nod and a hello at the best of times. Not deliberately anti-social but I hardly see them as usually rushing in and out for the school run and work.

One nice elderly couple always leave a Christmas card on my doorstep for me and DD and I always return with a card too. I have a new next door neighbour on the other side and we've introduced each other so I may give them a card too.

Just wondering what others do, do you give cards or gifts for neighbours? I do have low level anxiety that I am an unfriendly person who doesn't know their neighbours!

We do cards for our whole street (and a few others we know locally!) but we’re a rural village, so I think it’s more the done thing - when we lived in the city centre we didn’t receive or give any.

Yes I forgot to say I live in the city, it's a nice friendly area but I expect not as intimate as a rural village.

Chatting with colleagues and school mums it does seem a lot of people are lot friendlier with their neighbours so I do feel a little anti social.

I don't send cards to any neighbours. I used to send two or three, at a time when my children played with their children and we chatted a lot. But two moved away and the remaining ones have grown apart from us now that all the children don't socialise anymore, so I don't bother now. I don't send many cards in general now, but if I received one from a neighbour I knew I might send one back to them just to be polite.

I lived in a flat in London for 20yrs and never gave cards to neighbours. Since moving to a village, not rural, I do give them out- but only to people I chat to, not the entire rd. I personally think its for the existing residents to make the 1st move and welcome the new neighbours. A christmas card can double as a welcome card. When we first moved in, having a card was SO handy to remember peoples names!

In your situation OP, yes, I could give a card to your new neighbour. We often drop them off at night when walking the dog- I don't knock on everyone's door to hand them out. Always include your house name/number. Nothing worse than getting a hand delivered card from Bob and Ruby, and having no cue who they are? Months later, I realised that Ruby is a dog!

Our immediate neighbours are either renters or ignore us (really, studiously standing with their back to us if we should come out at the same time🙄) so nothing.

A couple of others get cards as we've all been here 20 years.

I send cards to the 11 neighbours around us. Lots of us here for a long time. We have a group WhatsApp which we use for bins and rescuing parcels when away. I'm lucky, it's a great street.

We moved in a few years ago and gave cards to those around us as a way of introducing ourselves. It’s reduced since then and we give to about 4 houses near us as they still give to us. I also wish I was more sociable with neighbours but I’m quite a reserved person and I have young children.

I take cards and gingerbread or shortbread to the neighbours each year. We cat-sit for one another, my teens babysat their younger ones as well, so most of us know each other pretty well.

We live in a city.

No but my neighbours give me a card on occasion. I was surprised when they did it at first as they don’t really celebrate. I’m friendly either way them but I don’t have this urge to give cards to everyone I know.

Never give cards to anyone, don't see the need to give to neighbours tbh.

We have three neighbours not that close as we’re rural.
We give cards to two and they reciprocate
We don’t give a card to the other as they tried ( there’s a stand off atm ) to nick some of our land. The other neighbours don’t give them cards either

If people are friendly it’s nice to give cards