What do you do when you can't remember the names of all of your friend's children, but you want to send them a Christmas card?

[HeadFairy]

Dh is rubbish, he's got some friends who we always go and see when we're over in Jersey, he's pretty good friends with them, grew up together, but he's forgotten their children's names. One friend has got four children, we know the names of three of them but can't for the life of us remember the fourth, and another friend has two boys but we can't remember the name of one of them. WWYD?

write "dear friends and Family"

Don't write a To just write from Headfairy, Mr Headfairy and baby fairies.

I do this when I can't remember although loads of people just do froms IYSWIM

I hate to SK, MrSK and family and girls. I want to scream they have names

.....and family

Twas standard parlance in Ireland when I was young. You'd have to be an elephant to remember all the kids names.

Are they married? I'd just go for

"to the Browns"

or "XXXX, XXXX & family"

(or wait until their card to you arrives with their names in )

To "all at Sea View" from "all at Home Cottage" works well, but in my family it was more like "from all at 32a" and "to all at "basement flat"

Its even worse when you are half way through writing the card and realise taht you can't remember the youngest child's name

Put "The Brown family" on the envelope and then inside "Dear all" - followed by a personal message to make it clear that I do actually know who I am talking to.

Ti the [insert surname]

Merry Christmas

Love from

The Headfairies

Mwah Mwah

We had a card yesterday from someone who had obviously forgotten not only the names of our family, but also their own, as it was completely blank inside.....

Just because they are married don't assume that they all share the same surname!
I don't particularly like being referred to as 'the DHsurnames'...people should know me well enough to know that I have my own name!

One of my best friends always texts me asking for my youngest's name (which I prefer because one year I got a card with "To X, X, X, X and (can't remember the other one's name)!

I just wrote one to XXX, XXX, xxx, xxx and {baby xxx - very sorry but i have been pg and forgotten your DD's name - many apologies)

I felt this was better than 'and family', 'and children' or 'to family X' as when i receive cards like this i KNOW people have forgotten our DC's names. I thought it was better to be upfront about being crap (and TBH they probably would expect as much from me )

LOL Bumblelion, twas me

Thought it was you, SazzlesIsASleighBell!

LOL rustybear, I've done the blank card thing too, I'm just too darn vague for my own good.

Ok I've found one set of names, phew! Had to rummage around to find all ds' new baby/christening/first birthday cards and there was one from the family with two boys.

The confusing thing is the second family have a boy with the same name as one of the boys in the first family, and their youngest daughter has the same name as one of my friend's daughters, but I can't remember which one. I just know it's an Irish name, but they've all got Irish names.... gah! I've got a couple of days til the last posting date for Jersey haven't I? I'll have to get my detective hat on!

Keep a note of all the kid's names in your address book

Phew! finally found them all out, dh rang his friend's secretary! They are all now in our address book!