For everyone who hates printed Christmas letters

[OldieMum]

Simon Hoggart gives us some extracts from the pick of the crop: \link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1369884,00.html\here}

at your lovely children's names davros!

Thanks, this year we are particularly proud of X as he has learnt to wipe his bum and Y is doing well with her object throwing.

funny, midnightmass' ds has friends called A and B, do X and Y know them?

We had wanted to call them A and B but decided those were too common

My favourite one is from the family I au paired for. I know that the children won't remember me but this year my own children are the same age as they were when I looked after them. Actually I was probably more like a live-in nanny and at the time very attached to the children so am quite nostalgic at the photo of these two strapping teenage boys who I used to tuck up in bed etc when they were littlies. Also makes me feel my age - that one....

One of the children I au-paired for has a child older than mine! Now that is scary.
I'm another lover of RRs, and I also read the letters my parents get. Comes of being nosy I think (in my personal case only, of course). Probably ought to write one; have done on occasion, but it is so difficult to do, as this thread attests. Hats off to those of you who've bothered.

I like to read them too and have already ordered the Simon Hoggart book so I can read more of them . I particularly like the naff ones - it's so interesting what other people think is interesting about their lives.

If I did one this year (which I never do) it would be very like Flumberrysauce's: we had a baby in April, and none of us has done anything else particularly interesting at all.

It's really interesting to hear the view that cards with photos of one's children are considered in bad taste here. In the US it's pretty much the done thing. And while I detest "my progeny are the center of the universe" type attitudes, I somehow don't mind cards with children's photos. I rather like seeing how children I haven't seen in years are growing up.

What I do find confusing (and possibly in bad taste) here is the way local "friends" who never bother to invite us round or accept invitations or make any effort to stay in contact with us during the year, still send us Christmas cards. Why? They clearly have no interest in us, and yet their cards are the first to arrive, usually with some line like "We're expecting baby number three in May!" Why not ring up and tell us that?

Show-offy round robins (we just call them "Christmas letters") are as abhorred in the US as they are here. That backlash must be universal.

We've received 3 so far. Two very professional, one being from someone we met on holiday 6 years ago and have never seen since! One is hand written and on two pages and virtually unreadable. Again, haven't seen them for about 5 years at least!