Round robin

Keep smiling glass - it's not worth getting into a tizz. Shrug it off and look forward to your own family and Christmas {hugs}. However, I do know how you feel .........................................

Yes - and vow to send her a card next year with insufficient postage!
You probably won't do that, but it might make you feel a bit better in the meantime...

I didn't know you could get angry Glass. Wow!

Send them this one back

baubles that is fabulous! I love it!

baubles thats great do you think I dare email to my relative

bauble thanks for posting that Lynne Truss link its wonderful.

Wonderful, superb message Glass! We too had to go collect and pay an extortionate sum of money to our local PO for a card that had the tiniest bit of bauble which wouldn't go through their machine! Maybe the time has come for cards to carry a warning to prospective purchasers.

And what about the people who send their godawful round-robins via email but only late enough to have RECEIVED Christmas cards - at least all the other 'my life is perfect and wonderful' smug messages can go straight to the shredder. My Christmas list is dwindling very, very fast.

Ooooooh, and I thought I'd plateaued at charitable!

Happy Christmas Glass! xx

Their life can't be that great really glass if they need to make sure you know - well that's what I keep telling myself.

I plead guilty to sending a Christmas letter as attachment to an email and cards to the ones who don't have an email address. Only problem was that several couldn't download the attachment because they didn't have the right version of Publisher, so I had to convert it to a PDF and re-send it. Don't worry - it was a very short letter!

How I wish I'd sent an 'alternative' Christmas message - and how I love the thought of the Queen reading out the true version of state and family - now that would be a hoot!

I have received a couple of round robins this year which I could have done without. They are full of their own and their kids marvellous achievements. H ow do they find time to do this at Christmas-takes me all my time to write the blooming cards. I love to receive cards however.

i would rather have a round robin than no letter at all. It is very frustrating to get a card from people you haven't seen for a year with no wee note. I like to know how their kids and grandkids are doing and, as we increasingly age, how their health is. If you don't like them you can just recycle them.

Brilliant Baubles (BTW the 'legs' and 1 arm have indeed been having a festive fling this week - never mind got all my washing, ironing and wrapping done in peace)

Baubles I laughed out loud. Brilliant!

Loved that, Baubles! I've only had one this year, and it's from a really nice cousin. However, I skimmed through it and screwed it up into a ball straight away and threw it towards the paper recycling bin. She is nice though...but I really don't need or want to read about R being chosen to play in the junior cricket team for Windsor. Although I was a bit concerned to hear that one of their horses may not be able to foal in the next year....but all of the others will probably be ok . As S's other son is at Glasgow Uni, they have bought a flat for him in a Victorian tenement (Baubles will know what they go for!) and are at the moment having it re-roofed. If she has time when they come up north to check on the work, she may pop over to visit me.......I do hope I'm in !

wisewoman, I agree that it's the time to hear from old friends whom we don't see often but I would still rather have a short note on the Christmas card than a round robin with no personal message on it. I write short notes on cards (used to be handwritten letters, but hey ho). Still you're right, even an impersonal round robin is news. (They could at least write your name on it to prove they remember who you are!)

I've just had a lovely card from my ex husband . It's a strange time of year isn't it, this annual communication with people. I do try to write something personal in each card, even if it is very short with lots of smileys and exclamation marks. !! ....[and bah humbugs]....

DH had downloaded and printed up Lynne Truss's letter and her replies before I saw this. great minds!!

I get the joke. I read all Lynne Wotshername's replies and found them amusing on one level. But deep down, I think they are just as bad. Kinder, I feel, just to give up reading the nauseating letters, and use them as firelighters or something. Then cross the nauseaters off your xmas list. It's not obligatory to send xmas cards to anyone.

I have a great deal of affection for this relative we spent most of our childhood together and have contact through various mediums so why send me this impersonal round robin!

Never mind its in the recycle bin, but I still resent the postage paid to Royal Mail to retrieve the letter

Thank you Nanban Merry Christmas to you and I hope the season brings everything you wish for.

kitty I do wonder if thats the case.

Pity there isn't some way you could have found out who the letter was from before you went to collect it, glass, and then you needn't have bothered. Life, eh?

Bags That reminds me of a story I heard about a poor woman whose son left to "seek his fortune" Each month a letter arrived for her and was brought to her door. This was before the penny post and she had to pay for the postage herself. She would look at his writing on the outside, say "no thank you" and it would be taken away unpaid for.

One day a kind neighbour paid the postage and gave the letter to her, thinking she would be pleased to read news from her son. She thanked them for their generosity, "But" she added. "He knows that I can't read so there is nothing written in it. I don't need to look inside. When I see that he has written on the outside, I know that he is still alive and thinking of me. That is good news enough"

That's quite heartwarming, Elegran