Christmas Newsletters

We receive and send a few. Not boastful but to keep up with friends we don't see in the UK and abroad. I like getting them as it keeps us abreast of new babies, people retiring, photos of children growing up etc. I was also put off by comments last year - hurt really. I would hate to think my friends dislike getting them or share them at work. The people we send to send one back and I always handwrite a letter on the back.

Oh, I have quite a few people I only hear from once a year. We might not be in regular touch but I still care about them. People I used to work with, others who were close friends but now live elsewhere, the widower of one of my best friends who died far too young. I look forward to hearing what they’re up to, and particularly finding out how the grandchildren my friend never knew have grown up to be so much like her.

I figure anyone who is sufficiently involved in my life knows what is happening for us. If they need an annual catch up by letter, they aren't close enough to need all the details.

I admit to sending one each year. With a family of 7 it is the only way to keep friends up to date. They are not boastful. Nothing to boast about! Simply a brief resume of our year. I enjoy getting them from friends. I hate it when just a card arrives and no news whatsoever! I love hearing news from friends but we are not into one upmanship.

I appreciate that can be boring but shouldn't we be grateful that someone wants to communicate with us?
I know several people who would LOVE to receive a letter of any sort.

We had one this week, they have lived in Spain for twenty years but have now returned to the UK, I think covid and Brexit had a lot to do with it.
They are lovely people but just inhabit a different planet to us.

Quizzer!

Quizzed you must have read my mind! I receive one of these every year from friends I knew decades ago. They always are printed and contain photos. To be fair to them they are not really boastful. They are comfortably off and do lots of amazing things and it all looks pretty perfect! It did make me stop and think why I felt so irritated. Maybe that's not even the right word! I'm in a better position than many ,but it has been a struggle. I've been blessed with many opportunities in recent years but cant see me being able to retire until I'm 68 etc. So maybe I'm just a bit envious/wistful. Of course it's like anything shared you only get to see the good bits,even if there are a lot of them!
Like some posters my temptation is to do a more realistic one!

We get one from some older relatives. When the wife (my cousin) used to write an ordinary letter, it was interesting and newsy, but since her husband has taken over the Christmas epistle, it’s one long boast, and obviously the same one sent to his Rotary and golfing chums. Last year one of the perfect GC was getting married in 2020, wonder if that happened with COVID. No doubt will soon hear!

Years ago when the children were smaller, we used to send and receive these. Most were from friends we saw only occasionally, and some from relatives. Most were well received and interesting, but I do remember one of my husband's cousins seeming a bit too perfect to be real. Of course in those days we still paid our phone bill by long distance calls, so getting all the news in one letter was nice.

These days any family news is on facebook for all and sundry to see. You can see those that are a bit boastful, but most of the news is nice to see. Of course people are not going to let everyone else know little Johnny was caught shoplifting, but they will let you know he was picked as team captain on his sports team!

I absolutely hate the smug, self-congratulatory boasting in these awful essays, happily I'm no longer in touch with any of the people who used to send them to me. Not interested, 'bye.

I get just the one now and that's always quite long winded because it's in sections for each of the 5 family members. I can cope with that bit but the "xxxxxxxx family" update is always a blow by blow account of whatever new extension/upgrade/overhaul/landscaping work they've had done on the house/garden in the last year and it always goes into microscopic detail.

I have not had a "Christmas Newsletter", just short notes written in greeting cards as a catch-up on our well being. But what does get on my nerves is those b****y "chain" messages on social media with flashing images and freaky looking Santas wishing me "Merry Christmas " and informing me that if I don't send the message on to all of my friend (including the sender) the FB bogey man will impart serious consequences upon me for the rest of my existence! Guess who doesn't participate?

I’ve just had one - quite restrained by the normal standards of the writers and I felt obliged to reply and congratulate them on managing a Christmas letter in a year when to use a popular phrase, my bins went out more often than I did!
I wonder how they will take that.....

I’ve never had anything like this. I do get annual letters in with Christmas cards, but they’re ones I look forward to, with welcome news of people I actually like. I guess I just don’t move in exalted circles where people have much to boast about.

I think there’ll be fewer and fewer of them as more and more people do their bragging on social media.

We get one. We look forward to it for the pure amusement value.

The Christmas newsletter in question was positively nauseating. It boastfully described their perfect life and perfect family, even under Covid! It ran to two sides of small font A4 even my placid DH read it and threw it on the floor in disgust.

We used to always get a few. Some were so boasty I wanted to send them to each other. One couple, year after year, with all the additional children, partners, grandchildren even friends. I totally lost track of who was who. After their final magnificent world cruise they both sadly died within a year of each other and their children don't continue the tradition.

We used to get just one, from a former colleague of my H’s.
It was so boastful that like Newquay said ,family and friends used to ask what was in it that year.
It was a second marriage for him and a first for her so no news of children but they were both quite politically motivated and were on all sorts of committees and we heard of their triumphs.
They were also devoted to historical sites so would hear in boring detail about their travels to them.
Just once we were invited to a meal and what I don’t know about the pyramids and tombs in Egypt after a few hours of slides could be written on a postage stamp.
Not true of course, I couldn’t remember a thing after I left.

We have one every year -it runs to several pages; one for each adult and each adult child. In glorious technicolour-very slick!
When I was still working colleagues used to ask to see it too!

kittylester That’s just the sort of thing I always fancied writing- husbands in growing toenail, daughter living in a squat, could go on but probably not PC!!

Has anyone had a Round Robin email?

They seem to be the usual thing with DH's cohort at university. Tgey are started by someone who I call Miss Bossy Boots. The only people who reply seem to be the show offs. 'Sailing round the Med with my 3rd wife who recently won Miss World' type thing. DH wont let me reply along the lines of 'Just picking up cat sick while catching the rain that is pouring through the ceiling!'

I just got one and I have no idea who two of the people they were sending updates on are. I don't mind getting them but I prefer them not to be several pages long.

We've had two so far, both newsy and interesting.

I didn't send any at all after reading such disparaging views on GN last year

I feel left out, never had one! The few good friends we have chat on the phone, if local we meet regularly, further away, as often as we can.