Christmas Newsletters

Don't mind the 'my wonderful life and family' - if it is news to me AND can fit on one page!

We used to get one from a couple we hadn't seen for years that was exhausting just to read - all about camping in extremes and climbing mountains. I think they're probably past that now as the impersonal newsletters have stopped. But their letter that really tickled us was all about the wife's 60th birthday when they'd enjoyed a Ceilidh with their 150 best friends. It became a running joke for years that we hadn't made the list and friends we invited on holiday once asked if none of our 150 best friends could make it!

I love getting these letters, keeping up with people whom we don't see so often.
In earlier years, I wouldn't have sent a round robin Christmas letter (we weren't rich but we were fortunate). But I started sending one over 20 years ago, as we were about to become grandparents. Friends say they like to have our news - well, just mine now. Obviously there has been sad news to impart during those years, and this year is no exception.
Am I just reminding people who I am these days?

cangran

We used to get one from a couple we hadn't seen for years that was exhausting just to read - all about camping in extremes and climbing mountains. I think they're probably past that now as the impersonal newsletters have stopped. But their letter that really tickled us was all about the wife's 60th birthday when they'd enjoyed a Ceilidh with their 150 best friends. It became a running joke for years that we hadn't made the list and friends we invited on holiday once asked if none of our 150 best friends could make it!

They had 150 best friends?

I don't think I've even met 150 people in my entire life - and I'm 81!

They must meet an awful lot of people in a very short space of time and become best-friend very quickly!

I’d love to receive news such as this, maybe they’re just lovely, positive people with a zest for life and adventures. Good for them! Bah humbug to the haters 😂😂😂😂

I don't care for the boasty type of 'round robin' and why would anyone be interesteed when they haven't been in touch with each other all year, but suddenly find the time to fill everybody in with the year's activities in with a Christmas card.

We had one from a neighbour which had several photos (more than one one each subject in case you missed anything) and a lot of bragging about holidays etc. It seems meaningless to me and I write individual letters to relevant people with information and questions. A lot of boastful text is what it is and not what it tries to be.

I write one every year and wondered if people found it tedious, but one year after I'd met up in person with someone I hadn't seen for a while, she said how she looked forward to receiving our news. I still make the effort but try to make it newsy with pictures of relevant events.
I enjoy most that I receive though there are a couple that are really boring - all text, no pictures and more than one typed page. I still read them but sometimes have to put them aside to make time!

The year my ex husband walked out on me (also leaving a distraught pre-teen daughter) I received a FIVE page Christmas letter from a 'friend' detailing their 25th Wedding Anniversary trip, with an enlarged photo of them at their party with 100+ guests! Not a word asking how we were doing our first Christmas alone - and this couple knew us as we'd holidayed together. Needless to say I've not seen them since...

I really enjoy getting newsletters; even if I know they're probably sent to at least 50 others. I made a note in my diary in November to write 1 letter a week to send with Christmas cards to friends we haven't seen all year. Here we are now with the last posting date rapidly approaching & the one letter I have started still hasn't been finished! Don't listen to these posts, all those of you who have actually taken the time to write. I salute you & will try & do better next year. Maybe I should just write one proper letter each week...I feel a New Year Resolution coming on

We get several but only one was ever boastful/unrealistic (they likened their holiday to the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, don’t know if they went on to liken it to the flight into Egypt as I didn’t read that far!). I don’t know what they say nowadays as I never read them. Others are just a few lines or a photo montage of their children and a few lines in the card or simply just a note in the card and nothing else. I enjoy all of the these.
Don’t worry Marydoll most of us know what you mean! 😉

Some of you may enjoy the Janet & Roy round robin threads on Mumsnet. This year’s is www.mumsnet.com/talk/christmas/4946911-janet-and-roy-round-robin-letters-2023

As someone with American family and friends, I get quite a lot of the things, not all equally enjoyable or welcome.

I know how OP feels and feel for her! The variety of replies have made me think however. One in particular we receive used to tell us (boast?) about wonderful family events and multiple holidays; sadly now it’s a litany of hospital visits, waiting times and blunders.
Sad that it has come to that, hopefully there are happy moments too?

I received this year's round robin yesterday and it was yet again addressed to Mr & Mrs harrigran, not acceptable. I am not sending them a card this year in the hope they take me off their list.
When DH died they wrote a letter saying how upset they were etc yet they couldn't make a note on their card list.

That’s so thoughtless and tactless isn’t it? However well you may be coping with being on your own, it “twists the knife “ doesn’t it

I don’t wait till Christmas to tell everyone how beautiful, clever and amazing my granddaughters are, I do it all the time😳🤣

i don't. It is obvious to anyone who meets my grandchildren just how wonderful they are, without me needing to blow trumpets for them

It’s my view that a Christmas card is sent to wish others well, to add cheer and to show you care. Perhaps to catch up on the better news of the past year if there’s been no contact.
Health worries and our own problems have no place in a greetings card and can be imparted by other means at another time if we feel the need to share our woes at all.
Just my view. We’re all different.

I think they’re hilarious ! Think of them being read by Miranda Hart in her Call the Midwife persona.

I agree with*lauranorder*. Xmas cards are basically to let others know you think about them and wish them peace goodwill and happiness. At least that's what it should be

Agree with LauraNorderr - enough of the gloom and doom already.

I'm afraid I'm the opposite of some Gransnetters who dislike Christmas newsletters and am rather disappointed when long-standing friends put nothing in their Christmas cards apart from a name. Since I rarely now have an opportunity to see them during the year, I love receiving news in a card or "round robin" letter and if it's all about holidays and grandchildren's achievements, so what! At least they've taken the trouble to sit and write something, and most are personalised to me with an enquiry about my own life and family. With the eye-watering cost of postage these days, I can't see the point in sending a bit of folded card with a printed greeting and a snowscene (don't get me started on that topic!) without using it as an obvious opportunity to stay in touch. Christmas is rapidly becoming nothing more than a secular "shopfest", but I will continue to make it a time for sharing news and keeping in touch with friends and family.

>They even wax lyrical about the delightful place they live - a new town well known for its intrinsic lack of beauty.

Milton Keynes? :-)

Hate the boasty smug round robins, three or four of which I can guarantee we'll receive every year. One last year ended up by saying "some might say we are lucky but we think of it more as being down to hard work and sensible planning". Haven't seen the family in question for many years and they never ask how we are. Have now deleted them from my list - a long-overdue decision.

Gosh Lizzie that is smug in the extreme