Round Robins. Love 'em or Hate 'em?

Since I've started keeping in touch with most of my friends on facebook I've noitced that the number of round robins seems to have shrunk. It's so much easier to share photo's and details of holidays and achievements as they happen.

I do usually like receiving round robins - however, one we received last year ran to 10 pages!!!

Thank you, I'll have a look!

Hi phoenix, the Smilers is available all year round. I've seen it used with a wedding pic to send out 'Thank You' letters. I think if you go to the Royal mail website you can see examples.

Rosiebee I've never heard of that, bit too late for this year, but will bear it in mind for the future. Is it only available at Christmas time?

we save ours up for boxing day and read them with prizes for the biggest boast the most misfired boast etc. we also judge the xmas cards-prettiest and grimmest. Usually wrote one for immediate family(DH&DDs only) but then we had a terrible year which even I could joke about so I stopped. Might do one this year

Every year since the first DGC was born we've sent 'Smilers' at Christmas. You send a photo through the ether to the Royal Mail, they wave a magic wand and hey presto your photo is miniturised and attached to a stamp. We usually order a couple of sheets and send them out on cards to close friends and family members who don't live nearby. I suppose it's a form of boasting about our gorgeous GC but we do get lovely comments about seeing the children grow up. Mind you trying to get the two of them to 'pose' together drives DH nuts every year. Seeing this year's stamps though really brought it home to me that my lovely GS is changing from a boy to a young man. Don't need to write a round robin to tell people that when they can see it.

My ex husband and I used to get one from some friends who had moved away. For years, they were full of the usual boasting about the kids' violin grades and the husband's promotion. Then one year we got one to say he had lost his job for having an affair with a junior member of staff and had to take a poorly paid office job. The letter practically glowed with malice and bitterness. I was very sorry for the wife who did not deserve such humiliation, but not for him, as he was supposed to be my husband's best friend but had propositioned me (without any encouragement). He obviously thought he was irresistible.
Bags, you obviously have not received the type of boastful catalogue we are talking about - do people really think that 'friends' they have not spoken to for a year are going to be interested in the minutiae of their lives?

I use Facebook to tell friends about the happenings in my family, both happy and sad, as they happen, so there is so no need for me to circulate them once a year. These are people with whom I am in regular contact and they also post their own news to which I am able to respond appropriately.
I don't think anybody is being unkind - no doubt we don't tell the senders what we think about their missives.

When I receive photos from friends and family of babies grown into toddlers, toddlers grown into schoolkids, it gives me great pleasure. They all go up on the fridge and stay there, curling at edges and fading, until the next lot arrive. Smashing.

Genius, phoenix. You do have a way with words.

Thank youMoved ! It's a bit dated now, with regard to some events and prime ministers etc, but you get the gist!

Wonderful Phoenix

I do like the idea of a spoof round robin....hmm...cogs whirring like mad. I haven't sent my cards yet!

Yes, Bags that round robin will make a perfect paper aroplane!

My favourite one, which I'd miss if it didn't arrive, is often written as a poem by a very talented family friend, and often more about her surroundings in the Highlands than anything else.

Of course, you could always try one like this:

Hi everyone, sorry it's been so long since I was here, but, phew! what a busy time I have had!

It all started when dp gave me an early prezzie. You know that thing where you can have a star named after someone? Well of course that wasn't enough for dp! he whisked me off in the space shuttle to actually go & see it! I must say that solved a mystery, I thought he'd been working late advising Tony (& of course dear Cherie!) about the legal implications of intervening in the Middle East peace talks, but no! He'd been secretly training to fly the shuttle, which of course he did brilliantly. It was so romantic, just the two of us up there in space, although he did bring along Paul Burrell (you remember him, butler to the late dear Diana, serves a brilliant champagne cocktail, but a little familiar for my taste)to serve the nibbles.

That of course was only the start! We then went to the Guerlain perfume house, as DP had read something in the paper about having an exclusive perfume designed based on your personality, a bargain at £20k. I must say, the one thay came up with was soooooo me! A base note of old flannel, a mere hint of waffle finished with a top note of merde de bull. (The tanker of it should arrive next week)

Of course, as you can imagine, I was a tad worried about the children, but of course dp had it all in hand. He'd got Gina Ford & that super nanny woman working in shifts, although I can't imagine that they would have had much to do, as ds & dd were planning to spend Christmas working on their proposals to solve the world energy/global warming problem before writing their thank you letters. (so nice for them to have something to bond over, don't you think?)

The other advantage with us being out of the way for a while was it gave the Harrods window dressing team time to finish off the decorations around the house. It did look nice, but I was forever on at those 2 nice women from "How Clean is Your House" to get the diamond fairy dust out of the corners.

My other worry was the catering, but luckily dp had been having coffee with David Attenborough the other week, who had let slip that he knew where the last breeding pair of dodos were to be found, so problem solved! Of course Gordon's (need I be more specific? )language reached new peaks when presented with them, but with dear Jamie in charge of veg. & good old reliable Delia in charge of all things sweet it all went swimmingly.

After a delicious lunch (I must say Ainsley did marvels with the washing up) we all settled back to relax & enjoy ourselves. I thought Elton sounded a tad tired, but Robbie was his usual exuberant self, bless him. David Blaine did a few tricks to amuse the younger members of the gathering (of course all of dp's many brothers brought their children, except for the gay ones, brothers that is, not children). Billy's jokes were quite funny, even though the older members of the family did need subtitles for the Glasgow accent.

Anyway, must go as I've got Stella coming round to do another fitting on my dress for David & Victorias New Years Eve bash. She spent Christmas with her father, but feels the need of a bit of a break away from all the accountants tring to work out the divorce settlement, poor lamb. I'm sure I've left loads out, but promise to come back as I remember things!

Love to all!

In one of Deric Longdons book his wife sent out a very funny totally spoof round robin with all sorts of outrageous things in it, at least one of the recipients thought it was all true.

MiceElf [yuk emoticon]
Generally I dislike them for all of the above reasons, but I agree with Bags that if they are well-written they are good to read, like any other letter.
We receive one from some Australians whom we haven't seen for years that is brilliantly written and full of self-deprecating humour.
Sadly I can't equal them so just write a little message inside the card, appropriate to the recipient.
I got a card from my 90 year-old godfather yesterday, wishing us well on our forthcoming trip to the States on the QM2.
It was a postcard of Shipwreck at Sea, the famous painting of Grace Darling rowing through turbulent seas with her father to rescue shipwrecked sailors off the wild Northumberland coast

MiceElf, that one takes the fbiscuit!

We used to get one that had our children in stiches. It was dreadful really as this woman would include the most intimate details about her family and their emotional crises. It was also full of boasting about how brilliant her children were.

An annual treat was when my children would stand up and do a spoof of these letters...."You will be thrilled to hear that Jane has her first bra etc...!"

It is however nice to catch up with news from some people who are not so nauseatingly perfect and are genuine friends.

I quite like them, but I was really pi**ed off last to get one from people we really don't see any more, purporting to come from one of their (screamingly over achieving children) which began:

Mummy and Daddy are so busy this year, what with Daddy's new job at the European parliament and Mummy getting her headship and second Masters, that they've asked me to write this year.

Quadruple yuk.

I love nearly all the ones I get as they tell me about the lives of friends I may not have seen during the year. As my names suggests, I have lived in many places so don't always get to see some old friends and I love to hear what they have been doing. I don't think I get any boasting ones, perhaps I have dropped such people over the years. Only one I find a little bit tedious and that is the one which gives details of every weekend away and every party attended!

We send one to selected people who we feel will be interested but it is pretty factual with things like births, new jobs etc and this year to say our health is good although previous years have told about health problems.

I quite enjoy round robins, after all if they annoy me I can chunter about them to DH, but I enjoy hearing about friends' lives. I have found that most people of our age have also had their crosses to bear along the way and are not quite so into the bragging any more.

Having said that, I don't send round robins but prefer to write the bits that I think will interest people on the inside of the card - some people want to hear about children and grandchildren while others will only want to hear about us.

You don't even have to read it first.

Paper aeroplane. Bin. Aim. Fire.

Not friends, Bags family!! Unfortunately, they are always included for weddings, funerals and suchlike, but when it comes to keeping in touch, we cousins get put on the pretentious round robin list that is clearly intended for people who are impressed by such nonsense . Silly people!