Just a thought about Round Robins

Don't blame you, chucking on the fire. Write back and ask if you can please be unsubscribed.

haha. I had a Christmas card from a woman who used to teach my sons in infant school - they are 37 and 34 now! This lady sends a card every year, as well as a postcard every summer, bragging about how she's been in Barbados for 6 weeks (she's done that every year for about 25 years now). We haven't seen her since 1991!

I don't mind the fact that she has such fantastic, long exotic holidays, because she hasn't got what I've got - a lovely husband (hers died after only a few years of marriage), loving offspring (my sons both live 1/2 a mile away from me), and gorgeous grandchildren.

She's got money, time, a bigger house than me, but she hasn't got anything BETTER.

Can'tstand Round Robins A bit like written Facebook. All look at me. I just sign my Christmas cards and wish people a happy New Year.

I know someone who received a RR two months after her mother’s death. The sender described going to the funeral and her thoughts on it and the people there!
I agree if you’re sending a RR you should consider those who are receiving it.
I prefer a few handwritten bits of news.

Mostly ghastly things, I agree.
I once cut contact - it was only Chr. cards anyway - with someone we hadn't seen for ages, after a particularly braggy, boastful one.
A few years later we met the couple at some mutual friends' house - the bloke (who wrote the RRs) asked why we'd stopped sending cards!
I wish I'd been brave enough to tell him - might not have gone down too well at a social occasion, though!

Then there are the screeds dh gets from some very far-flung relatives - not exactly braggy, but 2 crammed sides of A4 in a minute font, stuffed with every last detail of everything they did since last Christmas, plus the doings of their own relatives who we barely know.
I can't even BA to read them any more.

I get about 3 and screw them up and throw them away. I'm very tempted to scrawl across it, "I couldn't care less" pop it in an envelope without a stamp and post it back to them (but then, that wouldn't be very nice of me, I don't suppose). ?

Yes, Merlot we also are the lucky recipients of the dreaded RR.
We have a canadian Round Robin,
It has moved on from best thing they ever did (emigrate), unbelievable holidays, fabulous houses, 2 wonderful children, schools, university, children with wonderful jobs canadian airforce blah blah blah...
to their wonderful grandchildren (fill in as above).
Change jobs for retirement and you get the gist.
What do they know or care about me or mine?
Zilch!
Whilst they have been living their extraordinary wonderful life they have failed to notice that they themselves have not received a card or any other correspondence from us in almost 20 yrs!

If we ever leave this house, I hope the next owner enjoys the Canadian Nirvana saga

I always think of my mother reading one from an overseas friend typed on an old Olivetti. We would receive a carbon copy complete with smudged corrections to the typos.

Getting to the end and screwing up her eyes trying to make out the final paragraph, Mum announced, 'Oh, she now has a son-in-law with a high flying army career. What a pity he's only a captain!'

I LOVE RRs. I view them as comedy as they are so awful. My sister and I save them to share with each other. We read them aloud with fake hoitey voices.

Merlot was your Mum Margot out of the Good Life? ?
I’ve never sent a Round Robin in my life

I love that they are usually written by the wife and flit in and out of third person and first person

People who send me round robins are eliminated from my card list. I doubt if they notice. They are far too busy living their exciting lives.

I loathe them. They are always from people I never see nor have anything to do with. I sometimes wonder who Sally is that sadly died in March only to discover it was the kid's gerbil.
And why is it that the only people who write them are those who have perfect lives and perfect children. I am sure if I bumped into them somewhere they would not be so perfect.
I thought about writing one this year as we have had a really bad year and not looking to get much better but after one sentence I thought would anyone really care and those who know me and care show me all the time. All it would do is make those with perfect lives feel so much better about themselves.

I hate them I only used to get one by a lady I used to know who them moved away I used to hear about every amature dramactic performance she and husband took part in yawn yawn every bit of information costume audience lines etc etc Then the home, which I d never seen, every room painted or cupboard built
They used to go straight in the bin
I stopped sending her Christmas cards and luckily the following year the Round robin stopped breath sigh of relief

People who send me round robins are eliminated from my card list. I doubt if they notice.

They don't. I get one from a second cousin once removed. Have only ever seen them at funerals/weddings/ christening & don't send them Christmas cards
They still keep them coming

I think Margot was modelled on my mother, janea. She was brilliant at put-downs. I can never think them up until the moment has passed.

merlot

My late husband had a cousin who, along with his wife, were the ultimate cruise bores. Their retirement was spent taking back-to-back voyages and video taping everything. And I mean everything. Here’s our cabin. Here’s our bed. Here’s our wardrobe. Here are our clothes in the wardrobe. Here’s our bathroom. Here’s our toilet. ZOOM into the pan. Here’s the door. Here are the fire instructions.

A 240 minute VHS tape of this tedious stuff would arrive on our mat every Christmas.

They rarely seemed to go ashore which might have provided some interest. No. Just cabins and corridors and decks and dining rooms.

DH thought he had to sit through it in case cousin asked him questions although what kind of question he might ask baffled me. “What did you think of the sanitary ware on the MS Snooze, perhaps? We used to fast forward at the quickest speed.

Who in their right mind would think to make and send something like that?

I am going against the tide here but I like getting round robins. I feel frustrated if someone just signs a card and there is no news at all! I enjoy reading others news and we send a brief one too. I always make sure it doesn't read like a CV and try to make it humorous. As we are a family of 7 it would be hard to write news of all of us on the 60 odd cards we send. I always add a personal note especially for the person it is written to and a general invite to be in touch and come for a meal or to stay if they are ever in our area.

Can't bear the things. They are virtually always smug and self-absorbed - often from the kind of people who hold forth at social gatherings and make sure no-one else upstages them (if they can even get a word in edgeways).
Writing a few words of news and 'how are you all' inside the card is entirely different and makes the card more friendly and personal.
Gonegirl's suggestions is excellent!! Write back and ask if you can please be unsubscribed.

We get one every year from one of my DH’s relatives that we never see in real life. It’s basically just brag, brag, brag about how wonderful their lives are . So annoying . I would love to know how many poor people they subject these awful (photocopied) things to ?

merlotgran I was going to start a thread about Round Robins - we have received one but then there was a scribbled and very friendly bit on the bottom which was different in tone to the rest of the letter.

I have sent them out in the past because it was so much easier than sending individual letters but tried to keep them light and chatty and not at all smug!
However, this year, I have scribbled a quick message in a card - cba with all that typing, incorporating photos because, quite honestly, who cares?

Perhaps next year we will actually get to see the people we keep really want to see and can catch up in person:
"Hope to see you next year" xxx in a round robin - means nothing unless you do something about it!

Here are some replies to round robins by the wonderful Lynn Truss:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20810452

And Simon Hogarth has collected the best (I.e. most awful into a book:
www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/30/christmas.bookextracts

And

www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/2016/12/17/round-robin-letters-say-really-mean/

A friend and I used to send each other spoof ones: “ Damian is being housed at her Majesty’s pleasure, which is a great honour for him. His needlework skills are really coming on.” etc

superfluous keep in my post above (changed my mind then didn't check)