Ludicrous round robins. Who can be the braggiest.

I’m honestly not boasting (as if I ever would, you know me!) but our house has been featured in Beautiful Homes for the second time. Our cosy little seaside 2nd home, only 5 bedrooms, was also featured in Coast magazine, but I promise that all the uniquely stylish features were either homemade by me or garnered from our daily early morning beach combing walks - after our usual 10k run and year-round swim in the sea, of course! I suppose I really can’t help being so artistic - no doubt inherited from a grandparent whose work was regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Youngest grandchild, Tobias, 4, won a special prize at school for not only being able to read Winnie the Pooh in Latin, but also being able to translate it! I can’t think where he gets it from, dh must have been at least 6 before he could do that!

Elder grandchildren are now very proudly vegan - daughter Tansy has taught them from her own book, One Hundred Tasty Ways With Lentils - which has now gone into its 6th printing and made number one in the Sunday Times Bestseller list last week! There are talks of a TV series soon - I know I shouldn’t say it, but she really is even more glamorous than Nigella. Dh keeps saying it’s because she takes after her mother (blush) but I’m sure he’s just trying to be nice!

Unfortunately we won’t be able to spend the usual delightful Christmas at our ski lodge in the snowy French Alps this year, but the newly installed helicopter pad will come in useful for a certain VIP (I dare not say who - official secrets and all that!) who’s rented it for a month. All helps with the pennies, doesn’t it?
Anyway, all the best - so sorry to hear about your redundancy and your house being repossessed - chin up, things can only get better, nothing plenty of hard work can’t fix! That’s always been our family motto!
Merry Christmas from us all!

I sent an honest one, one year. Don't get many back any more. It read: Been a good year, only two encounters with the Police and one of those was the Traffic section. The Speed Awareness Course was a fun day with tea and a biscuit. Our sons have done better - one arrested for mauling a 'friend' on a railway station and the other a drug possession charge. All in the middle of exams which resulted in lacklustre grades. Son's girlfriend found out that her father was our builder, other one got pregnant accidentally (all sorted now). No holidays, no famous friends, no money and no interesting days out to speak of. We are a happy middling family with professional careers and quite NORMAL

It has been an exciting year, despite Covid. I have read 365 books, knitted 14 blankets, 11 sweaters, 73 pairs of socks, 81 woolly hat and scarf sets, 64 soft toys and a Christmas wreath. All donated to charity, of course. It goes without saying that I get my wool from Charles’ estate.

Outdoor expeditions have included 63 coffee mornings in the garden with neighbours and friends, exciting lone walks down local footpaths, hacking at the brambles and nettles, and receiving greetings from various masked strangers passing by my house.

My psychiatrist is very pleased with my progress, and I haven’t shoplifted any mince pies in the past week.

The family are all doing well, as usual. It’s a pity that all their accolades and awards have had to be received in the post, or the internet because of the Virus, but heigh-ho, next year’s may be presented in person.

I hope that you and your family are coping well with the lockdown. It’s quite fortunate that you have all had previous experience of close confinement, so staying at home won’t be difficult for you.
I’m looking forward to hearing your news, though I expect that you won’t have much of note to report.

My goodness what an imaginative lot you are. Something to cheer us all up at least.

I am laughing so much at reading this thread that I am beside myself.
Suffice to say that my DH and I have been invited to the Castle for lunch so may see some of you there.

Greetings from my secret location.
I am so very sorry I cannot share with you my coordinates but we have been in hiding since this terrible outbreak happened.
As you know my husband George was working with the Chinese government on bio hazards and there seems to have been a mishap for which he is being blamed.....
It has rather put pay to the 6 month holiday I normally take on the yacht every year (it developed a fault and spontaneously blew up just before I arrived)
Farquar has had to change his name to something common (he chose Brandon ?) and the last I heard was wandering the desert in Baghdad, just to keep safe!
Clarrissa has taken to wearing a burka and married a lovely chap called Mohamed. Its really not what we wanted for her but it keeps her out of harms way in that cave.
Well toodle pip, here's hoping next year is better for us all x

I'm sorry to tell you that this will be the last Christmas card you will receive from us as we have taken the conscious decision to save the planet. I know you will be very sad at this news as you have often indicated how entertaining you find our news. We are all strictly vegan of course and I have spent lockdown providing mung bean hash for my elderly neighbours, unfortunately the drains in the street have been blocked and we can't understand why. We now collect our water in a barrel in the garden next to the hole in the ground toilet. We would love you to visit us and look forward to welcoming you post lockdown. Gerald could pick you up in his helicopter - essential for his job of course or I can send the chauffeur with the Bentley, essential for my job of course.

What a wondeful thread...best laughs I've had in many a month - thank you so much fellow GNetters - you've cheered up my Friday morning more than you can imagine!

A lot of my friends had 4 or 5 children or in one case additional adoptees and fostered. It was bad enough when they were all children excelling in grade 8 piano and 10 A stars but now they are all adults I get the life story anyway without ever having met them

Thanks for this great thread - I needed a laugh. Here's wishing everyone no round robins this Christmas!

I can predict who will put the round robin in their Christmas cards and I don't even open them until I'm sitting down and have time to spare as these truly do provide reading material, but thankfully not of the boastful sort, just news of the year. And as I'm too busy to be in contact with these people who have genuinely been great friends in some part of my life, I'm happy to keep in touch that way. Myself, I don't do this. But I do know that there is great therapeutic value in reflecting upon your year in this way, and if you do count your achievements, then hopefully you are also counting them as blessings.

I just put round robins straight in the recycling without reading them. The only one I have though is from someone I haven't seen since I was a child so I am not involved or really concerned about their life at all now. If I was, I would make the effort to see her. A couple of personalised sentences in the Christmas card is enough.

I’ve really enjoyed reading these but LauraNorder your Dear Cousin Philippa made me need a quick dash to our newly installed solid gold toilet!
What else can I say about this year?
My DH has taken to feeding the hens that sit on our hearth. Our live-in housekeeper remonstrates with him constantly, reminding him that they are NOT REAL but it falls on deaf ears (he has abandoned is supersonic £1m hearing aids in favour of a sound bar for every one of our TV’s).
One DGC had a leading part in the Christmas performance. It had to be recorded due to COVID but we bought the video and proudly watched him leading the donkey across the stage!
Cousin Philippe and Xaveria have decided not to visit this year as their private jet is being converted to a luxury helicopter. Xaveria assured me that ‘one has to do what one can. Recycling is SOO the thing right now’.
Some parents are complaining that school fees are so ridiculous- but I sponsored so many bricks whilst my own children were there that my DC are entitled to automatic places. They look so cute in their blazers and boaters with coordinating masks.
Well, must go. I’m expecting my deliveries from Sainsbury’s, Ocado and M&S and the darling local farm shop. Our housekeeper was so thrilled to be offered delivery slots after staying up till the wee small hours, that she signed up with all three. Thank heavens the utility room holds 5 freezers!

I have the biggest most wonderful Christmas tree, cut especially for me because I am such an important person. Melania has decorated it with baubles showing my handsome face on each, so the tree is even more wonderful, the most impressive and greatest tree in the world.

I won’t talk about the children because I know you’d rather hear all about me.

Love Donald

And that’s an order, everyone should love me.

Really peed off at the moment, We got to the airfield where our new jet was waiting to whip us off to the small but beautiful island we purchased last January, we deserve a lovely break in the sunshine after the year we have had. when the aircraft was brought out from the hangar it had a bloody flat tyre and they didn't have a replacement, must remember to sack the mechanic on Monday... so looks like the chauffeur will have to drive us and we will have to stay in one of the villas closer to home, just wont be the same dahlings... too upset to write more at the moment

I really have received a note on a Christmas card, which read ‘No round robin letter this year, as we’ve been nowhere and done nothing’.

Missfoodlove I’m sure I’ve met Olivia!

Missfoodlove love it!

We received one such letter this Christmas, alsmost nauseating in its self glorification. Unfortunately for the sender we know different. He has been having an affair, son has been sacked for incompetence, amongst other things and 16 year old daughter is know at school to be promiscuous (our son is at the same one). Take these round robins with a large pinch of salt they may not tell the unvarnished truth.

Last year, DH wrote something along the lines of "In March we went on the bus to Canterbury. It was no, 43, on the way home, I had to remember to sit on the same side of the bus to see the other side of the road. In April, we tried a new coffee shop. Not as good as our other one"! etc.... It was hilarious.

No one would have noticed the corgi AGA if the damned thing hadn’t jumped up suddenly and starting doing press-ups on my leg.

Laura I heard about your weekend at Balmoral. Didn't you end up in the Tower for using one of the corgis as a footstool.

I am feeling a bit peeved at the moment as the butler has asked for a rise in pay. He only works seventeen hours a day and has free porridge.

The chef is annoying me too as he was flustered when I told him there will be 200 for dinner tonight. He went off muttering something about Covid rules. Silly man. That doesn't apply when you are as rich as us.

Just catching up, iPads don’t charge if they are not plugged in do they ? ?
I read the post as saying ludicrous AROUND robins.
Fleeting images of Gnetters pulling faces and juggling Brussel sprouts in the garden went through my minds eye.
?

I definitely took your thread as ‘fictional fun’ LauraNorder (in case anyone has misplaced sympathy for my woes ?) and I wouldn’t dream of listing family achievements in writing!

When folks ask, I tend to say all fine, thanks and move on to another topic.

Brilliantly funny posts aren’t they?

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