UKH

I know there's still five months to go but my family and I have had such a f*****g awful time(of which I won't disclose details here) over the last two years that I'm dreading the arrival of those bloody awful egotistical letters that people send out at Christmas - you know the sort I'm sure. Normally I just bin them now without bothering to read them.

This year I'm tempted to write back along the lines "I'm glad you've had such fun wondering how to spend £60,000 on a new kitchen and that Tristam is doing so well with his trombone lessons. My sincerest condolences on the death of your hamster. In contrast we've had a f@cking awful year. Our eldest got in with a bad crowd and is now at Her Majesty's pleasure. The insurance people are refusing to pay out after the house burned down. They're saying it was my fault for trying to dry the washing over the gas cooker. Never mind, all this pales into insignificance against your achievements. Any way, must dash, I've got an appointment with the probation officer in ten minutes..."

In reply to FesteringSore:

I know what you mean. It is a little early but I propose a competition for letters like yours.

In reply to marsbar:

Yep, I really feel like being quite rude with some of them.

In reply to FesteringSore:

I really like this thread. I hate ****ing annual [Xmas or other annual] letters with a vengeance. I should write back "If you only contact me once a year and can't even bother to put my name on the front I'd be far better off without your boring self-serving ****** letter. And I'm not the slightest bit interested in your so-called "news" which has about as much relevance to me as the price of teabags in Mongolia. Kindly cross me off your ******** list and stick the ***** letter up your ****. ******* the **** off".

Thank you. And Merry Xmas to all.

(To the OP, very sorry you had a bad year and hope 2015 is a lot better).

PS to marsbar, good idea, I'll enter the competition.

In reply to abseil:

Like it!

In reply to abseil:



Well at least I'm hopeful of remission for good behaviour!

In reply to FesteringSore:

I've devised one which can be mass produced and bought at the same time as Christmas cards. It's based on the pre-printed letters given to soldiers going to the front in the First World War. I'm not certain if the last instruction is strictly nessessary, but I put it in in case

Dear.....(1*)

I/We* hope you have had a good year?

Mine/ours* has been OK/wonderful/good/bad/awful*

The children have done well/badly* at play school/school/uni*

....................................(2*) the dog(s)/cat(*) is/are* now house trained or widdling and crapping on the lounge/bedroom/landing/stair/hall*loors/carpets*

Lots of love/best wishes/yours sincerely*

.........................(3*)

Instructions:-

* delete as appropriate

1*,2*,3* Where appropriate you can add names (use blue ink) to personalise this letter

Important note: Any reference to where you are will be deleted by the censor

In reply to FesteringSore:

I like the ones where nobody really HAS succeeded or achieved but they do their best to big them up. e.g. eldest son got fired for actions that make him unemployable and is now living back with parents despite being 38, and sitting around boozing, playing CoD and watching box sets of The Wire etc.

"We are happy to have David reinforcing family bonds, and becoming a real bon viveur and culture vulture"

In reply to Blue Straggler:



Like

In reply to FesteringSore:

I thought these were apocryphal, and only existed on things like "grumpy old men".

I've never ever received one.

Maybe it's a middle class thing. And I don't have enough middle class friends.

Actually, I don't have any friends, so that could explain it.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Absolutely no idea what you're on about. Feck knows what kind of tw*ts you have in your 'social' circle!

In reply to FesteringSore:

I only write one letter at Christmas.

I send it to Lapland

And I never get a reply.

Or f#ck all that I ask for in the letter.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Christmas letters don't have to be dull oneupmanship. They can be a handy way of keeping distant friends updated on the kind of big-screen stuff that might not come up in less structured comms. They're certainly very useful if you have children, e.g. as a way of keeping godparents in other continents updated on how their godchildren are doing.

They can also be entertaining. I wrote one in limericks one year, and one in the style of McGonagall another year.

In reply to FesteringSore:

I thought these things had died a death in the Facebook age.

Like with Facebook, it makes me wonder why people are 'friends' with people they obvious hate.

In reply to The New NickB:

It could be be distant family sending them. In my case, my parents' friends of five decades send them out every year to us all, without fail. I did have a chuckle at the convoluted description of the gravel path they had had laid, complete with precise dimensions and depth of gravel. Heh.

In reply to Queenie:

I have no problem with them, but I haven't had one for a few years and even then never from someone who I wasn't at least a little bit interested in what they had been up to.

In reply to ThunderCat:

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:


What they said.

In reply to FesteringSore:

I've never received a letter like that at Christmas and have no idea what you're talking about.

In reply to FesteringSore:

I get a beautiful hand written letter from a coupe of older people. I generally really like getting them and hearing people's news. I only do christmas cards with people that i really like but who have moved away and feel quite disappointed if i only get a signed card with no news at all.... Some of our christmas letters are so well written and entertaining... I only get one that comes across like your example, but it's worth enduring for the good ones!

Just stop sending them cards back, and after a couple of years they will stop sending them...

Sorry you've had a rubbishy year. I think you should just let friends know how it went, so that they get some idea of how your life is really going and then just don't bother with anyone who isn't a friend....

In reply to aln:

You're very lucky

In reply to FesteringSore:
I must admit, Mrs Aztec bar and I do tend to slip a note into our Christmas cards. The 'round robin' idea seems like a good way to let friends and relatives catch up with our news over the year.
We tend to keep it to one side of A4 and try to keep a balance of all that has happened to our family over the year. This year for instance our dog Lupo had to go to the vet a number of times and had a miserable year. On the other side of the coin our daughter Henrietta after months of hard work was rewarded with a grade 2 in her classical ballet classes.

I can't see the harm myself. I'm off to do walk with Lupo.

In reply to Aztec Bar:


I think the problem is that it's so impersonal.

These are supposed "friends" yet you go all year without contacting them or sharing your ups and downs with them, yet suddenly at Christmas some people seems to boil over with trying to catch up with these absent "friends" with Round Robins. Then nothing for another year and so on. What sort of a friendship is that?

OK understandable if you are working for something like BAS where the mail ship arrives once a year, but in these days of technology is it really that difficult to keep in regular touch with your friends and family?

I find these letters quite insulting and have gradually reduced my Christmas card list to those who respond and interact with me throughout the year.

In reply to Trangia:





Exactly

In reply to ThunderCat:



What class do you consider yourself to be, given that you have reasonable leisure time to post on forums and use words such as "apocryphal"?

In reply to Blue Straggler:


We have wi-fi down in t'mines nowadays. I looked up 'apocryphal' on t'internet whilst I was in the infirmary having my consumption and rickets cleared up

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Just for the record, it was a throwaway and fairly trivial comment. Not sure if you've taken umbrage or whether I'm mis-reading it.

I don't think class definitions are really that clear cut these days to be honest.

Believe it or not though, even people who could be considered traditional working class do get on the internet from time to time. Some of them may even use words like 'apocryphal' and 'umbrage'.

In reply to Trangia:

So you don't have any friends who genuinely write nice letters to give you a summary of their news at Christmas? If you keep in touch with these people all year, will they be any more genuine? Will they wish you happy birthday i. One line because facebook reminded the, to, and just put stuff to show their life in a good light on facebook?

Don't you think anyone just uses christmas as an excuse to get around to communicating with people that they actually like, but who live far away? Don't you think anyone puts thought and effort into what they write, or that it costs them money to post their letter to you?

I only send christmas cards to very few people, but if any of them don't want to hear from me, then i would rather they just told me. I have no desire to send anything to anyone who doesn't want it and it would save me time and effort and would be less hypocritical of the recipient...

In reply to tlm:
I have friends and family in New Zealand, South Africa and USA. Yes we exchange cards, I might even insert a one liner in the card if it's recent news, but we don't exchange round robins. We keep in touch throughout the year via email, birthday cards and phone.

Round robins are impersonal and lazy

In reply to ThunderCat:


You misread it. Mine was meant to be even more throwaway than yours. Oh well...

That said, I do wonder at peoples' aversion to admitting being middle-class and, similarly, their use of "middle-class" as a pejorative term.

I am middle-class and I don't think I should be judged harshly for it.

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Sorry for misreading.

I don't know what I am to be honest. Growing up, council estate, single parent family, not really a pot to p*** in or a window to chuck it out of.

Working now, roof over head, holidays, emergency money in bank for rainy day. Suppose I am middle class if I think about it (or by most definitions).

I think in my head 'middle class' will always mean 'a few classes above where I am now'. Just one of those lingering things from childhood I guess.

I am very fond of the word 'apocryphal' though.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Something impersonal sent to everyone in your email address book is not, to me, a letter. It's a circular and should be treated in the same way as all circulars.

In reply to Ava Adore:

The email ones I treat as spam and block/bounce them. I was really referring to the snail mail ones sent with Christmas cards.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Same principle. If they've not bothered to personalise them, I don't bother to read them.

The other thing that bugs me around Christmas/New Year is the people who send a text "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year" to everyone in their phone; again with no effort to personalise. If I like someone enough to bother to send them a text, I'll at least use their name or personalise it in some way. Not personalised it gets deleted without response.

In reply to Ava Adore:


So you prefer to get a card with no news?

Am i the only one who likes to her what has happened to people over the year? Most people also write something in their card too, but what is the sense in the, writing out the same news 20 times, or maybe giving me less news?

In reply to tlm:


But the ones I refer to and receive are invariably full of nothing but egotism with little or no suggestion of any interest in what has happened to the recipient.

In reply to tlm:

Exactly what Festering Sore said

In reply to FesteringSore:


I don't bother to keep in touch with people that i don't like!

In reply to tlm:

Exactly my point. These aren't people I need to know detail of their lives and so circular emails/letters get trashed unread

In reply to Trangia:

>

I suppose it depends on how you view it. Generally speaking I don't email or phone everyone I know, quite simply there isn't the time. But come Xmas I like to make a bit of effort and pass on news good and bad. Now am I going to write out 50 hand written personalised letters (or emails) no I am not that would be an impossible task but I can write one general letter and add the odd hand written note on it. Mind you even that can be too much effort so I just send out a card on its own with a simple "happy Xmas" . Of course these days I can even save myself the cost of postage by just emailing a card. Probably even companies who will even write it out for you. When you think about it like that a round robin is not quite so lazy.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Maybe not but they still tend to be egocentric which was my original point.

In reply to tlm:

I agree. I like getting them - just to know what people have been up to - and I like sending them. Pretty much a standard format, each one personalised a bit and tucked inside a card.

I don't think ours come across very triumphalist or bragging tbh.

Actually the late Simon Hoggart used to really annoy me about these - it was all very well him slagging them off, he lived in London and was paid to travel in a leisurely manner round the country, so it was easy for him to keep in touch. Not so easy for those of us with more mundane lives. living in the sticks.

In reply to FesteringSore:

I agree some do tend to be ego centric