Did you get any of those tacky Xmas newsletters from friends or relatives?

The ones that have nothing to do with Christmas but where people brag about themselves and their spoiled brat kids or where your friends or family tell you how many times they've been blessed to do this or that?

"After all my promotions at work, our family was so fortunate to learn that our son found the perfect woman to marry and they spent 3 weeks in Japan on their honeymoon and came back to further their careers in blah blah fucking blah and we are the grandparents of so-and-so who is the most increidbly gifted and talented child and blah blah blah fucking blah. And how we traveled all over the place in the last year because we're such world class travelers." More like world class deuchebags if you ask me.

My ultra wealthy cousin writes one up every Christmas that's all about patting himself and his spoiled adult-aged kids on the back. What he doesn't realize is that me and the rest of my family LOVE getting their Xmas newsletter every year because we enjoy making so much fun of it behind their backs. LOL!!!

Also, my best friend who I grew up with (a Republican who's found religion in his middle age) sends us an equally tacky one, his newletter also patting themselves on their backs but also combined with the "We are so blessed to have done blah blah blah" and "We are so blessed to have such wonderful kids who blah blah blah" garbage."

Just sickening, yet at the same time, absolutely hilarious!! The best part was when we got one of these tacky newsletters a few years ago from my friend bragging about how his wonderful son had found the perfect woman to marry, a beautiful lady of religion and fine moral values, and then a year later they get divorced because he caught his religious wife cheating on him! Now THAT made it all worthwhile!!

That pretty much says the same thing..."blah blah blah blah...we're so great...love us...worship us...envy us."
I think she burns each years's letter over her favorite Christmas candle.

...the same shit every year from this aunt of mine. How perfect her and her perfect husband did this and that, how her perfect sons are living perfect lives - crap, who cares?! I don't even know these people, and the last I saw them was over 15 years ago.

I've even tried to lose myself so I wouldn't get anymore of those damnable letters, and she would just call my mom and get my address anyway...but not send one to my mother - go figure...

God, and she's even started to include photos - who are these self-absorbed morans?!

One of the worst ones I got was from a girl who was the Queen of Fun in college, but once she got married and quit her job, she because the a Snotty, Stuffy, Main Line Matron. Her letters were amazingly awful - discussing the size of her new house, the value of their new oriental carpeting, her son's athletic prowess, her daughter's horse show awards, her husband's promotions, etc.

One year, one of the letters appeared back in her mailbox, covered with all the things we had been thinking about it, written in red ink: "Who cares?" "Bragging here--->" "Who cares what it costs?" "More obnoxious bragging--->". She was livid "you guys don't think we're bragging, do you?" She thinks she saw the SUV of the person who did it - the wife of one of her husband's fraternity brothers - but she can't prove it. Thank God, they just send photo cards now.

Another friend sends a very neurotic letter every year - two full pages, single spaced. Mostly bragging, but also usually a lot about her (now ex) husband's colon problems. This year, she added a P.S. about dating a new man, who is "a 55-year-old former alcoholic" who lectures on the dangers of alcohol. Okay, listen, I admire folks who have the guts to go dry if they need to - it's even the ONE thing I admire about that idiot in the White House. But is that the FIRST thing you reveal about a new guy in your life? All I can think of when I read the letters is the David Sedaris story "Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!!"

...the size of the new house, the prowess of their children, and the expensive equestian horse that the daughter is riding again after not having ridden for ten years.

We were always tempted to do a similar thing and send an anonymous reply mocking them, but we bit our tongues and instead made like we liked the letters. We want them to continue sending these sickening letters because it's gotten to a point that we enjoy mocking them so much we don't want them to stop!

"Grandma is doing really well adjusting to her new bionic leg."

"Tommy thinks he may be paroled sometime in June."

"Dick's new job is working out pretty well and we have adjusted to the lower income."


Don't you want to hear the REST of the story???



We have one family member (a cousin) that sends those chatty letters every year, and it is always a thing of dread to even open them. IF you are lucky she stops short. Usually, she just lets it all hang out there with offerings like this:

"This last year saw _____ (the oldest son) starting a new high school. After he got caught with a knife in PE, we were very lucky to get him into this new private school in midterm."

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We do a holiday Email to everyone we know--a recent photo of our daughter on Santa's lap. It has become a ritual for people to respond with comments, and it has become somewhat of a phenom, in that, people actually update their email address with us because they think it is so geeky and funny. Can't say I ever expect to do a "holiday letter" however.


Laura

Instead of bragging about everything, I think I'll make one up that's the opposite of the kinds we usually get. It'll start something like this....

"Greetings family and friends,

The year 2006 was a notable one for the mtnsnake family. We were so blessed to have our son, Mtnsnake Jr, get released from the slammer a month early, just in time for the holidays. He had lots of great prison stories to share with us, and was Inmate of the Month for October for his diligent work on making license plates for the state of NY. I am proud to say that his sister, our loving daughter mtnsnakita, finally graduated from college after cheating her way through her final semester. The good Lord has certainly looked after us...and blah blah blah."

but we don't always have as much time to keep up as we used to.

I get two letters every year - one from a past "mentor" of mine and one from a dear, old friend. I don't see them as bragging, I see them as touching base.

Me, I'm more of a hand-written note kind of girl but it's largely because I couldn't possibly be as funny as my old friend - I look forward to receiving and reading her notes.

Like I said, maybe I'm just lucky and don't really have anyone on my holiday card list that I really wouldn't care to hear from.

everyone else was too busy to write one. It was from the dog's perspective. Very clever.

We also used to get one from our aunt who would tell the most horrid things about the family. We laughed till we cried. Every year we looked forward to that letter. One time one of the uncles was over and saw us laughing...we never got another one.

I know what you mean about looking forward to those letters. We seem to laugh harder at them every year, once the initial shock wears off, that is!

Hang onto those letters, though. Someday maybe we can all share the "best" of them and compile them into a book. I'll bet it would be the funniest book ever written!

If one of their kids is going on a school trip and needs money then we get a letter. Otherwise we usually don't hear from them.



http://www.cafepress.com/opposingforces

and about what a soccer star she is.

LOL

It reminds me of one of the ones we got from my wife's brother-in-law a few years ago that bragged how their first grandson was walking at the age of 5 months and talking fluently at 10 months! I love how they waited until the kid was 2 1/2 years old before they informed us of that, though.

I get one every year from a cousin and from a former colleague and to be honest, I look forward to them. My cousin's are full of the "We are so lucky to have bought our 2nd vacation home this year. We didn't intend to, but found a great house in a great location that we love to visit, so we bought it. And we went to Puerto Rico with our friends on our annual fall vacation. This winter we are doing our usual ski trip with Muffy and Biff, our 2 perfect children. Biff had a spot of trouble this past summer when his car was stopped by some awful state police for doing 85 in a 55 mph zone. Luckily the judge threw out the conviction on a legal technicality." After reading it I go into a depressive state that can only be remedied with application of chocolate and alcohol and a few hours by myself with a good tacky romance novel.

My former colleague's newsletter is much better. Her youngest child was born prematurely and had a number of health issues that are slowly being addressed. She doesn't write at length, but it's wonderful to hear that he has done something that the doctors initially told them he would never be able to do.

and the one you get from your cousin sounds so eerily familiar to the ones we get from my long-time friend that I think your cousin and my friend may be the same person! LOL!

We also do get a couple of newsletters, the more sincere kind, that are similar to the ones you get from your former colleague. Those are the ones that exemplify the true spirit of the holidays.

My family receives a letter each year from an old Army buddy of my father's. (Oddly enough, his daughter and I were stationed in Germany at the same time, although we didn't see each other over there). He has sent us a letter each year for around 30 years. He is a gifted comedic writer, and keeps us all in stitches with his long-running story of "Danny Claus", Santa Claus's evil twin brother. His Christmas letter, out of the two dozen or so my mother receives each year, is the ONLY one that we sit down together to read aloud. It is a Christmas treat.

OTOH, we DO get lots of brag-brag-blah-blah-blah letters, too. But the "Danny Claus" letters more than make up for them.

who sends out a letter every year that keeps everybody in stitches (I'm illustrating his book for him...Around the World in 80 Proof). This year was about the month or so the family spent vacationing in Mongolia after a quick trip to China for some duck.

Here's just a few of the highlights,

17. Drive out of Ulan Bataar, some 130km to our campsite.
18. Camp in the “Gun-Gallut Strictly Prohibited Area” (some 370 000 km2 of grassland, lakes, river and steppe).
19. Ride horses.
20. Fish. Tyuma shows me the Mongolian way. I catch a bone-snapping Taiman (jaw-breaking seriously furious salmonoids that top 100 kg here in the wild) that weighed all of 15 grams.
21. Ride horses. Ignore the children about “Their Father. The Fisherman.”
22. Swim in the slippery, blisteringly, extremity-numbing swiftly-flowing rivers. Watch Tyuma and Baya laugh.
23. Ride horses.
24. Camp some more. Watch all the eagles, hawks and other raptors (the likes of which I’ve never seen; I’m not big on Ornithology, until now).
25. Ride horses.
26. Visit the locals - horse nomads. Watch them ride horses. Watch them catch horses. Watch them milk horses.
27. Ride horses. Politely sip mutton-flavored tea with horse milk. Politely sip the fermented mare’s milk: “Iragk”. Politely not barf in their presence.
28. Growl at Tyuma & Baya for laughing.
29. Ride horses. (Which, from here on out is a given, unless it’s a reindeer or camel; I’ll flag those passages).

and are written in the true spirit of the Christmas. Thanks for sharing that :)

They were not braggy or tacky. I enjoyed them.

Their letters simply express how much they love the family, and we always enjoy their sincerity and down-to-earthness.

OTOH, our favorites are the tacky ones :evilgrin:

With few exceptions, they are brag-a-thons and/or tedious recitations about their homes and vacations. This year I got a Christmas e-mail from a new in-law that went on and on and on about their fancy, expensive new house, their garden, and every damn thing they've done every damn day for the whole year. It would have taken up about 5 pages on paper. And none of it was even slightly interesting. What's wrong with a pretty card with a picture of a snowman or an angel or a spruce tree and "Season's Greetings" and maybe a short note on the inside?