<p>One year, maybe it was 3 or 4 years ago, our family had one of those years. Everything went wrong, to the point where the day before thanksgiving a massive tree fell on top of the brand new fence I’d had put in, and we all just stood at the window and laughed. It had just gotten to that point.</p>
<p>We sat down, and we wrote a Christmas letter…starting with: “Happy to report that Grandma is settling into the home, even if she thinks it is a hotel she would like to leave each morning and continues to mistake me for a concierge.” In the end, it was hillarious, but we didn’t send it, since we’d never sent one before, but it did bring an end to THAT year. Egad.</p>
<p>hey, OP, sounds like CC is just another way to embarrass your kids</p>
<p>the serious part is that we all like pretending that our posts here (and elsewhere) are behind the curtain of internet anonymity, despite it not being hard to put together posts anbd information from different web locations and get a fairly detailed set of private information </p>
<p>"A friend sends a photo collage, which is nice–several small snapshots of things the kids & family did in the past 12 months. It’s always gorgeously arranged. Haven’t but should do that.</p>
<p>Someday, maybe?"</p>
<p>Only if you send that Christmas letter to people who live locally. Otherwise, the thought of getting a Christmas letter from ANYONE who lives in Hawaii that says ANYTHING while it is sleeting and snowing, and we’re all shivering out here is just going to annoy everyone else! God forbid, they might decide to all visit you in January.</p>
<p>Actually, they often manage at least a few snow shots and pictures of their travels. It highlights things that were significant to them, which is often them traveling. Most of my loved ones see plenty of us and don’t need our photos to show where we’ve traveled to–some travel more and to exotic locales while others rarely do.</p>
<p>Okay, HImom. But you know, just your username makes some of us salivate.</p>
<p>I agree poetgrl, because every other post I’m finding myself complaining about the rain and cold. It’s just been a really long winter, with no end in sight. And we’ve had flooding to add to it, plus our furnace went out over the weekend!! Need…sunshine…now…(retirement is a long ways away).</p>
<p>Busdriver…know what you mean about the dreaded ‘Christmas letter’. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if just once you got a brutally honest one?? Like… “…Susie was planning to study abroad but had to postpone her plans due to pregnancy. Oh well, at least we’ll see a grandkid soon! Tommy seems soooo much more relaxed and happy now that he is out of the closet. We always knew it was just a matter of time before he sat us down for ‘the talk.’ And that little stinker JR got another DUI…you’d think after the underage drinking offense last year he would’ve learned his lesson…”</p>
<p>Sorry to go off-topic OP, couldn’t resist!!</p>
<p>OT–the other day, we were minding our own business & waiting to order food at a diner. An acquaintance entered & started grumbling to us about how his D just totaled her car and also got a DUI. I was surprised and wondered aloud her old she was. He said she was only 21 or so. He confided he recently had to fight a DUI that HE got as well–guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Still, not sure he’ll put either of those incidents in his Christmas newsletter.
Mom’s mouth hung open as she didn’t think I knew the speaker well (I don’t) and the damning public disclosures.</p>
<p>Hmmm… I get eye rolls from all in my family, including my DH. They make fun of me for it. They act like they do not care what I learn here, that it is biased, etc. They have no idea how I process and filter the stuff- c’est la vie!
Does not stop me- so much to learn from CC!!!
merci</p>
<p>My kids never post on CC as far as I know, but one of my daughters has on several occasions asked me to find out something from CC. Great resource. It sure helped us when we needed to get passports ASAP last year.</p>
<p>And of course it is esp. interesting at this time of year when one has a senior in high school. If I want to know when a school is supposed to let their applicants know their admission status, this is the first place I look.</p>
<p>My S posted a few times last year during the college search/admissions process. He doesn’t know that I know; a username on one of the college’s forums left me no doubt it was him.</p>
<p>He knows I post here, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know my username. He makes fun of me for it. I do solicit advice for him here, but I usually say “I asked someone I know about this and this is what they said”.</p>
<p>My kids make fun of me but are interested in responses I get from my posts and I think you on behalf of myself and them. Your thoughts and suggestions are invaluable, especially when they are about moving 2500-5000 miles from here. Thanks!</p>