round robins

15:19 Jan 31, 2019 

Round robins is a slightly dated term referring to certain circulars (letters) sent out at Christmas to one's friends and relatives relating the exploits of the family. Traditionally these are couched in a positive way i.e. if the son dismally failed his exam we read something like "He is finding out the hard way that a bit of effort often helps towards good results." Before the advent of photocopiers ands emails the letters were hand-written and sent on from recipient to recipient, thus they "went the rounds". "Robin" is an allusion to the red-breasted bird which is a traditional illustration on a British Christmas card because the letters accompanied or replaced such cards.

I used to get about 10 of these and write one myself, but in recent years people have stopped doing it, partly I think because they have been seen as boasting and partly because people who want to tell the world what they or their children have been doing, do so on Facebook!
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