The joys of holiday Brag Letters

I hate it when the more wealthy members of my family send letters outlining the events of the last year in great detail, talking about the wonderful trips they've been on and whose kids are in which sororities and fraternities, blah blah blah. It makes me mad, I think it is so rude and insulting.

Let's discuss. lol.

trust me. My families are filled with those.

Gosh I hate it so much. It's like, "here you go, look how successful and wealthy and cultured and accoplished we are, may you have a wonderful holiday season marveling at our amazingness, and by the way, don't feel bad that you don't have money to take trips around the world, and it doesn't mean you're a loser just because you don't have six college degrees..."

EEEEEW, spare me!

*accomplished

Ah well pheonix :T *pats* those kinda ppl just need to treetrunk off, just move on and make your life as best as it can beeeeeeeeeeee, or just resort to trashing their house with eggs and toilet paper on x mas eve..

LOL, I so would if they lived closer...hmm. lol.

Yeah I just sort of look at it like this, they may be wealthy and cultured and yada yada, but their social skills suck because the truly secure people do not need to brag.

i would help you ROFL whaaaaaaaat, im no angel, so why pretend it? 😆 yes indeedy doo, but what if all they have left are those brags since they dont have anything else to show for it.

you have wealthy family members— do they need to adopt a slighty used, slightly asian/native american looking 40ish something waif—??

"Could I have more please??"

LOL!

If they were the generous type (haha), i'd ask.

As it stands, they could care less about their *blood* relative's financial needs. lol.

Figures ~ LMAO!!! Where's the charity, share the wealth I say!! damnit!! You can't take it wit ya!!!

LOL, I agree, I soooo agree!

LOL Lena! Eggs and toilet paper!! I'll help!

You are right Phoenix, modesty does a lot in raising others opinions of them, whereas bragging always sounds like bragging...though, I have done some of that on these boards...hmmm...guess I should behave! LOL!

Saggirl, you sound fun!

LoL... pheonix I hear your pain... I am much more deserving to go to England and Wales than the rest of my family (and they could well afford to give me a ticket) but nope never... Canada's been as far as I've been from home -about 12 hours really 😢...Its depressing... one uncle just moved into a new million-dollar plus house (he's a lawyer) but i may see him once a year and he gives me maybe $ 20 if he remembers... and its no use asking for anything- they make it feel like begging

Star, you hit the nail on the head--the people who impress me are the ones who don't talk about their priveleges constantly! Humility is so much more an attractive trait than arrogance.

Hahaha, Gwen, thanks for relating, your uncle could very well be mine, but mine's not a lawyer, in fact his job is sort of hush-hush, top secret and I don't even know all the details of what he does. (Perfect job for a Scorpio, yeah? lol)

Yeah I won't even ask for money from anyone in my family because I know a good many of them would get a huge kick out of that, and I have no interest in swelling their heads any further. :/

pheonix, i didn't know you had connections to the mafia

I think everyone has painful extended family members - holidays just force you to acknowledge them. My cousins family are like that - flashing their money about - the only consolation is that they are all fat, so i can still feel superior at xmas gatherings. We all rejoiced when one of my cousins got pregnant at 16 (oh the shame!) she's 21 now and she has three brats - i think it has a way of balancing itself out (albeit eventually).

great point actually. I could point to several similar examples of...well...balance, in my family, so I suppose that is the bright side, if there is one!

Makes you wonder how they can think of themselves as family. I mean, if they were, wouldn't you know all the 'accomplishments' throughout the year as they were happening instead of a newsletter once a year? A little hypercritical I feel..calling themselves family I mean. If they truly gave a damn perhaps they might think of you more often than once a year.

Here's a thought...why don't you send them a newsletter back telling them ALL of YOUR accomplishments, but focusing on the real accomplishments of life, ie: self growth, good deeds, charity you have shown others and shown to you, loves gained and / or lost and friends and how much they have meant for you. Maybe they will then see who has really accomplished the most this past year!

Lawgoddess...those things are the things that really hit home with me...glad to hear that you are the same...

Excellent point!

Yeah I agree with Star, you make a fantastic point there. One time, my parents were just fed up with it years ago, and they were going to send them back a fancy little letter all about how we were all depressed, my dad had just lost his job after working there for almost 30 years, my mom got cancer, I'm thinking of dropping out of school...etcetera etcetera. LOL! Almost all of that would have been true, too, except for the part about me dropping out of school and all of us being depressed. But there is nothing worse than going through rough times or whatever and having someone basically rub it in your face that their life is so fantastic and jet-set. The more I think about it, the madder it makes me...do people not *think* before they do things like that? I would never in a million years be so self absorbed as to sit down for an hour and write a letter about the great places I've been and things I've done and actually send it out to people...as if they would 1) care, and 2) not interpret that as indeed self-absorbed and bragging. Ick! Gag me! lol. What ever happened to sending someone a Christmas card and simply saying, "I hope your year has been good, ours has been good, hope to talk to you soon, lots of love, so-and-so." Jeez! I love your ideas Lawgoddess. I just think I'm too put off by these people to even send them anything, my feeling is, I don't want them to really know anything about my life, because obviously the most important thing to them is "accomplishments" and "traveling", so I'm sure I would be a huge disappointment. lol.