Dear Amy: My aunt has seven children who are 15 to 20 years older than my sister and I are.
My sister and I are in our 20s. Neither of us has lived at home for the last 10 years. I live in a different state, and my sister lives about two hours from my parents.
My cousins have children who have begun to graduate and get married, and they have been sending invitations to these special occasions. On numerous occasions, however, my sister and I have not gotten invitations or just one of us received an invite.
My cousins send these invitations to our parents and write on the invite “To the Johnsons.” My parents show up for these events because they are the “Johnsons” and then are asked, “Where are Julie and Jenny?” My mother always replies, “They didn’t know they were invited.”
This just happened again this past week. “The Johnsons” were invited to a graduation party. Should my sister and I attend if we aren’t sure if we are invited?
We are confused on how to handle this situation. We aren’t extremely close to these people, and we also don’t live with our parents anymore. We have grown up. — Julie
Dear Julie: This is probably a case of people in a large family losing track of addresses for a younger generation and taking what they feel is the simplest route, which is to include all of the “Johnsons” in an invitation addressed to your parents at your family home.
You might make an impact by contacting your cousins, sending a letter or e-mail and letting them know for certain what your address is.
If your parents wonder who is included in an invitation (and it’s understandable that they would wonder), they should contact the host and simply ask, “We just want to make sure whom you’re including with the invitation — is it just us or the ‘girls’ too?”
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