Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    
    Normally, if you're into protocol, Mr. & Mrs. is the way to go. But
    when its a close relative, they may feel honored if you do something
    unusual, so go ahead.
    
    Spoken by someone who sends letters home addressed to Mommy! and Daddy!
    or Dr. XXX M.D. (its supposed to be one or the other, but my redundancy
    speaks of volumes of pride!)

    How about **Ms.** and Mr.?  Or how about first names?  
     
    One of the difficulties I ran into was hyphenated names.  Both my
    sisters hyphenate their names, and when I sent a card to Carole and
    John M-G my brother-in-law's nose got a little out of joint.  I told
    him my hand was too tired to write out both names.
    
    Linda 

	 Or how about

		The X Family

			or
	 
		The Xs.


	 I'm not much into the Mr/Mrs/Ms stuff......Sounds so formal!
	 ;-)


	 kath
	 

    I honestly don't think it matters.  I've recieved Mr. and Mrs. P as
    well as my first name and my husbands name written out in full. 
    Sometimes my name is first sometimes it's 2nd.  when Mr. and Mrs. P..
    is used, the Mr. is always first.  and it is that way just to keep
    things consistant...  I should think your brother-in-law should think
    about things before his nose falls completly off his head!  I would
    think there are MORE important things to worry about!
    
    

I agree with Kath back in .3. I always just put "The X's" if there's more 
than one person. In our case, since my husband and I have different last 
names, mail from my family is addressed to Thibault/Newsham and mail from 
his family is addressed Newsham/Thibault (with the exception of one of his
bro's who insists on Mrs. Newsham...I guess it's a southern thing ;-) ).
I absolutely hate being called Mrs. anything...spit spit spit...after all,
that's what we used to call *old* people when we were younger kids :-)

Jenna

   A Trivial Pursuit in The Game of Life.

How strange...I just realized that I don't think I have *ever* addressed
a letter to Mr. & Mrs. X (or Mrs.& Mr. X).  I only write three kinds of letters,
personal, in which I simply use the person's name, business, in which case
it is only to one person and I use the appropriate title or none at all,
and Xmas cards, in which case, if it is a family (of > 2) I address it to
The X's, or "the X gang", and it it is a couple, I address to Person1 and
Person2 Smith, where person1 is the person I am closer with and person2 is
their spouse.

In general, I would say put the person's name you are closer with first.
In your case, your sister's name.

Then, as people say, it really doesn't matter. 

(And personally, if someone volunteered to address *my* Xmas cards, I would
be glad to let them address them just about any way they pleased...I *hate*
addressing xmas cards.)

D!

    I generally don't use titles for other people (unless
    specifically requested to) and *strongly* prefer that they
    not use a title for me.  The exceptions are my uncle who is a
    minister and my uncle who is in the military. 

    The vast majority of people to whom I send holiday cards are
    either single or couples with no children.  When the last
    names are different, I write 'em both...and like D! I
    generally put the name first of the person I knew first.
    (That's not conscious, it's just that when I change from
    talking about "Chris" only to talking about "Chris and Jerry"
    as a couple I generally do it in that order...so I habitually
    write Chris's name first.)  And when there's kids living at
    home, (which happens rarely for me), I write the kids' first
    names on a second line.

    I don't mind addressing the cards...what I mind is the
    feeling of guilt about not including a hand-written note in
    each one!  ;) 

    -- Linda

<    I don't mind addressing the cards...what I mind is the
<    feeling of guilt about not including a hand-written note in
<    each one!  ;) 
    
    I solved this a few years ago when I decided not to send cards at
    all. The whole thing just seemed pointless. I usually call the
    people I care about anyway. liesl

Thanx. Especially D! , when y'look at it that way   8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
	
			happy holidays all, I'm takin' the rest of the
year off to go shopping.         Kbear

I remember when I was a kid I _loved_ seeing my name on Xmas cards. The
'family' stuff didn't cut it (I figured they had no idea what my name was, and
were wimping out. A budding cynic.). The worst was Mr and Mrs blah-blah-blah
and family. I was an only child, not a family!
	Mez

   For myself,  I prefer Dr. and Mr.     :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)


    Hasn't happened yet, though we occasionally get   Dr. and Mrs.



Barbi

           I doubt that I'll ever get used to Mrs.

    .13 reminds me of some friends in graduate school.  My male friend
    met his wife after she had her Ph.D. while he was still working
    toward his.  So technically it was Dr. Female Smith and
    Mr. Male Jones.  HER family continually got their noses out of
    joint by the return address they insisted on using:
    
    	Dr. and Mr. Smith rather than the "approved" Mr. and Mrs. Jones
    
    Now it is Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones.  Would've saved ink if they
    had become the Drs. Smith-Jones or some such.

To us it *is* a big deal.  We usually do not use titles, and this
year our most often form of address was:

       female_name and male_name last_name

The infrequent exceptions were elderly widowed relatives for whom I 
insist we honor their wishes and address them as:

       Mrs. his_name

Carol

	Mark became Mr. Peggy Leedberg for my group's holiday party,
	he was not impressed, I kinda liked it.

	I try to never use titles in addressing except for Catholic
	religious Sisters, Brothers and Fathers (what no mothers???).

	_peggy


		(-)
		 |
			Peer to peer, first name, last name.

    re: .16
    
    I've heard of religious "mothers" as in Mother Superior, Mother
    Angelica (on TV), etc.

    And Mother Theresa, for sure.

>    And Mother Theresa, for sure.


	Thanks, I thought I was missing something.

	_peggy

	I'm not picky. I'll accept any expression of good will not addressed
	to "occupant".

    Surely Mr & Mrs (in that order) is stricly impartial, as the titles
    are listed in alphabetical order.
    
    The same problem applies in movie cast lists - often listed in
    alphabetical order so as not to offend "more" or "less" important
    actors.
    
    Pete

    
    
    I have a cousin (a man) whom I really like.  He's about 30, and
    about two years ago, he got divorced.  This summer he got married
    again to a woman who's a few years older, owns her own home, and
    teaches school.  I got a Christmas card from them, and the return address
    label said  "Mr. and Mrs. <his first name, his last name>.  It made
    me really sad.  I mean, it made me feel like if he hadn't changed
    his address in the last two years, he could have just used the same
    return labels that he had when he was married to someone else...
           
    Justine

	re: 903.22  (Justine Sullivan)

	>    I got a Christmas card from them, and the return address
	>    label said  "Mr. and Mrs. <his first name, his last name>.  
	>    It made me really sad.  

	I'm in a very similar situation, Justine.  A female friend from high 
	school who is married, recently had a baby, and is a Ph.d candidate 
	in chemical engineering sent me a Christmas card with:

			"Mr. and Mrs. <his first name, his last name>

	Not being familiar with her husband's first or last name (it was also 
	a new address), I had *no idea* who was sending me the Christmas card 
	from reading the envelope.  

	... as though her entire identity was now "set hidden" behind his.

	I'm thinking about writing her about it, but I dunno...  We haven't
	talked in person or on the phone for about 4 years, and I have 
	changed a lot in that time.  I think it would be almost rude to 
	talk about why I'm uncomfortable with her address labels when I
	haven't spoken with her at a really personal level in years.  

							nancy b.