Guess they are waiting for the announcement

So we tried to invite our family over for Easter our first year in this house.  I figured it would kill two birds with one ham.  We'd take a major holiday off the rotation and everyone would get to see our new home and check "visited the dark evil city once per decade" off their to-do list.

Unfortunately it wasn't a warmly received idea from various branches of the family because of their feud with my mom.  Basically they don't want to be in the same room as her because something went down the previous year at or just after Easter.  

The following was sent to me a couple of years ago (I have not altered it, even for spelling):

Hi Icarus 

Here I found the protocal for you on baby's birth announcements for the future. When you friends or family have babies.

The phone call is a common response to the birth announcement by close friends and family. This may be followed up by a card, gift or personal visit. Be sure to clearly state your baby’s schedule and your availability. Unscheduled visits can put a new mom into a bit of a tizzy so always say when you want people to stop by.

E-mail responses to birth announcements are common from distant friends and relatives. The new parent may receive a ton of messages on their social networking site or receive responses by formal e-mail. Parents just need to say thank you and acknowledge the e-mail but detailed letters are not required.

No response at all to receiving a baby birth announcement is more frequent that you may expect. Some people either choose not to respond in any way (not common) or don’t realize they should respond (common). Like greeting cards or thank you cards, a response is not necessarily expected or understood by everybody. For people that didn’t send birth announcements at the birth of their own child or are receiving a birth announcement for the first time they may not know how to respond. Don’t worry you won’t notice under the shower of gifts, cards and good wishes.

Hope this helps You and Nightingale 

Morticia

She didn't include a link to the source but I'm assuming she found this out there on the interwebs. The impetus for this was we had been talking about her daughter and I was called out for bad behavior: Failure to Adequately Acknowledge a Significant Life Event.

Apparently, even though we only heard about the birth of my cousin Wednesday's kid through Facebook, we were supposed to...I'm not sure what.  Morticia and Wednesday certainly didn't follow the above protocal when our kids arrived.  I don't know if they figure that because we didn't follow a protocal we didn't know about, they are excused from following it, or if the protocal only flows in one direction -- like most of the expectations from that side of the family. 

In any event, we made our sincere gesture and it was declined.  I am well past the age where I have any Fucks left to give.

Wednesday and I are over a decade apart and so even though I've tried to have a relationship with her, it only flows in one direction.  By that I mean she will reach out to me when she requires something or she will talk about what is going on in her life until the cows come home, but the phrase "how are you" is seldom uttered.