When they know your address but...

[Minmom3]

2) Stop expecting my parents to pay your postage; they’re retired and can’t afford it!

Clipped for brevity's sake!

OP, could you give your parents a book or two of stamps in addition to the address stickers?  So, yes, your parents would have to do a little finger work, but you'd have given them the supplies with which to do that work, and it wouldn't cost them any money???  Retraining extended family can be awfully difficult, and giving supplies to your parents just sounds a lot easier than anything else.

[Itza]

2) Stop expecting my parents to pay your postage; they’re retired and can’t afford it!

Clipped for brevity's sake!

OP, could you give your parents a book or two of stamps in addition to the address stickers?  So, yes, your parents would have to do a little finger work, but you'd have given them the supplies with which to do that work, and it wouldn't cost them any money???  Retraining extended family can be awfully difficult, and giving supplies to your parents just sounds a lot easier than anything else.

So, I pay these relatives' postage instead? 

I don't think my parents should pay these relatives' postage and I don't think I should either.

[CuriousParty]

2) Stop expecting my parents to pay your postage; they’re retired and can’t afford it!

Clipped for brevity's sake!

OP, could you give your parents a book or two of stamps in addition to the address stickers?  So, yes, your parents would have to do a little finger work, but you'd have given them the supplies with which to do that work, and it wouldn't cost them any money???  Retraining extended family can be awfully difficult, and giving supplies to your parents just sounds a lot easier than anything else.

So, I pay these relatives' postage instead? 

I don't think my parents should pay these relatives' postage and I don't think I should either.

I agree, Itza - at this point it seems like plain laziness on the part of some people, at least. how much of a pain would it be for your parents to "pop" the letterbkx cards right back in the offenders' own boxes, perhaps with a note and copy of the sheet/label "so sorry you didn't get Itza's updated address, we won't be seeing her until much later in the year! Here's a label for this card and a reminder for your book!"

[Itza]

2) Stop expecting my parents to pay your postage; they’re retired and can’t afford it!

Clipped for brevity's sake!

OP, could you give your parents a book or two of stamps in addition to the address stickers?  So, yes, your parents would have to do a little finger work, but you'd have given them the supplies with which to do that work, and it wouldn't cost them any money???  Retraining extended family can be awfully difficult, and giving supplies to your parents just sounds a lot easier than anything else.

I agree, Itza - at this point it seems like plain laziness on the part of some people, at least. how much of a pain would it be for your parents to "pop" the letterbkx cards right back in the offenders' own boxes, perhaps with a note and copy of the sheet/label "so sorry you didn't get Itza's updated address, we won't be seeing her until much later in the year! Here's a label for this card and a reminder for your book!"

So, I pay these relatives' postage instead? 

I don't think my parents should pay these relatives' postage and I don't think I should either.

I'll ask my Dad as he likes to go out on his bicycle every day so he may be willing to do that.

It'd only work if two cards from the same person arrive through my parents' letter box: one for my parents and one for me so when they open theirs, they'll be able to tell from the same handwriting who it's from.

[Dindrane]

You know, I'm not sure if you'd want to try this this year (it would depend upon how fed up you are, I'd imagine).  But it would be entirely reasonable for your parents to just not open or pass on mail addressed to you if they don't know who it's from.

That would only work as retraining if the relatives who won't send things directly to you ask after the Christmas card at one point, so that you can say, "What Christmas card?  I haven't gotten one from you."

With the stamps someone else suggested, I don't think the suggestion was leaving stamps to mail the cards to you, but rather leaving stamps to mail the cards back to the relative in question.  It's an expensive thing to do for sure, but I think it will be important to return mis-addressed mail to people to drive the point home that they can't use your parents as messengers.  If your parents are able to drop letters off to these relatives, though, that's a cheaper way of accomplishing the same thing.

I think part of your problem is that a precedent has already been established in which your parents deliver other people's mail to you.  Since you've been nearby and they probably saw you often, it probably seemed like less work to just pass things on to you, rather than anyone trying to change the relatives' behavior.  So you're not starting from a neutral place in your effort to get people to mail things directly to you -- you've already got a precedent you don't like established, and you have to work to get rid of it before you'll see any changes.

[TootsNYC]

My MIL solved this problem by telling people, "You need to send the mail directly to Joe, or call him yourself to tell him about the holiday dinner. He's a grownup now, he doesn't live here. It's not fair to ask me to remember to pass on your letters or your messages. You have his address and his phone; he and his wife gave it to you at the wedding."

You also can call every relative who does this and say, "I'm going to ask you to remember to send my mail directly to me. It's not fair to ask my parents to have to forward letters or messages to me. It's not fair to ask them to spend on the postage, or to spend the brain power to remember to tell me. If it's too much money or trouble to send my Christmas card directly to me, then maybe you shouldn't send them at all."

In the U.S., a person can simply write on the front of the envelope, "Return to sender, not at this address" and the post office will send it back. Of course, you run the risk that the post office will decide that the PARENTS don't live there anymore. (We can also write in the new address and stick it back in the box to be forwarded, on the same postage, by the post office.)

For any instance in which someone just writes your name inside the card, or includes the card in one envelope, tell your parents to just throw it away.

[blarg314]

A simple approach is for your parents to keep the mail as it comes in, and give it to you whenever you visit. If they get something handed to them in person, they can say "Thanks, we'll give it to her the next time we see her."

If the mail were important, they'd be willing to mail it to you, rather than to a third party. If you miss things like shower invitations, they'll learn, and if they don't change their habits, your parents aren't put to the expense of forwarding stuff.

If your parents object to doing messenger duty, then it's their place to stand up to their relatives.

[CuriousParty]

I'll ask my Dad as he likes to go out on his bicycle every day so he may be willing to do that.

It'd only work if two cards from the same person arrive through my parents' letter box: one for my parents and one for me so when they open theirs, they'll be able to tell from the same handwriting who it's from.

Clipped for brevity.

In some cases they would, but since it's not going thru the mail they could just return the opened envelope with the note. If the card-senders complain about having to find/use another envelope - well, I guess that's more incentive to mail it correctly in the first place, hmmmm?

[Giggity]

Why don't your parents just say "No, we're not in charge of that, you need to send it to her address, which is blah blah blah"?

[Itza]

Why don't your parents just say "No, we're not in charge of that, you need to send it to her address, which is blah blah blah"?

They can only do that with the face to face relatives, not the swoop and drops.

[JadeAngel]

You know, I'm not sure if you'd want to try this this year (it would depend upon how fed up you are, I'd imagine).  But it would be entirely reasonable for your parents to just not open or pass on mail addressed to you if they don't know who it's from.

I don't think it would be at all unreasonable. In fact if people passed on unstamped mail to my parents I would just tell them to assume they they were meant to give it to me next time I saw them. So just put it in a box and next time I come down for Christmas, which may not be for another year, i'll sit down and sort through it then.

Then if people say didn't you get my... you reply 'No, I never saw it, perhaps it was lost in the mail?' and they reply 'Oh no we gave it to your parents to pass on to you' you can cheerfully reply that the costs of passing on all that mail was getting a little too high so you told Mum and Dad to just hang onto it until they saw you next so that's why you never got it'

I agree with posters who said that the precedent has been set and is hard to break, but it has to start sometime and the big move might be the right time to begin retraining that if it's important that you get it they need to stop using the Mum&Dad postal company...

One disclaimer though; I would tell my parents that if there was anything that looked important - official mail or an invitation to a family party or wedding, that they should pass it on to you (and maybe leave them with a secret book of stamps especially for that purpose and no other so that nosy relatives don't start going 'Oh use one of the OP's stamps, she won't mind!') just so you don't miss anything important.

[fluffy]

Do you send out your own Christmas Cards? If so, I'd make it a point to send them out on the early side, with the return address written in nice, big letters.

I had a problem with people assuming that I'd changed my last name when I got married. So, when I sent out our Christmas Cards that year, I made sure that my last name was on the card and the envelope. :p We got a ton of cards that year, and they all had my real name on them.

Your relatives probably think that they're doing something nice by giving you a card and not thinking about the burden that they're putting on your parents.

[Itza]

Yes, I send out my own cards and also send them out early.

I have adhesive labels (for when I lived at my old address) that I would place on the back of the envelope. I'll get some more for my new address.

I also enclose a letter with my address. People have had absolutely no excuse not to use my address and will have no excuse to use my new one. They have been given my old one all the time and I'll give them my new one all the time, too.

[TootsNYC]

Yes, I send out my own cards and also send them out early.

I have adhesive labels (for when I lived at my old address) that I would place on the back of the envelope. I'll get some more for my new address.

I also enclose a letter with my address. People have had absolutely no excuse not to use my address and will have no excuse to use my new one. They have been given my old one all the time and I'll give them my new one all the time, too.

Get new labels. Put them on the INSIDE of the card, near the signature. Write just above the label: "new address--please use for all correspondence"

You can also send out postcards now announcing your new address, and including a similar line: "please send all mail to me directly at:"

I think you might not have as much trouble as you think, because people will know that your mom and dad can't just hand it to you tomorrow.

[Itza]

Yes, I send out my own cards and also send them out early.

I have adhesive labels (for when I lived at my old address) that I would place on the back of the envelope. I'll get some more for my new address.

I also enclose a letter with my address. People have had absolutely no excuse not to use my address and will have no excuse to use my new one. They have been given my old one all the time and I'll give them my new one all the time, too.

Get new labels. Put them on the INSIDE of the card, near the signature. Write just above the label: "new address--please use for all correspondence"

I shall make sure to do that to hopefully drive the point home.

You can also send out postcards now announcing your new address, and including a similar line: "please send all mail to me directly at:"

I think you might not have as much trouble as you think, because people will know that your mom and dad can't just hand it to you tomorrow.

Already did the bolded, unfortunately sent them off before your subsequent suggestion.

Fingers crossed the recent hike in postage won't make people think my parents passing things onto me is the easy option.