A Wrong Number Sent Me Their Family Christmas Photo For Six Years

It started in 2019. A photo arrived from a number I did not know: a family of five in front of a tree, all in matching pyjamas, all clearly under duress, with a caption that said "MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE WHOLE GANG xx".

I replied: "I think you have the wrong number, but you all look great."

They replied: "Ha! Sorry! But thank you!! Merry Christmas!!"

The next year, it came again.

I said, gently, that it was still the wrong number.

They said: "We know. You're on the list now."

I am not making that up. I got put on a list.

For six years I have received: Christmas photos, one graduation, two dogs (one new, one — I assume — replacement), a photo of a caravan captioned "SHE'S OURS", and, in 2023, a video of a very small child eating a lemon, which I have watched maybe forty times.

I have never met them. I do not know their surname. I know the dogs' names.

Last December the photo arrived and there were four people in it, and there was a chair, and the chair was empty, and it had a folded jumper on it.