In Portugal that's rather usual.
I treat my parents' friends that way and I am "uncle" to most of my friends' children.
It's also customary to treat one's in-laws as Uncle/Aunt and I know a couple of ladies who even treated their in-laws as Father/Mother which I always found rather odd, specially because their own parents were still alive.
But, if everybody is happy...
--Previous Message--
: Just as most of Eyurope’s Catholic royal
: families were (and a few are) closely
: related, so were the Protestant and
: orthodox. It is customary among these
: families to address all members of the
: previous generation as “aunt” or “uncle”.
: The Greek and Hanoverian royals were closely
: related to the British, so it was perfectly
: normal for all of Queen Sofia’s generation
: to address their elders in this way. An
: amusing example was Napoleon, after his
: marriage to Archduchess Marie Louise, who
: referred to “my late uncle Louis XVI”! When
: more distantly related, or for the same
: generation, royals write (in French) “Mon
: cher cousin” or “Ma chère cousine” or the
: English or German equivalents, and I have
: seen such letter from the Queen (EII) and
: from other royals even to members of Middle
: Eastern royal families as “cousin” even
: though of course they were completely
: unrelated.
:
: --Previous Message--
: --Previous Message--
: Manuel, how was the relationship between
: Queen Victoria Eugenia & the Countess of
: Barcelona?
:
: Really good. She was, after all, Aunt Ena.
:
: Interesting way to describe her
: mother-in-law.
:
:
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