About the fucking thank you letters?

[LennyCrabsticks]

I suspect I am but it does wind me up.

Mils friend (who we barely know) very generously gives each of our children a fiver in a card for every Christmas and birthday.

But then we have to endure the next few days of mil phoning more than once a day and each and every time she calls she 'reminds' us to do thank you cards for her friend.

We do obviously get the dc to sit down and write cards but I find the whole thing so very wearing. They certainly don't do them on Christmas Day or Boxing Day and in fact the first time I've actually asked them is today, the 12yo has produced his already, dd is creating something and I've sat down and helped the 3yo to scribble.

Everytime she calls, which this year has been from Christmas Day evening onwards, I clench. And I feel like saying actually, we're not going to bother doing cards so stop fucking wanging on about it.

We don't do cards for anyone else but that's because we see everyone else and thank them personally. And I just find the whole thing ridiculous because she stresses so much about it and I just would rather her friend didn't bother giving us anything so i don't have to be made out to be the laziest most ungrateful wretch ever because the cards aren't immediately forthcoming.

Aibu?

Next year write them in advance and give them to MIL with her Christmas card and just ask her to pass them on to her friend when she sees her. Will save you postage too!

Just do them.

My nephew never sent a thank -you for the £50 amazon voucher for his birthday in October,and now I worry maybe he never received it.

A card, or txt, would be nice so I know he got it.

I had to stop sending one relative a thank you card. She sent me a fiver when I started Uni so I dutifully wrote back and thanked her, letting her know how I'd settled in etc. She wrote back saying how lovely it was to hear from me, and here's a fiver to help you along. I think I got to about £20 before the guilt of taking her money overcame the guilt of not thanking her politely. She was diagnosed with the early stages of dementia not long afterwards.

YANBU btw, being nagged - hate that word but in this case it is, because of the frequency - to do something you're planning to do anyway is just irritating and patronising!

My Mum stresses about this as well. DS1 is only two and DS2 due next month so I assume they are not expected yet but I stopped writing thank you letters on my own behalf some time ago with only very occasional exceptions (cue major disapproval). I do think not thanking at all is rude, but that a text, email or a phone call is fine.

To be fair I do notice the difference between one sister who always acknowledges presents for her children (they often do write thank you letters, but if not she always emails/texts or whatever) and one who basically never does. I don't care at all about the lack of thank-you letters from the latter's children (which my mother complains about) but it does seem a bit rude to receive no acknowledgement at all, especially when it's a consistent pattern.

The phone nagging would wind me up. Can you persuade the children to generate several in a sitting and then you can stock pile them for next time?!

jenny I remember receiving packs of thank you cards to colour in practically every Christmas! They were probably from my Mum though thinking about it.

I hated this so much as a kid - my mother would make everyone freeze after opening each present so she could make a big show of laboriously adding a description of the gift and givers name to the 'Thank you letter list' (not note it down quietly but make a big theatre of it, so that thankyou letter wwriting would loom over the opening of each item).

Then the letters had to be in perfect hand writing and "newsy" often to people we hadn't met, or hadn't met since we were babies. The presents were often handkerchiefs or from one relative (a doctor) always a £1 book token... Even when I was a child (in fact moreso then) you coucouldn't buy a book for £1. Each required a "proper, newsy" letter stating what we liked about the gift and some "news". Writing the envelope was the most stressful part, as apparently the postman would not be able to deliver it unless it was immaculate

I hoped every year that most of the thank you letter recipients wouldn't bother sending anything. All of Christmas was about being seen to do the right thing (endless church attendance, promenading around the local hospital on Christmas day, inviting elderly neighbors over for the afternoon - I do realise the last one was a nice thing to do, though as they were a couple I don't know how much it was appreciated or whether they accepted out of obligation too... It sucked the possibility of fun and any spontaneity right out of Christmas.

My kids never write thank you letters - they speak to the giver on the phone or I send an email. I am not repeating the ordeal (nor doing the pointless one liners printed off the computer which my sister makes her dd do).

My MIL does the same, peeves me off as I have always gone my children to do thank you cards yet her others son's children don't usually give so much as a verbal thank you let alone a written one yet she says nothing to them.

Yabu. It is a simple matter of manners.

Why not get the children to make thank you cards before christmas, then it is then just down to them to write a sentence and you to post after christmas.

Yanbu to be fed up with the constant calls. fgs let the kids pay for a bit before hounding them.

only on mn have I come across this ridiculous notion that after saying thank you as you receive them. calling texting emailing or face booking or whatever to say thank you after yiu have opened them.that nothing bar cards written in blood received within 24 hours is good enough and anyone who doesn't chain their toddlers to a table the second the wrapping is off is an ungrateful rude twat.

We write cards but I don't rush it and I already said thank you anyway.

Haha at the "newsy" letters. I used to have to write "lovely, chatty" ones. This is actually quite a stressful ordeal for a reserved person who assumes that most people aren't that interested in them.

Nothing worse than being nagged, plus it's early days. Dd writes them for birthdays but not Christmas as we all exchange then and adults aren't sending cards to each other. I think it's nice to write them one as you don't see them to thank them in person but one between all the DC should suffice and in your own timeframe. Some people are so controlling and suck the fun out of giving.

Oh god i used to hate the 'sit down and write your thank yous' ritual as a kid too. With the newsy letter. And the spelling and envelope stress. It would take me a whole morning.

Then, a couple of weeks later my mother would start with the umpteen ''oh auntie so and so was SO pleased to have received your letter, they say you're the only child who ever sends them and they wished they got thank you's from 'all the other children', and that they never mind spending money when they are thanked so nicely. This went on till i was 18 and left home!

I'm ashamed to say i never realised what manipulative bollox this all was until she started it with MY children! Oh auntie so and so says your children are the only ones who bla bla bla. Of course people like getting a thankyou letter, and probably just said 'thanks for the thanks'; but all this ''you're the only polite child in the universe'' crap, and ''oh everyone was just about moved to tears by your card'' crap was all designed to make me feel obliged and much more to do with how she was seen as a parent.

And now as a grandmother.

I kid you not - this xmas day in the middle of the present opening she hissed across the room at me to tell my eldest not to forget to write her thank you cards, it's sooooooooooo apreciated. My eldest is TWENTY bloody TWO. She'll send a text or an email and she doesn't need me emotionally nagging her.

I'm relieved it's not just me. It's all such bollocks.

Genius idea about doing them ahead. I will start stockpiling now.

YANBU at all OP. This would drive me beyond nuts.

I always get my DC to write thank you cards, but we aim to get them done within a fortnight, with them doing a couple of cards a day after breakfast so it doesn't turn into an all-day ordeal of misery!

I was the kind of irritating child who actually enjoyed writing 'newsy' letters (makes me cringe now, looking back) but I am now the mother of children who really rather wouldn't, and I wouldn't dream of forcing that.

The constant nagging would give me the rage OP. I would have lost the plot with her by now.

When I was a kid, my aunt's displeasure at not receiving a thank you was communicated is my grandma and back to my mum.

My aunt didn't have a child til quite late, when I was an adult. I have dutifully sent (lovely, I think) presents for every birthday, Christmas, and NEVER received a thank you.

Being queen of passive aggressive (and still fearful of what grandma might say, despite her being dead for

... Oops,,, 12 years, I write thank yous to my aunt on behalf of DS's (2) presents... (My cousin is primary aged).

If my MIL asked me about thank you cards I would suggest she speaks to her son. It's his ruddy mother after all.

MrTumbles we went to the hospital too! I have never met anyone else who did this and even at the time it was v. old fashioned I think, none of the other consultant's families did it I don't think. I would suspect you of being one of my sisters except that we never went to church.

I actually quite liked going to the hospital but that's because the nurses always seemed to be having fun on Christmas Day. (Unlike us!)

Yanbu. At all.

We get similar (if not as extreme). To receive a gift with an obligation defeats the whole object, surely? I wish they would just stop sending anything if the response is not up to scratch.

What did you do at the hospital? Did you take along presents for the sick children or something?

She obviously is under some sort of social embarrassment if her friend's gift is ignored, but she shouldn't be pestering you about it. Sounds like the friend does it as much for your mil as anything else, seeing as she doesn't know you personally.

But that said, she's parted with cash as a goodwill gesture, and it would seem rude to ignore it, even though you didn't ask for it and probably would prefer never to receive it in the first place! but for as long as she gives it, it's right that she is thanked out of courtesy.

However you thank her is up to you; perhaps ask for her mobile so you can text a thank you, or get her email address. Or pre-write the card and give it to your mil on Christmas Day over the turkey so nobody can feel stressed over Christmas!

toffee we visited a few different wards, but I remember children and old people mostly! More old people because I think they tried to get children home for Christmas if at all possible. I suppose they were the wards on which my Dad did his rounds? I'm not sure really. I think we took chocolates but mostly what I remember is being given chocolates by the nurses! And making awkward conversation with old ladies.

I get where you are coming from. It's nothing to do with thank you letters just the implicit assumption that you are a useless mum. Never got over my own mil who (when an elderly relative gave me cash for my ds) told me not to put it in my purse as I might spend it on myself and forget to put it in his account. I was

I hate thank you notes. My DCs get money in card from one of MILs friends who they have never met. I met her once.

MIL stresses about them sending a thank you card. It's been going on for 15 years now. They haven't ever sent one and never will.

MIL races over to see how much money they got so she can match it for her friends DGC. It's bonkers.

We don't do thank you letters to people who we have thanked in person.

I used to get my kids to design something on the computer - anything they wanted, whether that was drawing a picture, making a photo collage or whatever and print it out however many times. The "thank you" text was generic and part of the printing. They just signed it.

Not having to do it lots of times seemed to make a big difference.

I recommend you all move to N Ireland where thank you cards/letters are confined to wedding presents and birth of a baby gifts. I'm almost 40, and petfectly polite and thankful, but round here its a verbal thank you and no one expects any more. You'd be the talk of the town if you started sending thank you notes, and not in a good way