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?

Now you mention it fluffy I don't recall my parents ever receiving a thank you letter, despite the hours I put in painstakingly writing "Dear Soandso thank you for the money i want to buy a my little pony i had a lovely christmas and got a new lego love from pidj xxx" to people i rarely see, some of whom still send me a Christmas card 30 years later

I don't mind sending Christmas cards I quite like sending them. It's just the thank you cards that really bug me and I know I'm being a little unreasonable but there is something about them that I really don't like.

I do think that some sort of thank you is required if you haven't seen the person at the time the present was received. But it can be email/phone/text/ note depending on what suits. Otherwise simply rude!

This thread is making me feel so old! Why wouldn't you send a thank you note, when someone has been so kind as to send you a present? My children, teenagers now, always send a letter to people. They don't get many presents, but I know that their elderly relatives love to get cards and letters. It's a nice gesture. And only £5 to you may not be much, but if you're on a pension, it's quite a lot, particularly if you have a lot of young relatives to give £5 to.

My mum always gave the children next door presents at Xmas, and she really enjoyed reading their letters back. Surely it's part of community spirit and thinking of others.

If my MIL rang more than once a day (or more than once a week really) I would go insane. Get caller ID and don't answer!

But not sending a thank you note is not in any way the same thing as not thanking someone.

You've got to say thank you somehow, whether it is verbal / text / email / little notelets with flowers on etc. My Mum has stopped sending presents to my cousins kids because they didn't send thank you cards.

It takes me 30 seconds to write a thank you card. I do clearly remember hating it when I was younger, but now I am a bit obsessed with them. I know exactly what presents I have given that have never been acknowledged!

YANBU. Thank you cards are a nice thought but nobody in their right mind would expect a child to sit down and write them until at least a few days after Christmas, there's too much going on. A friend of ours has a DS with a birthday the week before Christmas so she gets him to write cards after Christmas saying "thanks for the birthday present and the Christmas present" rather than doing two sets of cards so close together. Last year an Aunt rang her up and said she was disappointed and felt it indicated that my friends DS has "lazy attitude". He's 7

I suppose the thing about thank you cards (that I like getting btw), is that they are
A) a confirmation that the present got there in the post intact,
B) that the recipient actually got the present after it arrived
And not least
c) it gives me feedback on what they thought about the present.

"Thanks aunty venus, I love the puzzle and am on level three now," is a perfect thank you card IMVHO!

I really hate not being thanked by my nieces and nephews, it's damn rude, and I never know if the presents I chose and bought and posted have actually blinking arrived in the post.

Those that send me thank you notes get nicer presents. I'm not a bottomless pit of generosity, and much as I'd like not to care about these things, I do place a value on manners and being polite.

I value manners and politeness too. But to me an acknowledgement and thank you is polite, it doesn't have to come in the form of a written note. Which is just as well, since I've never got one of those for a Christmas present.

I've never sent a thank you card in my life, neither have my greedy grabby ungrateful kids.

We do send thank you texts though. Do they count?

I would find it a bit cringey if someone sent me a thank you card/letter for a present TBH.

But in this case, the note must be written because they won't see the person. If they saw the person, then a verbal thanks would be enough. Obviously, the OP is not unreasonable to dislike the constant reminders, though.

Why would it be cringy to have a chatty letter including a thank you for the present?

I had no idea people still sent thank you cards.

Cretaceous that is a good point. So, yes, in this case I can see why a written note might be appreciated and also why the OP doesn't like being nagged about it.

Because for a start it would only be written out of duty. It just seems a bit, I dunno,a bit 'look at me being all polite'

Venus, I'm not sure that it's feedback on whether the present was well received or not because I always say that my child loved the gift regardless. They usually do love the gift but sometimes they might receive a duplicate, I don't tell the sender that they already had it I just take it back to Tesco or Argos and swap it for something else.

I hated sending thank you letters as a child. I have 13 aunts and uncles and it took forever!
I never make my kids write them, the only people who send them presents are family who we see every week and we say thank you in person.

i'm amazing at the number of people here who don't send thank you letters themselves or expect their children to do so. I do them, DT's do them (although at 18 I expect them to do them without prompting) and family and friends do - basic good manners !

"Because for a start it would only be written out of duty."

I think that duty is quite important, though. Duty is why we do all sorts of good things. It's a way of getting young children to look at things from the giver's perspective, and how happy they'll be to receive a letter, for example. It's a win:win situation. It's to make the receiver happy, not to appear polite.

Now we have texts and e-mails and social media, a thank you letter isn't necessary, just a thank you in some form as an acknowledgement of receipt of the gift and to show appreciation.

My three polite, non-grabby DCs are happy to accept gifts on behalf of anyone who can't be arsed to say thank you.

My mum gives presents to grown up nieces and nephews, who then fail to send her a thank you card and she then moans about it. My aunties and uncles haven't given me presents since I was 18, about 25 years ago.

My reply mum, if you want to be thanked and they don't, don't send them a pressie. Simple.

I think if you've been brow-beaten into sitting writing them out all beautifully as a child, then that's all you can see them as - A PITA and a symbol of a parent flogging the 'my child is sooo polite' thing.

If i received a thankyou card now from a child i'd think - gawd, poor sod, made to sit and write this out

It is easier these days with the ability to text/email.