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?

I have purchased an app on my phone that means I can take photo of the child smiling with present, turn it into a post card, type in a dictated thank you message from the child on the back and post it. It has made the thank you card saga so pain free this year!

I make sure my children thank anyone who has given them a gift or shown them a kindness.
In person, by phone if too far away, or by card if more 'formal'.

We also thank for gifts or kindnesses shown to us as adults.
We both grew up with very little, materially, and I don't know if that is why, or it is an age thing (late 40's).

It's the least you can do, really.

But constant nagging about it is bound to make it less pleasant to do.

I agree with that, Mindreader.

I'm hoping to do DS's tonight. He's 3 and non verbal autistic so very unable to send a thank you himself by any means.

I think it's worth doing as it's definitely good to not upset friends and relations.

But as there are 16 to do it will take me quite a while - and given that most need to be posted then it will also cost quite a bit too. Not sure that the people expecting theirs quickly have understood the totality of the task!

I always get nagged by my mother about thankyou letters. I'm the only 'child' who is away over Christmas and it's DDs birthday this time of year as well so there are LOTS of thankyous to write so it takes a while to get three small children to do cards (there are 17 different people who have given presents). Rather annoyingly, although we spend hundreds on presents to my family only my mother and aunt send thankyou cards to me. Of course, since my siblings and cousin see my Mum at Christmas they don't get in trouble for not sending cards . Maybe I should start saying 'Did sibling X get a present? I've not had a thankyou card?' and see what the reaction is. She did that one year about my other cousin's wife (notice how the wife gets in trouble, not the husband who is her relative), I was with them when they got the presents and yet Mum went on and on to me about why C hadn't sent a card and was I sure they got the presents.

The good thing here is that they get exactly the same amount of money every time, so you can write the letters in advance ... maybe even keep copies of them for future years!

I think in general:

Polite: Acknowledge a present in some way - verbally, text, fb from either parent or child, don't care who, just want to know it arrived safely.

Unnecessary: Make your child write a thank you letter for every gift. If I do get a thank you letter, I do love a picture from the child but I find the repetitive, obviously laboured over "Dear Biffle, thanks so much for the lovely gift etc etc" really strange.

TheBooMonster Why are you doing the cards, etc for your DH's side of the family? He's not incapable, is he? So why isn't he doing them?

I've never done any cards for DP's family, he takes care of that.

I think if you've seen them in person then you don't need to send them. We get gifts from DP relatives ive never met and always send thank you cards.
My mil writes thank you card for just about everyone and everything. She's got too much time on her hands

We do them but we are the only ones I know that bother. I don't mind if we don't get a thank you back, I agree it is a personal choice. We do them as I want my kids to show some gratitude and it helps with them with their handwriting!

Surely if someone has gone to the bother of buying a gift the least you can do is write a thankyou! It is polite and the way I want to raise my children. Mind you we write thank yous for all gifts received- wedding, baby, birthday and to the hosts after every dinner. I also write to my mil or mother if they take the children out or babysit. It's a small gesture of appreciation. Most people I know do this.

When I was very heavily pregnant we received an embroidered baby quilt from DH's great-aunt. We promptly sent an effusive, chatty thank-you letter. This was followed by huge dramas, with DH's great aunt and grandmother phoning DH and his mum in floods of tears, because I clearly didn't like the gift as we had written not phoned. Couldn't do right for doing wrong.

YANBU about being annoyed with the phone nagging from MIL. That would wind me right up. My mum does it. I tell her I'm 30, have been writing thank you notes for approximately 26 years all by myself and therefore I do not need her to "remind" me.
She also goes on at me as DH doesn't personally ring my relatives to thank them for his birthday present from them. I call and have a quick chat and then pass the phone over to DH. Apparently this is disappointing and he should physically make the call himself. She pointed out only days after my grandmother had died, that said grandmother was always sad that DH never rang personally. I was cross because (a) there was nothing I could do about it then and (b) it's me that she makes feel guilty about it, not DH.
Also it sometimes takes a while to get hold of one aunt as she's out a lot. I don't leave answerphone messages as she thinks nothing of ringing back at 11.30pm
I agree with previous posters; next year say they've been done and posted even if they haven't been. It will shut MIL up at least!

When I was a child I got to the point of writing thank you letters before Xmas !
Dear Blank,
Thank you for the Blank,
We had a great day with uncle... aunt ..... It was nice to see Daphne.....etc
I go back to school on the .....
I wrote this about 6 times for the various grandparents, mum's 2nd cousin etc, pre addressed the envelopes.......
It makes the whole enterprise a lot easier & somewhat comic !

It is a pain, but a necessary one. It sends a bad message to dcs if you condone the "can't be arsed" attitude. These days one doesn't need to write in copperplate handwriting and on Basildon Bond (or Smythson, even). How come so many kids can't even manage a text or an email? It's just plain laziness.

Sil announced that her dcs would not be sending thank you letters as it was unreasonable to thank someone for "an unsolicited gift" I had no idea that Christmas presents could be viewed in this way!

BooMonster - not thanking people for wedding presents - that's on a whole different level and it would be extremely rude to just accept wedding gifts and money and not say thank you.

I agree with the majority - say thanks in some way, whether by mouth, text, social media, phone call, at some point.

But he sort of person who expects a letter/card within a few days of receipt is basically the sort of person you can't ever please and that only give to be thanked!

I personally am all for thank you cards. I always wrote them when I was a child, still do now, and do them for ds (he's 1 so can't do himself). I'm not mortified if I don't get them in return however they mean a lot if I do. When ds is old enough I will ask him to do them as I think it's a good habit to be grateful for gifts, even though I know writing them can be a pain.

However, reminding people to write them or putting a deadline on them, is completely out of order.

Next year send the thank you notes well before Christmas and then keep phoning your Mil to ask her to remind her friend to post your presents.

See a couple of others have mentioned it, growing up in Ireland we never did this, not sure if its a scale thing I have about 20 aunts and uncles , approx. 50 cousins, you would never leave the house responding to all of them. Therefore I don't expect a thank you card, don't know if I ever got one, except weddings , Irish people do them for weddings and occasionally communions conformations, which is nearly always money, another difference.

Tell your MiL to butt out.

But beyond that, I'll tell you what I tell my children. If you can't find time (a couple of weeks is fine) to say thank you, then don't accept the present.

I've said on another thread that I think you should always say thank you - but email/text/phone/in-person will do. My ds will need to write two letters though as we don't have the more convenient contact details for those people (although thinking about it we might have an email address so it might only be one).

But I am totally with Mr Tumble: I'd forgotten how my mum used to inspect my handwriting and have a go if I'd crossed something out etc! Kids today are so lucky that they can send a FB message or text or Facetime someone and not go through the tyranny of the long perfectly neatly written epistle.