Thanks but no thanks

[TrashyTash]

For Christmas I bought nieces and nephews small gifts and gave them money. I don't have a lot of money and had to save to be able to afford this, going without things in order to save enough. I don't receive Christmas presents from them and nor do I expect them. But here we are two days later and I haven't even had a thank you. I feel hurt and left wondering if this is the "done thing" nowadays?

@TrashyTash

Maybe someone has not been passing on gifting & receiving 'niceties' in your extended family. It takes good leadership generation to generation.

Of my four older grandchildren who live at home with their mother, Mr 19+ and Miss18 thanked me with a couple of sentences in a text message (I'm 850km away from them) within an hour of opening gifts after xmas lunch. Mr 16 texted a one polite sentence of thanks about 4:15pm on 25th. Miss 14 sent a text at nightfall xmas day.

The two younger grandchildren who both live 32km up river from me telephoned mid-morning on Boxing Day and each exchanged xmas niceties and thanks for their masses of school stationery for 2026, their novels and the ca$h sent to them.

It's been that way in this family since the early 1960s. Thank promptly ... comment on what you're doing and realise that some of your family sacrificed something to provide gifts/ca$h.

It's always nice to be seen and heard to be nice.

Your message was very encouraging and reinforced my thinking and stance on this. To receive text messages is fine. My nieces and nephews are teenagers and that's what I expect. A text or Whatsapp takes around a minute to do and doesn't have to say a lot. It's now the 28th and I still haven't heard so I doubt I ever will.