or is it too early to be annoyed by lack of thank you's for Christmas gifts?

[deaconblue]

Dh and I sent 15 gifts to a variety of children this year (mostly kids of friends who also sent gifts to our dc's). Have only received 4 thank you's. Our dc's thank you's were posted by the end of 2008. I don't even expect thank you cards but a text, phone call or email would be nice.
or do you reckon end of Jan is time after which lack of thank you's becomes rudeness?

We do verbal thanks for gifts given in person, thank you letter/card for those sent by post. Except for one friend who ALWAYS sends thank you notes for things given in person - for her we make an exception and send a note in return as it's obviously important to her.

DD is about to be 2 so I do them for now. As soon as she can write she will do them herself by hand.

Niecie - I will strongly suggest to DD when she's 10 that she should hand-write letters, as I find them much nicer to receive, but I guess it'll be up to her.

I leave it to Husband to arrange the TYous... which means, they don't get done, or if they do get done, it can be many ages afterwards.

He has threatened to tell people who gave DC gifts this year, to not send any gifts next time (unless DC write TYous). Quite honestly, I'd love him to go thru on this threat. DC have way too much stuff as it is and I cannot think of a nice way to ask people not to buy them things any more.

Hmmm... tea is suposed to be served up for 6pm and Husband hasn't even got home from work to start cooking it yet (only regular daily chore I ask him to do), belated tea means kids will be late to bed (again)... marriage is great folks, honest!

Hmmm, if the kids believe in Santa, why would they send thank yous? Mine don't as they think santa brings everything.

I send my presents from me-they do not go via Santa and I expect a letter!

Santa brings stocking presents. Grandparents etc give their own presents.

I think it's a bit late now tbh. By 10th Jan is plenty of time really isn't it.
Saying that I haven't sent our thank you cards yet and feel awful about it! I haven't even called people to say thank you, it's awful.
It's not because I'm ungrateful, a lot of people are going through a really rough time and still took the time and thought to buy and wrap my son a gift, and I can't scribble thank you and put an envelope in the post. I am very ashamed of myself......

I do thank yous

but shoppingbags - why do you give to 15 kids? that is madness

we do our nephews and that's it. We arranged with all friends to not do pressies as it gets out of hand, the kids don't appreciate it (as shown here) and the parents just get annoyed at the lack of appreciation and the amount of 'stuff' they get.

Next year cut back (maybe just to the ones who said thanks!)

I'm only just getting around to doing our thank you notes

never made our children do Thank you letters.
All three are dyslexic and dysgraphic-getting them done would have been a nightmare for me and them.
I am dyslexic and dysgraphic too and HATED writing thank you cards as a child. Stopped as soon as I was old enough to assert my choices.
Thankyous are said in person.

But I agree with others here-I don't give something to recieve something in return.
I give something to bring that person pleasure hopefully-and if I get a verbal thank you then thats fine. If I don't that's fine too.

I just don't get the 'busier than thou' excuses. We're all bloody busy, who isn't? Between phone, text, Facebook, Skype, MSN, letters etc it's hardly difficult to contact people these days. Not too busy to MN, are you?

I agree with you stinky

am doing our cards this week
pictures have been painted, but the accompanying photos of DD at Christmas have yet to be printed.

YANBU though.

Agree with stinky too. I get very annoyed to receive no sort of thank-you. I am quite happy with a verbal or email, but my mum expects a note, and gets a lot of pleasure from them.

We try to do hand written thank yous but wonder if we're being old fashioned. I think it's good to encourage the dcs to explain why they enjoyed receiving the present and to communicate a little about their lives especially for distant rellies. In the days when the whole class (seemed like it any way) came to birthday parties, we'd spread out opening the pressies over several days: write three thank yous from the day before and then open three new presents. How mean is that ?

We have just done ours today - I wanted DTs to contribute, they are just 5 and can't write the whole thing so I knew it would be a lengthy job, had to wait until they'd got over being back at school first

jeez if i was writing them out myself...i could have done them by boxing day if i hadn't been ill.

We're just about getting there... both kids have done about 12. dd has birthday too..so lots to do. They each have about 4 to do.
I hope our familys/friends aren't getting sniffy about it...this thread has got me worrying!

families even

Ehh?? surely when you swapped presents you would have said thank you at the time?? Agree with AnnieK on this one too. Not everyone is great on writing out thank you letters or emails, they have busy lives as it is.
YABU.

We haven't sent all ours out yet. We were really busy over Christmas and then the photo cards tok a while to come. DD has just written a whole load again tonight which DH will post tomorrow. I think she has anpther 4 or 5 to do tomorrow and then all done.

Have recieved one thank you letter in return so far. Have given and recieved verbal thanks though. DD always sends thank you notes as well as verbal. i know lots of others don't though.

Ours go in the post tomorrow

So in my own defense, I'd give it another couple of weeks before declaring them barn-raised by wolves.

Rude if you don't get any but there is still time. I favour written ones but I'm such a sweet old fashioned gal. Any form of thanks would be welcome but have a particular joy when I get something in the post other than another speeding fine or a gas bill.

Oh god how petty

Who cares if the kid writes a thank you card?

I'd say anything up to Valentine's day is acceptable. But really, I don't give a shit if a child doesn't send me a thank you card / letter, I wouldn't even notice.

just don't send the presents. 15 is a lot. Kids get so much at Christmas that the number of presents can be overwhelming.

Only time it bothers me not to recieve a proper thank you in some form is when I have sent the gift to a person, and have no oher way of knowing if it has been received or not. I have one relative who NEVER sent thank yous. I had no idea if any of my gifts arrived. Eventually I stopped sending gifts. I rarely saw them anyway and never had any acknowledgement of them getting gifts from us. This is depsite them sending DD gifts and us sending a thank you. They don't send to DD as a result now either.