Are we losing the art of thank you cards / letters

[sheeplikessleep]

I know I'm being pedantic, but am I the only one who thinks a printed, generic 'thank you for our presents' card isn't as personal as a little handwritten card or letter with reference to what the present was!

AIBU to think more effort should be put in?

Only since I have had children have I realised that most folk don't write thankyou cards, and it did used to bug me when we didn't receive any after parties, Christmas etc. We always write thank you cards or letters in our home, it doesn't take long and as someone else mentioned, if someone has bothered to carefully choose a gift, then you should be bothered to write a note of thanks. I am used to not receiving them now, but I think it is rude and lazy to not bother. So there!

I agree with the OP. Writing thank you letters/cards with a personal message is basic good manners. If someone's taken the time to choose, buy and post/visit to give a present, you should write a a short letter or a card.

I knew we could count on this definitive guide

Yes agree that generic cards miss the point...I always send personally written thank yous...from our children too...however, it is the height of rudeness to not send anything, or even not to bother to telephone upon receipt of a gift to thank the person who sent it

I've always handwritten thank you letters, and mentioned the specific gift, including thank yous for wedding and baby gifts. I couldn't imagine not doing it, though having said that I'm not offended if I don't receive them from others. I do think it is a bit of a dying art.

With DS1 I am strict about him doing some kind of a handwritten thank you - first of all I think it's good manners and as someone else has written it's good handwriting practice! However, we do cheat a bit, partly because I know there is a limit to what I can expect him to handwrite. He's just turned 5 and has really struggled with handwriting (he has ongoing OT for fine motor skills problems) so "Dear Aunty X and Uncle Y, thank you for my Christmas presents, love from DS" was about as much as I could reasonably expect this year. Ideally I'd like him to refer to the specific gift, and will aim for this in future - but we are blessed with very generous friends/relatives who often give him two or three smaller presents, and writing something along the lines of "thank you for my Lego dump truck, my colouring book and my Spongebob pen" would just have been too much to expect of him, given that he had a good 15 such letters to write.

When DS2 was born he also received a stack of 'new big brother' presents and I was too knackered to try and get him to write individual thank yous, so must confess to major cheating here - got him to write one 'Thank you for our lovely presents love from DS1 and DS2' message, and colour photocopied it then stuck it in each card . So it was mass-produced, but didn't actually look it unless you checked carefully! I did write a personalised note in with each of those though.

I write thank yous for my dcs.

It is a chore and really not something I enjoy doing but I really feel strongly that people should be thanked properly for thinking of a nice gift for my kids and spending money on them. I think it's a pretty big them for them to do.

Having said that, I look forward to when my dcs are old enough to write their own. Or is that just a different kind of battle?

What does irritate me is having to write thank yous to people who I've never met and never will meet but who have very kindly but unnecessarily sent a gift to my newborns.

They send them because mil sends their gcs/nephews/nieces gifts and she never meets those children either. It's all very nice but I'm the one having to write 60+ thank you cards in the month after giving birth. I should get mil to write them.......

This to those people that don't send thank you cards like me. The scenario is that someone gives you a present and you say thanks but open it later when the giver isn't there. Would you then say thank you again after you had opened it, either by phone, email or text, or is it sufficient that you said thank you when they gave you the present?

I was always made to write thank you cards as a small child, but got away with phoning people when I got into my teens.

I always send thank you cards for gifts that my 2 children get from people throughout the year and they are always hand written.

I am looking forward to getting the 2 of them to write their own as can be fun especially when they get to write what they want and do a drawing as well.

I must admit, I think its only polite to send some form of thank you card, handwritten or generic. It takes effort to do both. However on saying that i do like receiving thank you letters from my friends children that they have written themselves!

A personalised thank-you card is always better than a generic one. I've had so many, 'To Cyclops, From Little Johnny/Jane' and last month, one of the mums even sent round a generic email saying thanks for all the presents!

It seems that speed has become more important than sincerity these days.

I always send hand written thank you letters if i haven't seen the gift giver to thank them personally. I did this for our wedding and for all the new baby presents we received. Also do it if we have stayed at someone's house or been to a nice meal/dinner party etc. Think is just a nice touch to thank someone for their efforts and in general does not take too long.

I'm another one who's been forced to write TQ letters since I could put pen to paper and can't imagine not doing so. I wouldn't berate anyone for not doing it but I very much appreciate it when they do.

I've actually rather enjoyed the past few years since DD arrived as I've been able to go for a different approach and have written thank you letters as if from her (complete with Charlie-and-Lola-esque phrasing if I can manage it without sounding too contrived). Where appropriate, I'll add something like "And Mummy seems really about the you gave her" plus a sentence illustrating this (again from a child's perspective).

My hope is that I managed to convey appreciation with a touch of humour.
(I fear it may be deeply cringeworthy - but at least the thought is there!)

alibaba - some people will appreciate it and others will think it's the crassest thing imaginable, judging by some responses on threads like these - don't worry about it!
At least you're sending a thank you letter and putting some effort into it.

i still did them....(well got the children to fold paper in four like a card with a picture.)

my 79 year old uncle says 'you can't put a txt on the mantel'. but i have friends who'd say. ooooh la la if i sent them a written thank you card.!

I spend hours doing thank you cards at Christmas and birthday's on behalf of me, DP and DD. I am starting to get annoyed that literally no one else I know ever sends any. I put a lot of time, thought, effort (and money!) into buying presents for friends and family but nobody ever sends a thank you card.

I was furious last year when I bought a present for DP's 14 year old niece and she opened it in front of us and didn't even say thank you. She barely acknowledged it. At the time I think I swore to DP that I wouldn't be buying her anymore presents and he could do it in future but of course I've caved in and bought her presents since (still no thanks).

I always do hand written thank you cards, often hand made too.
My daughter is very young so I write Dear X, in pencil and she writes over the top.
I then write a thank you message like
Thank you for the lovely doll you bought me for my birthday, I love it.
Lots of love from... Then I write in pencil again my daughters name and she writes over the top. She does her own kissess too.
This does take ages, but we space them out. I think it's nice to recieve a hand written card, it shows that you appreciate it.

I have to admit that I do send thank you cards - after stayying with people, after receiving gifts, after a meaningful gesture of support. Mind you, I do proper invitations for dinners/drinks etc and there is quite a bit of social correspondance involved in my husband's job that always seems to land on my desk. With some exceptions, I nearly always get thank letters in return. I also still write good old-fashioned letters, rather than emails because I think there's nothing nicer than getting a lovely envelope containing news and gossip through your door!

I do remember feeling miffed when an friend of mine sent a brief one-line text ("txs for pres") in response to the gift we gave for her first child but that says more about me than it does about her, I think.

I do make the older 2 write thank you letters (DD1 is 16 and DD2 is 6) - DD2 is still struggling with writing so it is just "Dear x thank you for my present love DD2" and I get her to draw a little picture to make it a bit more interesting. It is a very long slog though, so for DD3 who is just 2, they get a photo which I overprint with "Thank you for my Christmas present" - if it's a close friend or relative I may do a handwritten letter as well.

(To anyone else who wants the easy route for children too young to write, use the free bits on the Picnik website to doctor a photo with text/borders then print them off via Jessops/Asda for about 10 - 15p each)

I don't write thank you cards for stuff I've received, I generally do it by phone. But I always send thank you cards on behalf of DDs for their Christmas and Birthday presents and get the eldest to draw a little picture in each one. I am very guilty of sending them out late though

I do handwritten thank yous for everything - presents, dinner parties, favours people have done me, new baby gifts, and I also write thank yous for the mothers who have organised birthday parties and invited my children. I always write to the parents/hosts of weddings we have been to, and am proabably far too OTT about it.

People always comment on how nice it is to receive them, but I was brought up to believe that it was totally bad form not to. So my three (and soon to be four) children all write their own - even if when they were little they just did a scrawl and I wrote the text.

So, in my book YANBU!

YANBU. My sister and I always had to write proper 'newsy' thank you letters for Christmas, birthday presents etc - EVEN IF we'd thanked the giver in person. Used to take forever, but Christmas ones had to be done by New Year. The habit has stuck though (with me at least, my sis never writes letters!) and I always write personal thank you letters almost immediately for everything, including the presents received when both our daughters were born. DD1 is now 3.75 so dictates her own letters and then writes her name at the end. I think it's important that she thanks people, and doing the letters doesn't take all that long really.

Just remembered some friends of my parents who had two daughters pretty much the same age as me and my sister - they NEVER had to write thank you letters. Anyway, these were people we used to see frequently, so we always handed our beautifully handwritten, newsy letters over in person. The woman used to open the envelopes, read the letters, say 'thank you for the lovely letters', rip them into four pieces and throw them in the bin. Every time! More than two decades later I can still picture her doing it! (And we still weren't allowed to give up writing thank you letters to them!!)

That's outrageous mummymilky . Why would someone behave like that?

We are losing the art, email thank yous are ok for people under 30.
Handwritten cards or notes absolutely necessary for all but the most extremely laid back over 60s.

30 = 60s depends on their pedantry level and whether the thanker is a boy or a girl.

My niece (6)will sit and write thank you cards for joyous pleasure for hours.

My ds (9) is more of the 'Blood from a Stone' school of thank you letters which makes my life hell because I think it's the least a child should do!

I don't like printed ones, they are almost worse than nothing at all - well the ones that I have received are just so twee. I think you should take the time to write thank yous

I make cards with the kids. However, I used to write it then let DCs 'sign it'. Now that DD1 is 5 and can write, I am going to do sort letters handwritten saying thank you for the x. ove (DCs). As they get bigger they can write more. There are alot of cards to write though - so it is a bit of a nightmare. But I think it is really rude not to thank people.

RamblingRosa - it wasn't done in a malicious way or anything, I'm guessing that as they never wrote thank you letters in their house, it was just seen as a bit pointless. Rather frustrating for us (especially my sister who found the writing a real chore) - I just used to make sure their letters weren't ever written on my nicest writing paper!