I've noticed since at least a year ago that I no longer get thank you notes when I give presents to my daughter's friends at their birthdays. We've been to at least 10 birthday parties in the past year. The most recent ones in September and October. I have not received thank you notes from anyone. My daughter is in 1st grade. When she was in pre-school, we always get thank you notes about a week or two after the party. Just wondering if I missed a memo on birthday present etiquette. My daughter's birthday is coming up, I plan to send out thank you cards for presents from her friends. Just checking if anyone else has the same experience or explanation for this.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for letting me people do still send them. Some clarification: these are my daughter's school friends. The invitations were distributed at school. So I would assume they could send the thank yous the same way. I don't mean they have to thank me personally, a thank you card to my daughter whose name the present was 'From' would have been fine. Everyone at school has the school directory which lists addresses and phone numbers of all students. In addition, every parent in the classroom has the email distribution list of all other parents. So, not knowing where to send it isn't the problem.
Also, there are lots of activities at these parties so no one has ever opened a present at the party.
Etiquette says that if you receive a gift from someone in person, like at a child's birthday party, and you thank them then, you don't need to write them a thank you note. In effect, you'd be thanking them twice. Additionally, the goody bag most kids get at the end of the party is also a "thank you" for having attended. If the birthday child doesn't open presents at the party however, they need to send a thank you note.
I think a thank you said in person at the party is more than sufficient. I personally feel thank you cards are redundant and a waste of paper. Anything that can be done face to face should be.
Denise P is right. People are downright rude. RSVP's fell off the etiquette list too.
At my house....NOTHING is used until a hand written thank you is stamped and ready to mail....no matter if you said thank you in person. Basic etiquette.
Honestly, keep sending them. A thank you note is a simple acknowledgment and each one takes less than 5 minutes to write. Think about how pleased you are to receive one!
I'm sure I'll get some real slack for this comment, but I think the lack of a thank you note reflects the general movement away from gratitude and a lack of respect our children have for adults. Parents who don't insist on thank-yous should be ashamed of themselves.
My 2 yr old sends thank you notes. I write them and then he "stickers" them. He will ALWAYS send a thank you. To be honest, there are people who I no longer send gifts to for this exact reason, including some family members. If I take the time to shop, buy, wrap and ship a gift they can take 5 minutes to call or write.
This topic makes me crazy b/c I have attended 5 weddings in the last year and have received 2 thank yous! We're talking big $$$ here and you can't put pen to paper? Come one. It's polite and showing gratitude is always appropriate and well-received.
It's been many years for me, so I don't know the current etiquette.
All I know is, if thank you notes for kids' presents have gone out of style -- good. I always did it, but when I think back on how overloaded moms of little kids usually are, and then they need to send out thank you notes for presents to little kids on top of everything -- I think it's silly, and we should all agree to outlaw them.
I think the kids should say thank you when they open their present, and that should be enough. The receiver learns to acknowledge and say thank you, and the giver (the kid in this case) gets his/her thanks. Enough already.
I do believe in teaching your CHILDREN to write thank you cards for anything they receive in the mail, however, and for which they cannot thank someone personally.
This is purely my opinion, but I think if the gift is opened while you are still there and they say thank you, then no thank you card is necessary. But if they don't open the gift in front of you but take it home to open it, they should send a card.
I do write them, and I'm teaching my 3 year old son to do the same. I do not subscribe to the "I thanked them in person, so I don't need to send a card" school of thought. I think that after a person has gone to the trouble of choosing a gift for you the least you can do is spend 5 minutes letting them know how much you appreciate it. I try to get notes out promptly, but I usually do make sure that I use the gift first so that I have something specific to write in the thank you note. I really hate the very generic "thank you for the gift you sent" notes, and I think that writing a thank you requires a bit more than that. Not receiving a thank you note, or receiving a really mediocre one are pet peeves of mine.
I suggest continuing to write thank yous and teach your kids to do them anytime they receive a gift.
You didn't miss the memo--people are just rude!
OK, this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. My now 24 yr old STILL writes thank you notes to her grandmother when she sends her a CARD - let alone a gift! What is lacking in the parents that they forget to teach their children GRATITUDE???? Take the high road; after your daughter's party, sit with her and help her write the notes.....maybe some of the other mothers will learn something.
According to my own friend, if the person thanked you in person, then a card is not needed.... But I don't know if that is okay according to the "etiquette police."
Everyone has a different idea of what is birthday etiquette. In my family we only do thank-you notes if we are not able to thank-you face to face. I do not believe we do not have "birthday present etiquette" as you put it if we were able to thank-you for your gift face to face but did not send you a thank-you note later.
As a kid, we were not required to write a thank you note to our friends. As they were there at the party, they saw us open the presents.
We did have to write thank you notes to family that sent presents.
I think I'll do the same with my kids. I can say that because I am not the type of person to get offended by not getting a thank you note. Save a tree, I'm fine with that LOL!
I'm glad some other mothers are wondering about this too! I always send thank you notes and am teaching my son about sending them because that is a very important social skill and as well as teaching the value of being thankful. I also send thank-you notes because I feel that if a parent/child take the time to come to my son's birthday party and spend the money on a present it is important to acknowledge the gift and time they spent with us. I personally think its rude when we give presents and no thank-you notes or verbal acknowledgement. On another note, I send hand-written notes because I want my son to use his writing although sending/receiving e-mail thank you notes is fine.
My kids have always had the rule that thank you notes have to be written before the present can be used (played with, spent etc) Having said that when you say "you" give the presents are these family events or parties that are kids at school? I think in 1st grade your daughter should be writing her own thank you notes. One of the problems with birthday parties with school friends is that the kids don't know each others address's. It could be that the parents don't have a clue how to get them to you. But even so the thank you notes should be from your daughters friends to your daughter. not to you lol. just an observation.
Hi, I didnt read all your answers but, thank you notes are the way to go. Thank goodness my Mom raised us to write a note after receiving any gift. To this day, I write a note for everything. Im raising my kids the same way. Im hoping to instill in them how important this is. Im always surprised after sending a gift for any occasion .. baby shower, birthday, wedding. Still no thank you note. Im almost to the point of not sending a gifts anymore. Please keep writing the hand written note.
I always send out thank you notes. After having my son though, it takes me much longer to get them out, too long. But I do send them. I don't think you are asking for too much to get one.
No, you didn't miss anything - people are getting ruder by the year. Even a thank you e-mailed can suffice.
My son just turned 8 and handwrote an entire thank you card for each and every person. It teaches him to be thankful and it helps his letter writing skills (bonus!).
I agree with you that they are being sent out less and less, but I don't agree that means that they are no longer "required" or in etiquette, it just means that less people are taking the time to send them. I was raised to send thank you notes and my daughter is being raised to send thank you notes. She will be turning 5 in December and she actually looks forward to participating in the "writing" of thank you notes. She reminds me! Like others have stated she has been adding her embellishments to the cards since the age of 2 and by 4 she wrote her name on each card before it went out. Having your children sit down and participate in this is an important lesson in gratitude in this hustle and bustle, gimme-gimme-gimme society that we live in. Additionally, if the other kids that attended the party are anything like my daughter, they will equally appreciate getting their own piece of mail addressed to them when they receive the thank you card. It's win-win all around. : )
Thank you notes are still appropriate. Each year my daughters take a picture of them with their friend at their party and turn it into a thank you card after the party. It makes it personal and fun!
B.
Family Success Coach
If they were close friends/relatives, I just call and say thank you.
It's still customary but there have been a couple of parties where we didn't get one. One year, for my son's class party, I sent a personal email to thank the guests. I figured as long as I got the sentiment across, it didn't matter. On a side note, we used to live in pv..how's the fog, these days? Lol!!
I'm old school, I guess. I still send out thank you's. Although for my daughter's last party, I sent out a thank you email (personal, not a mass email). Hey, it still got there!
The moms weren't taught to send thank you notes.
Or they use only email or facebook or twitter.
The children will not learn to do this
unless their moms (or dads) teach them.
Regretfully, I did not send handwritten thank you notes for my daughters 1st birthday. I meant to send a thank you email, but we had just sent thank yous for our wedding reception and then we got busy and then it seemed that the moment just passed. It was my error and I did feel guilty about it so I will not make that mistake again. She received gifts from family and a couple of close friends with babies close in age. As her circle expands, I think it will be even more important to remember this lesson in etiquette and to teach her about gratitude and good manners by example. There was an article in the LA Times about this today. The Emily Post Institute still feels strongly about thank yous and said that in the age of technically even a thoughtfully written email will do.
I've found the same thing. Since I got so few this year though for my 1st grader, I have to say I reciprocated and didn't send ones to those mothers after her bday party. It didn't help that we had people over after the actual party and it was rather chaotic and so many cards got separated from the presents that I didn't know who gave what for at least 50% of the gifts... I think it's rude too but figured if these moms (who I don't really know) aren't going to bother, I have enough to do that I'm not going to either. My daughter's young enough that I'm not sure she noticed we didn't send thank you's to everyone.
UGH!!! I am so tired of no thank you note! Thank you for bringing this up. I haven't gotten a thank you note for the past 2 weddings we attended. WEDDINGS! I'm shocked! SO RUDE. Birthday parties are 50/50 for us on receiving them and baby showers I'm getting almost always. Keep teaching these good manners :)
If the gift is open with the giver present, a "thank you" at the time is sufficient. If the giver is not present when the gift is opened, however, a thank you note should be sent.
Sad to say, though, etiquette seems to be dead.
I agree with Krista P. I always send thank you cards for everything...even if a friend takes me out to dinner for my b-day. I even send thank you cards to family for Christmas gifts. I think it is just plain rude to not send a thank you card. A verbal is not the same--I agree with other posters that if you took the time to select, wrap, and/or deliver a gift, they can take the time to write a thank you! It may be "old-school" but I think it is scary that people in our society think that etiquette is old-school. The irony is that my mom taught me to always send thank you notes, but I never get any from her! I've only sent one emailed thank you and that was to my financial planner and I even explained why it wasn't hand-written. Also, our playgroup decided that we understand busy lives, so we don't expect cards from everyone. However, most moms still send them. It's just a sign of our times. Sigh...I say take the high road and keep sending them. Everybody loves to get a hand written card acknowledging your time and generosity!
Hello, I totally believe in thank-you notes. I raised four kids (two boys and two girls). My oldest one give thank-you notes immediately. None of the others give any. I don't know why this is, it just is.
K. K.
