Thank you note questions

[Marcie]

Curious...

1. Excluding family, do you generally send thank you notes to people who give your children birthday gifts?

2. Do you send thank you notes for gifts that guests bring to your children's birthday parties?

3. If your child receives a birthday present from a friend or classmate and does not open the gift in front of the friend or have an opportunity to verbally thank the friend / parent (ie, the gift was left in a cubby at school or sent to your house), do you send a thank you note?

[macksmom]

yes to all

[Suja]

yes to all

This.

[Bean]

Always send thank you notes for every gift, regardless of if a verbal thank you was said or not. The kids do their own cards. I will help, but they have to do them themselves.

[preciousnd98]

Yes to all - at least I try. I am not always the best at getting them out in a timely manner

[sparks3]

1. Yes, always.

2. Yes, always.

3. Yes, always.

Basically, if our kiddos get a gift from someone, they always send a thank you not irregardless if we were able to verbally thank them or not. This also applies to family.

[LaurainFL]

Yes to all of these. We also send thank you notes even to our family members for birthday gifts for the kids.

[Flynn08]

Yes to your list. We don't do as many family thank you's as some other posters.

[BrandiB]

We do not for family, we tell them thank you at the time or if its something we get in the mail we call them. We do not invite others to birthday parties but family for now. When we do invite friends then yes we will do thank you cards.

[TripMomma]

If I get a great pic that makes a cute "Thank You" card I send those to everyone. If not, we thank people at the party...and mail a thank you to anyone who wasn't there or sent the gift long distance.

[tanyachap]

Triple yes

[red2005]

We send thank you notes for every gift

[3andMe]

Yes, to the best of our ability. I sometimes get gifts for my kids from people I don't know, passed on second- or third-hand from other people, and it can be really difficult to track down their addresses. And some people send little gifts, like sheets of stickers, every six weeks or so, and I've just kind of given up caring about writing thank-you notes for those.

I just sent out a stack of about 20 thank-you notes yesterday, including to family, all hand-stamped by the kids with "Thank You" written on the front by them and notes on the inside by me.

[girlwonder]

Yes to all.

[Lillismom]

I am going straight to hell, because I am the worst at Thank You cards. I always want to send them, but I never get around to doing it. BUT, I always thank people for the gift either on the phone or in person.

[Marcie]

I am going straight to hell, because I am the worst at Thank You cards. I always want to send them, but I never get around to doing it. BUT, I always thank people for the gift either on the phone or in person.

This one made me LOL! You are hysterical.

Ok, so these are the responses I would expect. But I can be a little overzealous when it comes to thank you notes, so I wanted to make sure. The last four gifts we've given to Sadie's classmates have gone totally unacknowledged. For one, we went to the party, brought the gift, and got no thank you. I thought maybe there was a different expectation since she went to the party? (Not that I agree with that.) For the other THREE, we haven't been able to make the party for some reason, and I have left gifts in the kids' cubbies, with instructions for the teacher, and all with cards saying who they are from. And I've gotten no acknowledgement at all. One of them was just last week, but the others were at least a month ago. It makes me wonder if they actually made it home ok.

[lindsay1981]

We do but I'm like you, kind-of a stickler about them.

[Lillismom]

If someone left my daughter a gift in her cubbie, I would most certainly leave a thank you card (no matter how lazy I am normally) for the parent if I wasn't close enough to them to call and thank them!

[jazzmom]

We do thank you notes for gifts, and in all scenarios you mentioned. I, too, am kinda a stickler for thank you notes. I want to pass along this trait to my kids, so they help, too. For Madison I usually create a fill-in-the-blank card, where she can fill in the blanks on her own, plus sign her name. (E.g., Dear ___, thank you for the ____. I really appreciate/love it! Love, _____)

Even Ali signed her name on cards this Christmas!

[Marcie]

If someone left my daughter a gift in her cubbie, I would most certainly leave a thank you card (no matter how lazy I am normally) for the parent if I wasn't close enough to them to call and thank them!

Right?! That's the craziest part - the people who have not sent notes are the ones I don't know very well. If it were a close friend, I wouldn't think twice if I got a thank you in passing as we walked into school, or a quick text. Just seems odd from someone I don't know. Especially since Sadie didn't even go to the party. Ah well, just something trivial to get annoyed about ;-)

[pepperlru]

Usually I'm really good about it, in all three cases (and generally to family as well, although sometimes for unexpected gifts we will just call and give a verbal thanks). This year for Noe's birthday I was swamped with a bunch of stuff (had a bone marrow biopsy a week after her party, as an example) and although we started them, they never got mailed. So, I just apologized to everyone for the lapse when I talked to them, and made sure they knew we appreciated their kindness. But, like you, I am a stickler for showing gratitude. And in the situation you mention, I would be doubly or triply sure to seek out and give thanks for a gift that was not given in person. Otherwise, how does the person even know we received it? I sure like those acknowledgements and I assume others do too.
Although, I have to say, while almost everyone who's replying here says they send cards, IRL I think the percentage is pretty small. In 15 years of my daughter going to birthday parties for friends and classmates, I think she can probably count on one hand the number of thank-yous she's received. Most people just don't do it, for whatever reason. But if it was a "stealth" gift, like one left on a doorstep or in a cubby, I would consider it thoughtless for a person not to at least call or email to let you know they got it.

[ibisgirldc]

I used to be better about this. Militant, even. I would do it always for myself. I'm one of those strange people who still orders personalized thank-you cards and letter paper. but between work and hosting the party or managing to get christmas to occur at all, no... I am not doing what I know is proper. We did send birthday gift thank-you notes via email this year: I found a free e-card and sent personalized notes (the same but with tweaks to each recipient) that way. I felt so bad doing it but I didn't want to send zip. (And i didn't get maybe 5 people at all b/c someone let my son start opening presents before i walked in the room so we never saw who gave what.)

I meant to do it for christmas, but I didn't. Again, it just became a time thing. Same reason that my tree is still up, too. (Gotta take that down before february, right!?!) ****... I should be doing notes instead of typing here.

[Adhafera]

I always write thank you notes for every gift recieved, regardless of who its from or what it is. It took me a few weeks after DS was born to get all of the thank you notes out from the gifts we recieved for his birth, but I still did them.

[3andMe]

Usually I'm really good about it, in all three cases (and generally to family as well, although sometimes for unexpected gifts we will just call and give a verbal thanks). This year for Noe's birthday I was swamped with a bunch of stuff (had a bone marrow biopsy a week after her party, as an example) and although we started them, they never got mailed. So, I just apologized to everyone for the lapse when I talked to them, and made sure they knew we appreciated their kindness. But, like you, I am a stickler for showing gratitude. And in the situation you mention, I would be doubly or triply sure to seek out and give thanks for a gift that was not given in person. Otherwise, how does the person even know we received it? I sure like those acknowledgements and I assume others do too.
Although, I have to say, while almost everyone who's replying here says they send cards, IRL I think the percentage is pretty small. In 15 years of my daughter going to birthday parties for friends and classmates, I think she can probably count on one hand the number of thank-yous she's received. Most people just don't do it, for whatever reason. But if it was a "stealth" gift, like one left on a doorstep or in a cubby, I would consider it thoughtless for a person not to at least call or email to let you know they got it.

And I actually never mind NOT receiving a thank-you note when I give one at a party or to someone I know. I know everyone is just as busy as I am. I don't track them, and I can't say I even remember who I get thank-you notes from and who doesn't send them. I just send them out (with the kids helping) because I know that many people, especially the older generation, really appreciates them, and I like to build the habit into my children that we should express gratitude, even though it's mostly my work at this point.

[pepperlru]

And I actually never mind NOT receiving a thank-you note when I give one at a party or to someone I know. I know everyone is just as busy as I am. I don't track them, and I can't say I even remember who I get thank-you notes from and who doesn't send them. I just send them out (with the kids helping) because I know that many people, especially the older generation, really appreciates them, and I like to build the habit into my children that we should express gratitude, even though it's mostly my work at this point.

I never mind, either ... in fact I never give it a thought, unless it's a situation like the OP is in where she wasn't there and isn't sure whether the recipients actually got it. In that case, I'd wonder. But other than that, if I know they got it (even if I wasn't there), then I never think about a thank you and am pleasantly surprised if I get one -- verbal, text, email, whatever.

[hotpinkmomma0811]

Yes for the top two the third question is N/A right now.

[sparks3]

I never mind, either ... in fact I never give it a thought, unless it's a situation like the OP is in where she wasn't there and isn't sure whether the recipients actually got it. In that case, I'd wonder. But other than that, if I know they got it (even if I wasn't there), then I never think about a thank you and am pleasantly surprised if I get one -- verbal, text, email, whatever.

I'm the same way...if I just dropped a gift off for someone or mailed it, I get kind of annoyed if they don't at least call me to let me know they got it. I'm left wondering if it made it to the recipient okay. BUT, despite being diligent about sending thank-you's myself, I'm never bothered if I don't receive a thank-you if I attended an actual party. At that point, it's more of a formality, IMO.