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#Post#: 8779--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: silversurfer
Date: July 15, 2018, 9:20 pm
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This is a really interesting discussion!
In my circle of friends we don't do thank you notes, but we
don't do gifts either.
The only gift giving occasions are weddings, and I don't think I
have received a thank you note for any of the presents given
over the past five or so years.
I had a very unexpected thank you note once. The building my
company had been in for 40 odd years was closing down so we were
all moving to another site. We had a farewell event and invited
employees past and present, had some speeches and morning tea
and some tours of the building.
One lady just couldn't make it to the event, and asked if there
was any way she could tour the building before it was closed.
I put my hand up to give her a tour - it was fairly uneventful
in my eyes, but we walked through all her old haunts.
A couple of days later I received a lovely note from her
thanking me for my time. Its probably the only thank you card I
have received for years and years, and it made an impression.
I feel that if it a genuine thanks for a gift or a favour, that
can be in whatever form you want (card, phone call, in person,
etc).
#Post#: 8787--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Aleko
Date: July 16, 2018, 3:39 am
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--- Quote ---
> I feel that if it a genuine thanks for a gift or a favour,
that can be in whatever form you want (card, phone call, in
person, etc).
--- End Quote ---
This! I've really no patience with people who insist that thanks
can !!!ONLY!!! properly be conveyed on paper inside an envelope.
If somebody has opened a parcel in my presence and said 'I love
it! That's really generous and thoughtful of you! Thank you,
thank you so much!', I consider myself totally thanked, and it
seems bizarre to demand that they should later write the same
sentiments down and post them to me. And if they open it not in
my presence and put their gratitude in an email, I consider that
in every way equivalent to a letter. It's the message ('I
express my thanks and appreciation to you personally for your
specific gift to me') that is important, not the medium. And
that's why these TY circulars are so wrong - they are all medium
and no message.
#Post#: 8790--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: vintagegal
Date: July 16, 2018, 5:59 am
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I totally agree!! I have 5 stepGK's that I send gifts to -
family 1, 2 kids, sent sweet hand drawn TY notes. Family 2, 2
kids, the mom thanks me by email (kids are well old enough to do
their own thanking) . Family 3, 1 kid - nothing. Crickets.
I would be so happy with ANY kind of thanks.
#Post#: 8791--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: DaDancingPsych
Date: July 16, 2018, 7:41 am
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--- Quote from: Celestia link ---
>
> Just throwing a thought out there...I wouldn't mind something
like this, but then my generation (I'm 28) is the one letting
the thank-you notes go by the wayside. I don't really expect
notes from my friends. I try to send them when I can't thank
people in person, but I definitely value a spoken thank-you as
part of a conversation over a formal note. I wonder if they're
going to go out of fashion just because the people who don't
like sending them also don't care about receiving.
>
--- End Quote ---
I have about a decade on you (37) and I am fine with a spoken
thank you. At events like weddings or baby showers, they can get
chaotic, so I would want to ensure that I properly thanked each
person, so I would still probably write the thank you notes.
However, I would much prefer a personal phone call or email over
a form letter.
It is sad, because the card in question sounds lovely... if it
had a blank spot to personalize it!
#Post#: 8799--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Writer of Wrongs
Date: July 16, 2018, 8:40 am
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I mentioned on the old board that one year I made blankets for
all the nieces and nephews for Christmas. During the unwrapping,
one of the nieces clearly loved her blanket. Her mother said,
"Do you know who that's from?" The little girl paused, then,
eyes widening, said, "Santa?!" Her mother said, "Yes." That was
probably 8-9 years ago, and I honestly don't know if the child
knows to this day that I made the blanket. The thing was, she
was excited and would certainly have thanked me if her mother
had corrected her. But apparently cool gifts have to be from
Santa. (This is the same (now ex) SIL who never acknowledged
carefully chosen gifts herself, so it wasn't a total shock. ;)
)
On the other hand, last summer one of the nephews (different
branch of the family) spent a night with us. I had to go to
WalMart while he was with us, so he went with me, and I let him
pick out a small toy. DH was doing some work, and gave him a
little storage box. The next week, we got an envelope in the
mail, containing a note with a hand-drawn picture for each of
us, thanking me for the toy and DH for the box. He was seven or
eight at the time. According to his mother, the note was his own
idea, and he insisted on mailing it to us (they live just across
town from us). Those thank-you notes still live on my
refrigerator.
#Post#: 8820--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Chez Miriam
Date: July 16, 2018, 11:34 am
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I'm happy to receive thanks in whatever form: if I give a gift
personally, the recipient thanking me at the time is all I could
wish for; a gift delivered by someone else - send me an email,
write me a letter, or better yet, phone me up...
That way I get a chat as well as a thank you - bonus!
I'm less than impressed with "thank you for the gift". Full
stop. End of story.
Niece and nephews no longer get gifts from us, because hey, it's
not appreciated in any way, so why do we bother? Answer is now:
we don't bother. They're adults, they have enough stuff, and we
don't feel resentful at taking time to choose a thoughtful gift
that is just thrown to one side unopened [yes, that did happen].
I'm 99% sure that if I got a wedding thank you card like in the
OP, and I was invited to a subsequent christening [baby showers
not really a UK thing], a pretty lame gift is the most effort I
would make.
The TY that made me smile the most was from crazy aunt: I've
given her a purple gift basket full of purple stuff, and she
thanked me at the time, and then wrote me a lovely letter later
in a purple card. Totally over the top, but it made me smile.
Now, I play the purple gift game in my head: purple mug - that's
OK; purple dustpan & brush - too much like 'women's work';
purple loo seat - probably not. ;D
Having said that, if I visited her home often, I could see
myself sneaking in and changing the loo seat unnoticed! ;)
All purples not a euphemism. ;)
#Post#: 8842--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: GardenGal
Date: July 16, 2018, 2:34 pm
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I'm happy however I get thanked - in person, on the phone, in an
email, or a card. Some people never say a word, and that is
very disappointing. My only niece got married about 4 years
ago. She's on the opposite side of the country, and we don't
have much of a relationship and never have. I only talk to her
dad, my brother, twice a year when we call each other on our
respective birthdays - but that works very well for us. I only
found out about the wedding when someone posted photos of it on
Facebook. To be honest, I was stunned. Not that I wasn't
invited, but that I wasn't even told she was getting married.
However, being that she's my niece, I sent an extremely generous
check. Crickets. Okay, then, I guess that's the end of any
future gifts for her. My brother never mentioned the gift in
any of our subsequent phone calls, so it's possible she never
mentioned it to him. She sure cashed it fast enough. ;D
When our son was little we'd have him write a thank you note
(when he was old enough) before he was allowed to cash the check
or play with the toy or whatever. I don't know if he's kept
that up, though, as he just thanks us in person, which is fine.
#Post#: 9055--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Twik
Date: July 19, 2018, 11:13 am
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The preprinted unpersonalized card has actually been around for
some time. Miss Manners has railed against it. It's the next
worst thing to putting a notice in the paper that you thank
everyone who so thoughtfully went out and gave you a gift.
Sometimes I think etiquette makes thank you notes sound
intimidating. All those examples where the writer is clever,
effusive and perfect can make people think "I'll never live up
to that! Why even try?"
But even a missive simple as "Dear Bill and Maggie, thank you
for the napkins. They're really pretty, love Mary and James" is
better than a mass-produced thank you. Giving a gift is
something personal, and it deserves a little bit of personal
attention, no matter how awkward, back.
#Post#: 9072--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: IWish
Date: July 19, 2018, 2:22 pm
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I agree Twik, something personal is needed. (OP here.) This form
letter didn't even include mention of a gift, just thanks for
sharing the day with us. There was no thank you in person at the
wedding. The nature of modern gift registries is that usually
the gift is shipped directly to the bride from the store. No
more pile of gifts at the wedding that can even be connected to
a guest. That's not a bad thing, but it does make some sort of a
thank you at a later date necessary. Mom wouldn't have minded at
all a phone call or an email - anything.
One reason we thought it might have actually been a thank you
for attending is that, at least for my mom, it WAS a major
effort to attend (husband with dementia, long drive, knew no one
else at the wedding.) This was a student my mom had taught in
elementary school and had little contact with in the ensuing 25
years. But bride remembered my mom as her favorite teacher and
invited her to the wedding. My mom was happy to make the effort
to go (again, not easy) and spend $$ on a gift for a virtual
stranger. But this left a bad taste in her mouth.
#Post#: 9088--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Pattycake
Date: July 19, 2018, 4:01 pm
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--- Quote from: IWish link ---
>
> I agree Twik, something personal is needed. (OP here.) This
form letter didn't even include mention of a gift, just thanks
for sharing the day with us. There was no thank you in person at
the wedding. The nature of modern gift registries is that
usually the gift is shipped directly to the bride from the
store. No more pile of gifts at the wedding that can even be
connected to a guest. That's not a bad thing, but it does make
some sort of a thank you at a later date necessary. Mom wouldn't
have minded at all a phone call or an email - anything.
>
> One reason we thought it might have actually been a thank you
for attending is that, at least for my mom, it WAS a major
effort to attend (husband with dementia, long drive, knew no one
else at the wedding.) This was a student my mom had taught in
elementary school and had little contact with in the ensuing 25
years. But bride remembered my mom as her favorite teacher and
invited her to the wedding. My mom was happy to make the effort
to go (again, not easy) and spend $$ on a gift for a virtual
stranger. But this left a bad taste in her mouth.
>
--- End Quote ---
Traditionally, this is what you are supposed to do, registry or
not. And hence the reason for thank you notes. But over the
years, it somehow became easier to bring the gift to the wedding
(thus making an extra chore for the bridal party afterwards in
toting it all home, and potentially losing gift tags/cards...)
But I don't know how this translated into not sending thank you
notes later because the gifts don't get opened at the wedding
anyway.
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