When would you expect to receive a Christmas Thank You letter by?

Hmm it is a bit late now, that's why I have decided not to send ones on behalf of my son (he's only 11 months). I fully intended to do them and kept a list of what he got from people, but things have been so manic with moving house, me returning to work and various illnesses that before I knew it it was the end of Jan and now it seems to late. I have of course spoken to everyone and thanked them for his presents.

It is his birthday in a couple of weeks and I will be sending thank you cards out after that.

Thank you cards/letters is not really something we did growing up. I don't know if it's not an Australian thing or if we were just rude.

I still haven't sent out my Christmas cards yet. Oops.

Thing is, they didn't even speak to me on the phone over the Christmas period and we bought them everything their parents asked us for - rather than just choosing one thing off the list. I know it's not about that but we went to a lot of time and trouble for them.

Obviously I'm blaming the parents here and not the children! ?

That really is rude. We verbally thanked everyone who bought Jessica a present (and us, of course).

Hmm well I haven't written mine on behalf of my 2 year old and my baby yet. I know I've got to do them but it's not top of my list of priorities I'm afraid. I'm going to try and do them this week.

When you say the card has splodges on it - do you mean it's been hand made by said nephews? In that case I think it's more than enough and the actual date wouldn't bother me .... But then I have been known to fake my son's name on thankyou cards as the alternative would involve too much mess and time ?

I only finished Ned's thank you cards last week. They took ages to do as he got so many presents and I only have so much time to some each day.

I got an e mail from my nephew thanking us yesterday.That was only two lines, and went along the lines of 'Thank you for my Christmas gift, I am always happy to receive money. It made me smile.

To be honest I don't set a time limit on it, I don't expect to thank you's but I am happy to receive them when I do.

What Roobarb said. I still haven't done mine for my 2 yr old and 3 month old yet. Funnily enough, I am finding it hard enough to cope with the two of them all day and most nights by myself - I barely get time to go to the loo unmolested, let alone sit and write cards! you can't do them one handed like you can type on a computer.

I think it's great your nephews sent anything at all tbh. Most people seem to have dispensed with thank you letters.

mine will get there as soon as I can afford a free evening or afternoon to get stuck in. I hope that whoever receives them isn't going to be upset about them being late, but will be appreciative that they've come at all (I always hand write mine and put news in them too)

To be honest, I don't ever expect thank you letters. They're nice to receive, but they're never expected, and I never think badly of people who don't send them.

I don't think I've ever had thank you letters/cards from my nephews or niece, I've always spoken to them over the Christmas period (if I haven't managed to see them that year), and I've been verbally thanked, and that's more than enough for me.

I don't always expect a card/note but I do expect an acknowledgment at least, whatever form it takes.

Our thank yous sometimes take a while but I always send them on behalf of the children, usually a handwritten (and personal) card. I'd love for the boy (2.5 yrs) to be able to scribble on all of them on behalf of himself and the baby (because I'm twee like that) but at the moment he'll only draw in the Postman Pat colouring book. ?

WSS. Except I've only got one to deal with and he's 4. Everyone's been thanked verbally but he's the only child on both sides of the family which means that he gets something off everyone leaving us with approximately 40 or so cards to do. I think we're at the 8 card mark and he's written his own name on them. Plus jellyfish and spiders as they're the only recognisable things that he'll draw. And they all look like spiders. ?

x

WMFS.

And a home-made 'splodge' sounds cute to me!

We never really did thank-you cards growing up as we only had pressies from close family - and we would see them over the holidays and thank them verbally on the day.

What I find happens is that during the manic present unwrapping even though I try to keep a list of who's sent what, or try to keep lables with presents it never works very well. Then I completely forget about writting thank-you cards even though each year I mean to get the children to help me ? Never means I'm not grateful, just a bit hopeless when it comes to cards!

We did all our thank you cards in January whilst i still had the list of who bought what. Having said that we've had very few thank you's in return.

Blimey, CBH, you really are a miserable old bag when it comes to children aren't you? ?

Those splodges are more than likely your nephews spending time decorating your card, which their mum probably had to set up, supervise and then clear up the mess afterwards. And you think they're ungrateful ?

I wrote all of my two year old's thank you letters in December, a hand written letter next to a picture of him surrounded by his presents. I think there were around 30 to do.

I might be going against the general consensus here but I'm appalled that some of you don't think sending a thank you letter is important - to me the present isn't mine until I've said thank you, and I do expect thank you letters when I've sent or given a gift. I was brought up to write thank you letters and LO will be too. To me it's just good manners, and to write fairly quickly after receiving.

I always write thank you letters - it's what we always did growing up, even when the people were there to thank. I wrote ours at the beginning of January but then lost them so we only posted them last week. I hope people don't think we're being rude sending them this late, I hope they just appreciate the sentiment.

I did get a bit annoyed with one friend when their wedding thank you card didn't turn up til a year after the wedding - that was a bit delayed really.

But CBH did get a thank you card...

I am feeling really guilty now as I only sent ours our yesterday, they wrote them at the weekend. We have all been ill the last fortnight and only just got around to doing them. My daughter writes a novel in her thank you letters (she's 6) it takes her ages to think of what to write and then put pen to paper. My Son (8) writes what he's told lol.

I used to, but now my son either says thank you at the time of receiving the present if they are there, or rings the person up for a chat and to say thank you.

WSS

I'd love to ensure I got all my thank you cards done within a week of receiving a gift -the reality of having an (almost) full time job and a small child and a busy life is that it can take significantly longer as it's restricted to having a weekend day free - I work on the basis of better late than never and will be praying that my family aren't as ungracious recipeints of R's hand made cards as CBS is.

My nieces all phoned me on Christmas morning to say thank you. I didn't need a letter as well. We never sent TY letters as kids either, we saw people face to face or called them to say thank you. Thank you letters are nice to receive but I don't seel any obligations to send them, because I value the spoken word as well as the written.

I agree with what HH said about CBH too actually. A painty splodge, whether it's a TY card or not, is a great thing to receive.

I did all MissSuns (hand written with a picture of her christmas morning) about a week into January. My nan always got us to write them and I think it's a nice gesture, the older family members especially like to receive them. February is a bit late but IMHO it's nice that you got one at all, I don't have any friends that bother getting their kids to do them. When MissSun's older she'll do her own. She's going to hate me lol!

What Heidihole said. Actually I'd be disinclined to bother with the whole pinning children down, covering the house in paint and clearing up again afterwards business if I thought the recipient would complain that it was late and that it was only "one line long and a couple of splodges" when it probably took the best part of an afternoon to sort it out.

I think my issue here probably stems from when I was a kid and I was expected to sit down, with a pen and paper, and write more than one sentence - an actual, proper "newsy" letter and they all had to be done and sent before the middle of January. And I would have thought a six year old was capable of more than one sentence. Not even to write his own name at the end?

I'm well aware that I'm a miserable old bag when it comes to anything related to children! ? I have no idea the ins and outs of getting children to sit down and be creative or make a mess or whatever because I've never had to do it and I never will. I stupidly thought a six year old was capable of more than a few splodges! Maybe not....

Do you want them to send you the moon on a stick too? Or maybe their mum should spend any spare time she has making sure you get a round robin and don't feel disgruntled?

Come on, CBH, you're being unreasonable, and I suspect it's more to do with how you feel about them than what they sent you. The sneeriness towards the 'splodges' is coming across as a bit nasty, tbh.

Me too, I don't see how you can dislike an entire section of society. Can you imagine the uproar if some posted that they hated all elderly people?

Depends entirely on the 6-year-old I've have thought. But given you clearly admit to having no concept of how much children can do with regard to painting or writing or the effort the mother sounds like she's gone to send some acknowlegment out, you might be a bit less miserable about it.

I know a number of 12 year olds who struggle with that.

Blimey, whatever happened to "It's the thought that counts"?

As you clearly have no concept of what's involved in getting two small children to write/make thank you cards, could you not just accept that they made an effort - albeit not to your very high (and probably unrealistic) standards and get over it?

Like most of the others, i rather think your dislike of children as a whole is colouring your judgement.

My daughter's thank-yous were sent out promptly this year because she's a tiny baby so I wrote them for her. i have the time to do that as I'm on ML. Next year I'll be back at work f/t and I'll probably resort to a quick email/phone call instead

<holds hands up> I don't actually hate ALL children given that I work as a volunteer with partially sighted and blind kids and have done for the past two years.

I'm well aware that I have issues too. Last week in the gym I actually had a panic attack because there were children in the changing rooms and rather than being in the "family section" where obviously I wouldn't choose to change, they were pretty much everywhere. I started getting jittery and tearful because I couldn't find anywhere to change where there wasn't a child screaming or ... flip I sound bonkers ... looking at me.

So I appreciate all the comments saying how nasty I am but I'm not. I just struggle being around children full stop. It's not hatred - I just can't cope/manage. It's no worse or different than somebody having a fear or uncomfortableness around dogs or cats.

I'm trying to be honest here and what started out as a post about timings of thank you cards and what constitutes a "letter" these days has made me out to be a child-hating monster.