thank you letters

I always encouraged forced my DD to write thank you letters and now do the same for DGD for any presents that she receives from my friends/relatives. However DD doesn't require her to write to anyone so clearly my firmness had no long lasting effect.

What about thanking people for meals? It seems to me that time, effort and money is required for that too and I always appreciate a written acknowledgement by post, text or email.

Brought up both DDs to write thank you letters for gifts, hospitality etc. They still do it and it's a joy to receive highly original thank you letters from DGS for gifts,even though we see him very frequently.

Not really cruising Bellanonna sailing to and from India in the days of the Raj.
Because Victorian ladies wanted/needed to preserve their fair complexion, those who could afford to sailed " port out, starboard home"
P O S H

Yes Alea. It would have been a sea voyage in those days I suppose. No balconies for those ladies either. Hope Galen is enjoying lots of sunshine from her balcony

I have one daughter-in-law I only see once a year!!!! My son comes to our house to pick up birthday presents etc. I know I will get a thank you card for her Christmas present but OH I wish I could see her. What have I done wrong? I must be dreadfully bad. My son used to be such a home loving boy.

I instilled into my daughter and son that if someone takes the trouble to select a gift and give it to them, good manners dictate that a hand written Thank You note should be sent and now, they make sure their children do the same.

I sent birthday and Christmas gifts to two set of relatives and they were never acknowledged so after a few years, I stopped sending them.

I don't care what reaction my comments elicit, I will never ever change my mind on this. Manners maketh the man.

Ethel, tell your DD I used to tell my children 'If you don't want to write a thank you card, I'll take it you don't want/like the gift and I'll send it back to the giver'. They were never quite sure whether I would or not; now, they are assiduous (that's a good word after 3 glasses of Rioja) in getting my DGC to write thank yous .
Don't we all love to be properly thanked? A newish friend came for lunch for the first time a couple of weeks ago. A text, phonecall or email would have sufficed, but she sent me a dellightful thank you note in the post. Just a few short lines, but it made my week.

Olympia yes your post rang a bell, I rarely get thank you notes from anyone or cards either yet I made my DD write lots, I suppose it seems really good to get one from a child yet I did get one from a friends DIL for whom I had sent a baby present and I kept it on the piano for weeks and used it as a book mark after that.

Mobile phones can be useful! We had an early Christmas meal and present opening on Sunday.it was me, DS and his 1 and 5 year olds visiting me, and his older children, their half siblings, who live near me. Oldest DGD,21, had given little brother a jigsaw which he thanked her for and put aside. Later, after DGD had gone I suggested he did the jigsaw which had far more pieces than he'd attempted before. After doing it with me he broke it and began again. When he'd almost finished I sent her a pic of rapt child bent over puzzle. Her reply was 'Aww, I can see he likes it!' The perfect thank you!

We'd done the pen and paper hovering for everyone but got the two older DGC to phone people immediately to thank them, job done. DS phoned for the little ones and got the 4 year old to speak to and thank his aunt etc. I remembered my nagging of DS years ago to get him to thank relatives and smiled quietly to myself.

Just as I was about to leave home for a week a lovely bouquet was delivered. A neighbour was pleased and astonished to get them (with explanation!) as I couldn't carry them and certainly didn't want to come home to dead flowers.I had to explain as I didn't want her to feel she had to give me a present in return.

Replaced now with a quick e-mail I received one last nighr.

I remember having to write thank you notes as a child and I hated it (particularly if I didn't really like the present!), but over the years I've lost count of the number of times I've sent presents/money to friends and family far away and not even had an acknowledgment. As far as I can tell, the thank you note was designed to let the giver know that the gift had at least arrived and not been nicked/lost in the post.
A phone call or email would obviously also serve, but frankly after having to ask a third time whether or not a gift has been received, I stop sending anything.
Is that old fashioned? Surely it's only polite to say thank you?
Merry Christmas everyone!

Because of what I now know was my dyslexia I found writing neatly and correctly extremely difficult when I was a child.

Just trying to write a simple thank you note without any mistakes was incredibly frustrating so I very often just gave up rather than submit a totally scruffy letter.

I still find it difficult to just do a quick note to the milkman without a mistake. I was dreadfully ashamed of my writing but in the 1950s no one would have understood the dyslexia bit was part of the problem.