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Thank you note etiquette - group gifts
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Anonymous
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22:37, thank you so much for your post! I felt the same way and it really hurt my feelings when people complained 2 weeks after my baby was born that I hadn't formally thanked them for their generosity (NOT shower gifts, but congrats on the new baby gifts). It made me feel like they didn't buy me a gift out of the goodness of their heart, but to fill some sort of obligation and receive acknowledgment. Back off people!
The sweetest friends handed me a gift, looked me in the eye, and said, don't even THINK about writing me a thank you note for this. |
Anonymous
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I work in the fed govt, and we always have office pools for baby gifts, wedding gifts, etc. The protocol here is to send an email out to the entire division (or group members) thanking everyone for their generous gift/contribution. I've never seen anyone do individual notes for 20+ people, especially in an office environment.
Every environment may be different, but I would go with what seems to be the trend in your particular place of work. On the flip side, I think it's different for those who send individual gifts, and that individual notes are appropriate for that. Selecting a gift can take a lot more time and thought, e.g., picking it out, having it shipped/wrapped, etc., as opposed to contributing $5 to an office pool gift card. I always send thank-you notes for those. In fact, I'm mortified because when my last DS was born, we received some gifts from casual friends of my MIL, who I never met, and no one has their addresses (even my MIL), so I never thanked them appropriately. Another scenario - my DH's colleague sent us a gift, but we never got his home address. DH emailed him and aske dhim for it, but he never responded, so we couldn't thank him other than via email. |
Anonymous
Two weeks is extreme, but I do think it's reasonable for a gift-giver to expect acknowledgement of a gift sent within a month. This is true for weddings and baby gifts. I can't tell you how many times I have ordered gifts for friends' new babies or for weddings, and they never reply to let me know they received them. Not even several months later, e.g., 3-4 months! To me, it's an issue of making sure it got there...sure, you can track the package, but a lot of time UPS or FedEx will just leave it on the stoop without signature...so who knows. If more than 2 months go by, and I don't receive some kind of acknowledgement via email at least, than I will call or write and ask if they received it. This is usually responded to with an embarassed/apologetic tone "oh, yes, we got it...thank you so much...sorry we've been so busy we didn't write notes." That's fine. I just want to know it got there! |
Anonymous
22:37 here. For weddings, Emily Post and Miss Manners both give couples a reasonable amount of time (a month or two) *after* the honeymoon to write the notes; you're stricter than they are! Curious what you think happens if the couple takes a month long honeymoon, should they be writing notes from the beach? Likewise, do you really think in my case with a new baby, that the thank you notes had to be written at all costs, including to the detriment of eating, catching what little sleep I could? It took me about 3.5 months to write 500 thank you notes. That is nearly 200 notes per month. That's over 6 notes each day -- EVERY day. What new mom do you know has the time for that? My husband tried to write some, too, but was working and when he came home he took the baby so that I could eat or sleep or, on rare occasion, shower. We had a velcro baby that cried if one of us was not holding him at all times. When was I supposed to write the 16.12 thank you notes PER DAY needed to meet your month deadline? Do you ever make exceptions or would you have been standing over a sleep-deprived, new mom who was already painstakingly writing 6 notes a day with a baby strapped to her in a sling? Not saying that folks should blow off thank you notes, but does PP here have advice for my situation? Not trying to be antagonistic, I am just pointing out that people sometimes have genuine reasons for not sending the notes. |
Anonymous
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I hate writing thank you notes. I just hate it. For my work shower, I sent out a mass e-mail thanking everyone. However, I wrote a thank you card to my friend that planned the whole thing, picked up the cake and bought the presents with all the money everyone contributed.
Some of my real friends, I sent an e-mail thank you; older friends & relatives I had to send a card. I hate writing them, and I hate recieving them. Such a waste of paper; what do you do with them after 6 months? throw them away! |
Anonymous
| 12:33 here again - and what do I do with the cards people send that say, Congrats on your baby girl? A thank you card back? A phone call? Argh! lol |