Gifts with no card/name—what to do about thank you notes?

[Anonymous]

Kindergartener has his party today. Out of 20 kids, there were 19 gifts and 5 had no card or name.

Do we:
A) have child ask friends at school what they gave as a gift? Hope they remember, hope the one who didn’t give a gift isn’t embarrassed?
B) send a generic “thanks for coming” message?
C) skip those ones entirely?

[Anonymous]

Were any siblings to account for 19/20. I'd just send generic thanks for coming and the gift.

[Anonymous]

Can you narrow it even further? Like of the 6 kids on list who did not have an assigned present, did you see one holding a bag compared to a box wrapped from Child’s play? I am usually able to remember one or two of the unnamed presents by thinking back to who handed that thing to me/kid when they arrived? Any twins? That would maybe explain the one missing.

If any of the unnamed are friends of yours, can you say - hey Julie, a few cards came loose, was yours the pink bow or the checkered wrapping? Again if you can get it to one or two, then most people get the recognition.

Then write “thank you for coming to spend my special day with me. You are a great jumper! It was so wonderful and generous of you to think of me. I really appreciate it.”

[Anonymous]

Thanks, PPs. The generic thank you was my instinct too. I think I know who one of them is, but my brain is so fried from scrambling around to run the party that I don’t really trust my memory.

From here on out, I’m sharpie-ing “from Larlo” in giant letters on the wrapping paper when we go to parties! (And next year I may discretely write names as they are set on the table!)

[Anonymous]

I would send personal thank you notes for all of the gifts you can, and then generic thanks for the rest.

[Anonymous]

I might email the ones who you can’t link to a gift, using bcc, and say you want Larlo to write specific thank-you messages but the following gifts lost their label or were unmarked.

Otherwise just send generic thank-yous for coming and for the gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I might email the ones who you can’t link to a gift, using bcc, and say you want Larlo to write specific thank-you messages but the following gifts lost their label or were unmarked.

Otherwise just send generic thank-yous for coming and for the gift.

This is tricky - if I counted correctly, op said there were more guests than gifts. I wouldn’t send that not in this case because someone is going to feel singled out for not bringing a gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would send personal thank you notes for all of the gifts you can, and then generic thanks for the rest.

+1

[Anonymous]

Can you send a group email to the class and say “these 5 gifts had no cards — [list them]” and ask folks to let you know if they were the giver so you can thank them? That will match a few of them.

[Anonymous]

Omg I gave up on thank you notes for large parties years ago. If you do them have the kid write the person’s name on all for them that you print out with a statement like: “thanks for coming to my party and for the amazing present!”

Plenty. No one cares.

My kids are upper elementary. Just simplify now. Literally no one cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you send a group email to the class and say “these 5 gifts had no cards — [list them]” and ask folks to let you know if they were the giver so you can thank them? That will match a few of them.

Don’t do that. No one cares and no one wants to have to respond to an email so they can then receive a note about a gift they literally bought on the way to the party and can barely remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg I gave up on thank you notes for large parties years ago. If you do them have the kid write the person’s name on all for them that you print out with a statement like: “thanks for coming to my party and for the amazing present!”

Plenty. No one cares.

My kids are upper elementary. Just simplify now. Literally no one cares.

No one will hold it against you if you don't send them, but kids always love getting mail from their friends, and everyone I know appreciates when someone takes the time to thank them. Every year parents of my kid's friends say how nice it is that people still write thank you notes. You do what works for you, but your opinion isn't as universal as you think it is.

[Anonymous]

NP. This brings me to another question. My DC attended a birthday and was late and the person at the venue took the gift and put it aside. How do we know they put it in the right pile when there were several parties at the same time? I did ask DC to ask friend if they liked the gift (just to make sure the friend did indeed get the gift) but DC forgets. No Thank You note yet from the host and its been 3 weeks.