Not in my family. I have taught my grown kids to write them. My daughter just graduated from HS and gift givers were shocked to receive them , especially within a week of her party.

I do agree that that most young people don’t write them. I think shows a lack of basic manners.

We get 'thank you letters' from our grand daughter, but her mother is from Japan where I think they still take these things seriously.

My DD tells me that 'people' no longer reply to emails as this is an out-of-date method of communication and anyone under 45 (choose an age) use far more modern forms of keeping in touch.

I think in your friend's case there is no excuse for a lack of thanks. Perhaps she should get in touch saying sorry the gift has obviously NOT arrived and put the ball in their court, so by making them feel rather embarrassed.

At the other extreme when my DD was a baby a friend bought for her a knitted teddy bear (although a thin 'shape' made of wool would be nearer the truth). Friend made an enormous fuss saying she had had it especially made etc etc and of course, I thanked her profusely. I put this 'object' in DD's crib, only to later find she had pricks of blood on her and then I discovered the knitted object was FULL of rusty needles . . . I can't believe that 'friend' did this deliberately and I suspect she had picked it up at some sale of school work where it had been knitted by a pupil with serious problems.

I have almost stopped giving especially chosen presents now. I can't be bothered, to tell the truth. I give birthday and Xmas money instead to some of my relatives but that list is getting shorter as the number gets larger!

I have decided to be a cranky old relative. I am fed up with not getting so much as a birthday or Xmas card from my son's numerous family and he says they don't even get in touch with him much either!

I don't know why that side of the family has fallen away as my D's children and their children do still call me or drop by. My eldest GD cooks extra amounts and sends over meals she has frozen, which has been so helpful recently.

I can go to the shops but prefer not to go too often. The Winter weather is still miserable and we are all being careful not to get too close to others, even though things are still looking good in our State.

I agree that it would be a good idea to check on that gift. I used to get annoyed with not getting an acknowledgement from a parent for a parcel that had been sent and I contemplated not sending anything else to the child but thought that would be mean. It wasn't its fault that the parent had no manners!

It used to drive me a little crazy to not hear from a certain set of nieces and nephews, but I finally decided I cannot let them continue to mess with my peace of mind. After all, they didn't even know that it bothered me. I decided I needed to learn to give without expectation - not easy, but I put in some years of hard practice at it. I would say to myself, "Do I want to send a gift even if they are not going to acknowledge it?" The answer now determines my course of action.

I wrote one today to someone who mailed me a mask from another state. I happened to have a California post card on hand and used that for the note. Even a phone call, email, text works for thank you's in my opinion.

I always send thank you notes. Rarely receive them. I love handwritten notes of any kind. In fact, at the beginning of the shut down, I sent thinking-of-you cards to some friends and (barely known) acquaintances just as a fun thing. Everyone thanked me. Even the ones I didn't know well. I loved that!

I send thank you notes for gifts that arrive by mail most of the time. There have been times when instead I sent my thank you by email or with a phone call. This happens particularly when the giver and I usually communicate in that way. I always express my gratitude in some manner.

However when someone gives me a gift in person, I thank them at that time, and usually do not send a written thank you on paper. It would be different if they were gifts received at an occasion such as a party, but that hasn't happened to me for a very long time. I am past the age for showers of any sort, and have not had a formal birthday party in quite some time.

Rosefolly, even after nearly sixty years a mention of a shower makes me cringe! I was casually told that the Ladies Club was holding one for me to celebrate my first baby. I missed it! To this day no one is sure that I was actually told the date and certainly transport wasn't arranged as I had no car then.

I had an elaborate seventieth but declined parties after that. I prefer lunches or tea parties around my birthday as it clashes with Mother's Day sometimes and the family can have other committments so I waive my right then.

Annpan, I'd never heard of a baby/engagement shower until the idea came over from the US (maybe Aus was ahead of us in that particular game) My daughter started to complain about the number of hen parties she was invited to when all her friends were getting hitched. Not content with 'just' a party many girls now hold weekends 'away' or book up 'experiences' anything from cup-cake designing to gin making! As they are often held far from where everyone lives quite a lot of money has to be spent on arranging transport and overnight accommodation.

And as for stag-does . . . I don't know if young men in the US find themselves on the morning of their wedding naked and chained to a lamp-post 200 miles from the church. Had it been my intended I don't think I would have bothered to go through with the ceremony.

yoyo, I think I mentioned here on a similar thread that when we sent out the invitation to our DD's wedding some younger people didn't even bother to reply. I was so displeased that I told the happy couple-to-be that if no replies from their friends were forthcoming tell them not to turn up on the day. I think several last minute emails etc went out to their rude chums.

Vee, I was very puzzled as to what a "Gender reveal" party would be when I heard the term mentioned. I genuinely wondered if it had anything to do with trans-operations and the revealing of the new sex! Tony is now Tonya, ta-da!

Wrong! It is to reveal the sex of the baby-in-waiting and can be done in all kinds of ingenious ways. Blue or Pink fireworks or balloons etc. Quite sweet! Have they arrived in the UK yet?

BTW, I am in awe of these Tonyas, I haven't met one but notice from TV programs that they put far more effort into their appearance than I have ever bothered with! The mystery I am reading is about a female impersonator and mentions the hard work put in to create the illusion. "Only the Cat ( US... Knows) by Marian Babson. An unusual main character and I couldn't put it down!

Annpan, one has to tread very carefully with gender issues over here these days. A couple of years ago an interviewer on the BBC radio's Woman's Hour got into big trouble while speaking to a vicar who had just 'trans-ed' into a female. The vicar spent most of the time discussing the latest wardrobe purchases, make-up etc until the interviewer, obviously fed-up said something like "But you are not really a woman are you, in the biological sense?" . . . and even more woke was a recent comment by J K Rowling on Twitter (or similar) about not being able to use the word 'woman' when she should have said "a person who menstruates". Even the ex child stars who acted in the Harry Potter movies 'distanced themselves from her remarks' . . . and now apparently if you need a cervical smear test it is offered to people 'with a cervix' . . . not women . . .

OK so I'm showing my age and don't know if anyone in the US feels as I do that things can be taken too far. And re the gender parties, we read about folk bringing up their babies 'gender neutral'. Heaven help the little dears when they start school.

Anna........Gender Reveal parties seemed 'cute' at first then got old really fast.

The unending car parades during the first months of the lockdown had the same effect on me. At first they were clever then they became annoying. I received an e-mail from an acquaintance's husband announcing that it was Mary's birthday on Saturday and that they'd be on their front porch from 5-7pm . He suggested we drive by as a surprise to Mary and toot or have balloons or something and wish her "Happy Birthday ! ".

I am sure he simply sent this "invitation" to everyone on her contact list without knowing whether they were actually friends or not. I happen to know her through a common guild membership but wouldn't say we are friends .

On a similar note, a woman wrote to an advice columnist recently to complain about her friend's baby shower. Since it was during the reopening phase the party could have 10 people in the party on the porch. So her friend invited those not in the actual 10 person party and told them to drive up, stay in their car and someone would come out and take the gift and give them a boxed lunch which they could stay in their car and eat while they "enjoyed " watching the shower from afar. That beats all !

Yoyobon, I feel rather sorry for the husband who wanted to give his wife a birthday surprise, even if he sent emails to casual acquaintances! He was trying to be nice!

My husband once planned a surprise for me but luckily checked first to make sure I would appreciate the thought. It was a booking for a Country House Murder Weekend. I wouldn't have enjoyed that at all. I am not into meeting a group of strangers or participating in a show any more. I like a quiet break.

"I thought you would like it, as you read all those mystery books" he said, rather downcast!

Ahh, he tried, Ann.

Anna......I also dislike "group participation" in those kinds of shows. One summer we were on a train tour in the Adirondacks and a small group staged a participatory train robbery . They were rank amateurs who became quite abusive and inappropriate to the passengers. It was a misery to be on that train. I hated every moment.

yoyo, that sounds horrible especially as you had become a captive audience. I suppose the only thing you could have done was to stage a lynching or a hue and cry (in the old-fashioned sense) and had the stupid culprits 'run out of town/off the train' . . . preferably leaving them on the side of a barren mountain or in a bear-infested forest.

Do you remember in the book by Bill Bryson where he is walking through the woods and he is SO annoyed by a group of walkers who had kept him awake all night with their shouting/drinking etc that before he left early the following morning he removed all the laces from their hiking boots?

Vee, that reminds me of when we went to an outdoor concert and the couple in front of us were really obnoxious. The concert was in summer time in a paddock which was rocky and had dry stubble and weeds and was quite rough.

This couple kept standing up and dancing in front of their sets, blocking the view of everyone behind, and the security guard kept coming and telling them to either sit down or go to the dancing area off to the side. They also thought they were being so clever smoking (it was a no smoking area) and hiding their cigarettes under their seats so the glowing ends wouldn't be noticeable.

At the conclusion of the concert we started the long walk back to the car park, and on the way DH dropped into a collection bin the garbage bag we had been handed on entry. I remarked to DH, "Wasn't that couple a real PITA?"

"Yep," he replied. "And one each of their thongs were in that bag I just dropped into the bin."

While they were up dancing, with their thongs (flip flops) under their seats, DH had reached forward, taken one from each pair, and placed them into our garbage bag.

I don't imagine walking across that prickly paddock was a lot of fun, once they gave up looking for the missing thongs :-)

LOL, Colleen! A couple of summers ago my DH and I went on a CraigCat tour (little 2 seat catamarans that go fast - fun!) and about five minutes into the trip I realized one of my shoes was gone into the lake. After our tour we had to walk a long way on a concrete walk that had been in the sun for hours in 95 degree heat. I thought I could go barefoot but oh, no! I ended up wearing hubby’s socks, which we had to wet down so I could stand the hot concrete.

Donna

Carolyn, you will be pleased to know that we did get a Country House Weekend booking in Scotland which was more to my taste.

Although it was raining, the few Winter visitors went out and we sat in deep armchairs all by ourselves in the big drawing room by a real fire with a lunch of thickly cut beef and mustard sandwiches and pots of tea. I read an OOP book, by a favourite author, which I found in the bookcase. Bliss!

Ann, that sounds like a perfect weekend. I'm glad your husband redeemed himself.

We once rented a car to drive on a Western tour of some of the National Parks. Car alarms were new, we didn't have one yet, and DH accidentally set the one in the rental car off late one night in the wilds of Yellowstone NP and couldn't figure out how to shut it off for a few minutes. He got a very nasty comment from another cottage dweller the next morning.

I was so pleased to get a phone call from one of my Great GDs to thank me for the money I sent for her ninth birthday today. She has emailed me once when she learned how to do it and that was good but a personal call is even better!

I live in a retirement village and know how glad the residents are when they get an acknowledgement of a gift. Sadly, It doesn't always happen...

Annpan, not the same thing but last year my son and small daughter spent Christmas with us while his wife was back in Japan. I suggested to the child she might like to attend the Christingle service being held in the local church that afternoon and she replied "I'm not Christian. I'm Shinto!" I told her it was quite fair enough but in that case she wouldn't be expecting any presents on the 25th, would she? She did look rather worried.

And yes, of course she did get presents for which she politely thanked us.

The Hindu shopkeeper I bought groceries from in the UK bought Christmas presents for his children as otherwise they missed out when their Christian friends got gifts. Lovely man!

Vee......that is one of my favorite Bryson books, A Walk In The Woods. It is not only delightful story-telling but also educational. I learned a lot about the Appalachian Trail .