Birthday Etiquette

I have carpal tunnel pretty bad in my left hand - writing hand, of course - and the thought of writing all those thank you's is painful just thinking about it. (We have a very large family!) Do you always send thank you's? Or is there a way for me to type them? (typing's a lot easier for me than writing)

 

I usually write them out. At Christmas time though, we had so many gifts I couldn't remember who gave what and to what boy so what I did was a postcard. I made a collage picture of the boys at Christmas (opening gifts, playing with them, etc) And typed a little thank you for all the wonderful gifts. It was easy to print up 25+ of them and mail them. Everybody loved that they got pictures of the boys(I am bad about e-mailing pics)
I may have to do that more often.
Hope that helps.

Cari

 

For the kids birthday in January I did a photo thank you card from Shutterfly. I'll be the first to say it was generic and non-specific, but we had 60 guests and I did not have time to write 30+ cards.

Basically I found a cute photo of them from the party and then had the writing on the card say:

Thank you for the thoughtful gifts and celebrating with us on our 2nd birthday.
Love, Katelyn and Blake

 

I think people enjoy the photo cards. I put the boys in the middle of all their prezzies and snapped a pic then added some text with my photo software. I had them printed at Costco.

Kimberly

 

I know you're really supposed to handwrite them, but we sent thank-yous for most of our baby gifts by email. DH insisted his friends could not care less, anyway. And I always thought you didn't have to send a note to someone you had already thanked in person...?

 

I hand wrote the thank you's. But I agree with pp....people do like photo cards.

 

I do hand write our thank you notes for b-day gifts. I don't send thank you cards for Christmas unless someone sent a gift in the mail, otherwise we thank then when the gift is opened.

I say if typing is easier for you because of the carpal tunnel syndrome, then type them, everyone will hopefully understand.

 

I like the idea of the photo collage card. I haven't written ours or sent them out yet, been waiting to send 12 month pics with them.

 

I used a photo program and made my own thank you cards. I had a pic of each of the girls eating their cake and a pic of the cake. On the background, the writing read: You take the cake! I printed them as 4x6 photos at Costco and put them on cardstock. People seemed to really like them and thought the pics were cute.

 

thanks! I never thought of using a photo card; that's a great idea.

 

Before the guests left we handed them a photo of the girls that said "Happy 1st Birthday" and then I hand wrote the thank you's....

 

When gifts are not opened in front of guests/senders, I send a handwritten thank you. If the gift giver is there, I say thank you right then and thank the group when present opening is done.