Thank You! Please?

I've gotten a good chunk of my holiday shopping done already. Please don't hate me, but it is pretty much required when you have dozens of cousins with millions of children: you start early. Plus, 'tis the season of birthdays as well as winter holidays. I don't like the kick in the wallet, but I love the speculation about what gift might be the right one. For the sake of "fairness," I usually get all the cousins' kids roughly the same thing so that nobody longs for what someone else might have. With an unlimited budget, I am sure I could come up with some pretty spectacular things given the varied personalities of all the kids.

But with children who have enormous playrooms filled with everything, should I even put much thought into it all, particularly when the thank-you note rate-of-return is less than twenty-five percent?

My tentative answer is: Hey, I love to shop, it shouldn't matter whether I get an acknowledgment that the gift meant anything to the recipient.

Let's flashback a moment to those summer months when I only had one birthday party for which to shop, unlike the autumn-winter season when my entire extended family was born. My eldest son was invited to a birthday party via an amazingly creative invitation. No doubt this would be one of those parties where every detail would be perfect. On the day of the event, though, my son backed out. He was fearful of the "Jedi training" and the animal expert who would apparently be on hand for the "Padawan trials." This wasn't entirely surprising given that he hasn't seen Star Wars so was afraid he wouldn't understand the party's theme. And it wasn't unheard of to back-out day-of, as he did with his friend's dodge ball party earlier in the year.

(As an aside: it is a bit sad that he wants to be invited to birthday parties, yet has bowed out of the last two because of theme issues. I don't blame him on the dodge ball one, but find it ironic that now he knows lots about Star Wars and probably would have adored that particular celebration. It is a lesson in preparedness for me, I guess: next theme and we'll practice ahead of time.)

I wrote to the "Jedi Master" that our particular Padawan was feeling under the weather, which was not a complete lie given his particular mood when anxious. Since I had purchased a present with this particular recipient in mind, I delivered it to the party. I know the Birthday Boy received it because I physically placed it in his home, but I received no "thank you."

From what I had seen, the party itself was well thought-out. The invitation had been genius. The decorations were lovely. The theme had been played to perfection. Certainly a little thought could have been put into acknowledging gifts.

I've wondered about whether I'd have a different opinion had my son actually attended the party. Would he have seen his friend open his gift and gotten a brief recognition then? Or would the "cost" of the party experience been considered compensation for the present?

Unlike Miss Manners, I don't require a written-out note of extreme gratitude - an email or an enthusiastic verbal "thanks!" makes me happy. Last year my aunt and uncle thanked me verbally for a hostess gift I had given them the night before. As my gift was a thank-you for hosting, it required no real acknowledgment, but I was glad they had enjoyed my present. And if people open gifts during an actual event, I appreciate it when they look me in the eye and say, "Wow, this is cool."

With many occasions, the gift-opening is behind closed doors. Since I don't see that the recipient has my gift in-hand, how do I know it was received, much less enjoyed (even if they must fake enthusiasm?)

I think about that episode of Friends where Phoebe attempts to do a thankless good deed, one which doesn't benefit her at all. Yes, I readily admit that the "thank you" portion is my greed: I want someone to think, "Wow, she did a great job picking out an awesome gift!" But on the other hand, I don't want it to be an eye-rolling chore: "OMG, I have to write a thank-you note to my second-cousin-once-removed Kari." If they didn't like the gift, they didn't like the gift. But that's where the parents can gush, "Thank you for thinking of my little Sweet-Ums!"

And then there are the cases when I truly don't know if a gift was received. Sure, it is unlikely that my local cousins didn't find their gift under the Christmas tree where I put it, but for those presents I mail across the country, loss of mail is a legit concern, particularly as I recently broke a U.S. postal service package-drop mechanism, thus jamming my nephew's birthday gift in a great metal nowhere. Yes, I own stock in delivery confirmation for these things, but even a brief email of "Thanks so much for the Christmas gifts - we received them today and look forward to opening them!" would be much appreciated.

Thankfully, I love to shop. And I love to wrap gifts so that they look just-so. But sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it all for me; because from what I've experienced, my gifts don't mean so much to the person whose name I write in scrolly-letters after the "To:"

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Original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post, Kari also writes at The Karianna Spectrum.