<p>Disagreement bubbling in our normally tranquil household… I won’t tip my hand as to what my position is in this discussion so I can get your honest views!</p>
<p>What is the proper way to thank someone for a graduation gift? Should the student write a handwritten (not email) note? Send an email? Telephone the gift giver? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, we’re requiring handwritten notes. He’s taking his time getting around to it and I’m about to blow my top, but there’s no alternative around here… Are you reading this, ds?</p>
<p>Depends on the age of giver. $15 iTunes card from a friend - verbal. From Grandparents, immediate phone call followed by a note card. (Heck, you parents are paying for the phone call) $50 from neighbor who came to grad party - nice short note within a month. Gift from a younger (under 40) relative - long email including details of graduation and specific thanks for what gift would be used for.<br>
I’ll admit that’s what I expected mine to do, not what they may have actually done.</p>
<p>No doubt you’ll get an array of answers, but here’s mine: Handwritten note. That’s what I was taught growing up (back in the dark ages) and that’s what I make D & S do. There could be some “wiggle room” on this rule if the gift giver is there in person to give the gift, OR if the giver is someone who would very much love to have a phone call. (For example, H’s parents spend part of the year in FL, and we don’t get to see them as much. They would MUCH rather talk to the grandchildren on the phone than receive a written note, no matter what the etiquette is!)</p>
<p>Handwritten notes, sent promptly. Additionally you should call any close family members and thank people in person when you next see them. </p>
<p>I hand wrote individual thank you notes (i.e. not the same generic thing for every person) for all of my graduation gifts within the week after my party. I received many thanks in return for my thank you letters! Prompt, appropriate, hand-written thank you notes are classic and fool proof.</p>
<p>Agree 100% with corranged - handwritten thank you notes within a week. We took photos of D in cap, down, and cords and made simple cards on the computer for her to use as thank you notes. People loved the photo!</p>
<p>Individual, specific, handwritten note (with a phone call on top to the really far-flung grandparents). We’ve been ■■■■■■ about this since our kids were tiny, and they ALMOST don’t even complain anymore. Almost. 
(They definitely don’t ask “do I have to.”)</p>
<p>Graduation gifts were a specific category for which we (cruelly) suspended the “delivered in person from a local same-age-category friend and opened on the spot” exception to the handwritten note rule, on the grounds that a note was a perfect means to make sure each friend had D’s college snail mail address. </p>
<p>We are the meanest, bar none.</p>
<p>midwest, thanks for great idea about enclosing photo in cap and gown, and yes, we too are Victorian hand-written-requiring thowbacks. Does this fall in the “someday they’ll thank us” category? </p>
<p>And no cashing the checks until the notes are in the mail.</p>
<p>Handwritten, chatty note to older relatives and family friends/neighbors. Phone calls emails to others.</p>
<p>I’m with you riverrunner, our rule: Before you can use (read…cash the check/spend the money) the gift, you must write a brief handwritten note and put it in the mailbox. We paid for the notes and the stamps. The graduate did the writing. I explained that only 3-4 sentence were needed to write a nice note. Graduate balked. Mom won the battle! Someday my efforts will be appreciated by said offspring!</p>
<p>As a mom from the South - handwritten notes, absolutely! Learning to write a gracious thank you note is a skill that will pay dividends in life far more valuable than some of the off the wall stuff learned in school. I have heard many stories of how the decision of whom to hire has sometimes come down to the candidate who wrote the gracious handwritten thank you for the interview. The most recent reminder of this was in Randy Pausch’s book where he mentions something about a candidate for grad school and how he found a handwritten note to a staff assistant in the file that was never meant for his eyes or to be part of the file, but that it influenced him to find the student a place in his grad program (hope I remembered that correctly!).</p>
<p>Nothing but a handwritten note to anyone, regardless of age. </p>
<p>One thing to think about. A high school graduate is an adult who should always have in his or her possession personalized (re: monogrammed) note cards on which to write thank you notes. Not only for gifts, but after internship interviews, after received a recommendation from a professor, or after attending a social function at a professors house. You can find nice personalized notes for order on the internet for a reasonable price.</p>
<p>Hand written notes. Our daughter (college grad) did them with a card she had made at Costco with a picture of herself in cap and gown with her arms spread wide and a big smile on her face on the front. Since most of her friends graduated with her or would be graduating soon none of them gave her anything except a card.</p>
<p>We just took care of these tonight. My daughter hand wrote the cards that I bought for her at Hallmark (way too big of a selection!) To make it faster and easier, I wrote the addresses while she wrote the note. Once she set a pattern of what a note would sound like, she cranked them out quickly. By working together it only took about 45 minutes.</p>
<p>I’d agree that the student should send handwritten notes, since many people seem to feel that’s the most appropriate way to thank someone. </p>
<p>But why is writing a note necessarily better than making a phone call or writing an email? Couldn’t you just as easily communicate a thoughtful “thank you” through the latter two? And if you were the one giving the gift, why should you care how exactly the recipient thanks you, as long as he or she genuinely expresses gratitude? Is it really just that writing it out by hand demonstrates the “extra mile”?</p>
<p>
Yes, I think so.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how old your kids are, but do you remember the indignation when colleges started sending out acceptances/rejections through email instead of by letter? People were appalled, and many kids vowed not to check their emails during that time so that they could get the traditional letter. It seemed tacky. Well, now email notices are commonplace, and students sometimes get annoyed if a college only sends letters. But now a few colleges are sending out acceptances by text, and that is certainly seen as tacky today. It’s a slippery slope. And remember that even a student who hears of an acceptance through email will want to see and keep their actual acceptance letter. It has more meaning if it’s there on paper, if you can hold it in your hand. Add in the thank you note factor of having the letter hand-written, having the surety that the other person thought about the note and took the time to write it, and it does mean more than an email (which could, of course, be sent off to a hundred people at once with no one the wiser).</p>
<p>Handwritten notes from our kids as well. </p>
<p>In my first care package to my OOS son freshman year, I enclosed a new box of Hallmark Thank You cards and stamps along with the assorted snacks. That way he was ready to whip one out when he got the random gift from grandparents etc. And he did it! I explained he needn’t write TY notes to me, but I expected a text or quick email letting me know the packages had arrived.</p>
<p>Handwritten note sent before any checks cashed/gifts used. ASAP. No exceptions.</p>
<p>I know I HATED writing my graduation thank you notes, but once I got started it wasn’t that big of a deal. I addressed it to who ever came to my party (or signed the card) and then thanked them for the gift and added something personal. They were a hit! I got many thank yous for my thank yous and even discovered that a friend’s family saved my note as an example of a good thank you for their kids!! haha. </p>
<p>It’s not really that bad and it is very likely the only time I’ll ever send most of those people a piece of mail, so it was worth doing right. I usually wrote 5-10 at a time and then sent them out in batches. Worked well for me!</p>
<p>we are with bessie-money cannot be spent until a nice handwritten note (I will agree to address) is sent.</p>