Writing those thank‑you letters is another life skill being lost

The presents have been opened, the drifts of gaudy paper discarded and the first must-have handbags, blenders and scented candles have already been posted on ebay.

Suffused with goodwill and Aldi award-winning prosecco, the grown-ups are supine and relaxed, the children quietly up to no good in another room.

If Christmas is about anything, it’s tradition. And so comes the inevitable hammer blow that’s sure to ruin the festive spirit: it’s time to write the thank-you letters.

Cue agonised Horrid Henry-style groans, outrage and quite a bit of shouting. Why? Because for anyone under 17, sorry is not the hardest word. The hardest words are “Thank you Auntie Phyllis”.

I vividly recall my own sense of horror, back in the Twixmases of the Seventies, when day after day the nation’s reluctant kids would be served up the stationery set that Father Christmas brought them and put to work.

I hated it. My four sisters hated it. We didn’t care if all our presents were taken away right that minute as long as we didn’t have to write those wretched thank-you letters.

But like boarding school and trailing sulkily round National Trust properties, thank-you letters are a middle-class birthright, however unwelcome and unappreciated at the time.

I’ve warned my children that if they don’t say a great big thank you this year, they won’t get any gifts next year. But this has been empirically proven to be a big fat fib, which makes it hard to insist.

It’s especially challenging if your gung-ho nineyear-old is expected to be grateful for a crummy princess sticker set for babies; such stoicism and diplomacy are all about nurture, not nature.

Writing a gracious note in return for a personalised cheeseboard or lawn-aerating shoes is a tremendously useful life skill that is being lost, along with darning, skinning a rabbit and turning the pages of a book.

There’s an art to being just grateful enough; too little effusiveness will raise eyebrows, too much will seem insincere. Timing is key, too: send it too early and the letter looks tragically contrived, but leave it too long and you’ll never recall who gave you what.

Sarcasm has no place in a thank-you card, no matter how tempting. Keep it scrupulously bland and meticulously generic.

I once received a card from a friend who had just given birth. “Thank you so much for the gorgeous little babygro,” it read. Later we spoke on the phone. I laughingly mentioned that I had obviously received the wrong thank you.

“Holy [something unrepeatable]!” she sobbed. “I’ve sent my sister the card saying: ‘Thank God you sent something useful and not another bloody babygro’.” Oh dear.

An estimated £850 million of unwanted gifts will have changed hands this Christmas, much of which is predicted to turn up on online or be secretly returned to the shop.

But if you are intending to hark back to the olden days and put pen to paper, best hold back until after you’ve flogged your rejects. That way, if your mother-in-law rings up after seeing her hideous gift for sale you can pretend you were burgled on December 24.

And as you tell a Christmas whopper, your children will learn a valuable lesson for which they will always thank you.