The Importance of The Handwritten Note

By Didi Lorillard, Newport Manners

We asked Didi…should we write thank-yous for those holiday gifts? For those invitation to holiday parties we attended? It inspired an entire article filled with good information – much of which can be found on Didi Lorillard’s blog, affectionately known as Newport Manners and Etiquette Today.

Often Didi takes on personal dilemmas posed by her readers…this issue started with this question –

~Didi

When to Send A Thank-You Note for A Christmas or Holiday Party

We accepted an evite to a holiday party and attended. We did not bring a hostess gift. Can we send a thank-you card after the fact and that’s enough? Or do we have to send our hosts a gift?

–Anonymous, Newport, RI

Send a thank-you note when you know you won’t be reciprocating with a return invitation. The reciprocation for an invitation is a return invitation. Often that’s not possible. For instance, if you don’t entertain, or live too far away and our visiting home briefly, say, for the holidays.

A guest is never required to bring a gift to a party or send one post-party. You were invited because your host enjoys your company.

However, if you don’t bring a thoughtful token hostess gift, you would reciprocate with an email thank-you note pointing out your view of the highlights of their party (a person you met, the beautifully decorated house, the food, eggnog, etc.).

At the very least: An evite invitation is reciprocated with an email expressing gratitude; a paper invitation, is acknowledged with a handwritten note; a verbal invitation by phone or in person is reciprocated with a phone call thanking the person for having invited them

Didi Lorillard is a born and bred Newporter. While living in New York City for many years, she published New York, New York: A Counter Chic Guide to Manhattan and Buy the Best. She has worked at The New Republic, Saturday Review, and Mother Jones. Didi and her husband, historian Robert Cowley, currently live in Newport, where they are frequently visited by their many children and grandchildren.

When Didi told her friend and literary agent Esmond Harmsworth that she was writing a book called “Newport Etiquette & Manners,” he suggested that she start a website to find out what people really wanted to know about the subject. She launched NewportManners.com. Since 2002 readers from around the world have been asking her questions about manners; questions that often touch on problems that seem to them unsolvable – that can have surprisingly simple solutions. 

RINewsToday will occasionally provide guidelines from Didi and we thank her for allowing us to do so.