Pumpkin Hats and Thank You Notes

I haven't been crocheting much, but I did make a monkey hat for the new sibling of some friends I'd made monkey hats for the first three kids. And I made a couple pumpkin hats -- one for Livia and one for a friend from her school who had a pumpkin-themed birthday party (I also gave her a pumpkin book from the book fair). I didn't get to see the reaction when it was opened, and I haven't seen the mom since, but I hope they liked it. Livia's is super cute, and it's actually cool enough right now to wear hats here!

Jane had her party, so we're slowly working our way through thank you notes. It's so important to me to express gratitude in a written form, even if Jane said thanks when she opened the gift at the party. (And some of the children had left by the time she started opening.) Jane's 7 so can write and is writing the notes. She's also drawing pictures and making it take entirely too long! But they will get done.

The parties we've gone to recently - both for Liv and Jane - haven't come with thank you notes afterward. Some of that is definitely logistics - without an address or a reliable way to give notes what's the point? And another, probably bigger, part is culture - it's not that important here to give written thanks for something small like a $10 birthday gift.

I'm OK with that, but as for me and my girls we'll keep writing our notes!

Edit to add: We got a thank you note for the pumpkin party! The mom didn't know who gave which presents but she did send thank you notes!