Pumpkin's Rant of the Day: A Thank You Would Have Been Nice

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Merry Christmas and all that. It's just been me, the other half (D) and the smallest fledgeling (Mini) for Christmas. Midi went to his Dad's Christmas Eve afternoon, and he'll be coming home on Wednesday. The three of us have had a nice few days together, although D has been a bit poorly. I think he's had some sort of fever/flu type thingy. Yesterday, he did his best to join in with festivities but we've had a couple of early nights! He's feeling a bit better today, and I'm hoping he's OK to come to my Mum's with us on Friday. We were supposed to be going to his parents' today but we didn't. He said that Mini and I could go without him, but I'm not really comfortable enough to do that yet. I'm alright with them, but there would have been people I hadn't met. Hopefully, we'll pop round for New Year. Apart from his illness, we've had a good Christmas. Nice dinner and very spoilt with presents. I am, however, a little upset and disappointed by one thing, though. D's youngest daughter sent us a Christmas card (no, I'm not upset by that, although she put it to Dad, Pumpkin and Family, which is alright, I suppose, but it just reinforces the separateness of us, and the fact that she sees us as Dad's family rather than being a part of the same, if you see what I mean). Anyway, that's a different point. So, yes, she sent the card, which was nice. His eldest didn't send a card or anything. I don't think she usually does, and she's not long had a baby so she's been quite busy with new baby and a toddler. What has upset me is that we sent gifts to them and didn't get a thank you from them. These are supposedly adults. Adults shouldn't need prompting to say thank you. The youngest lives with her mother, and always has done (which is not a good thing). We're just trying to establish and improve a relationship with the eldest, also because we'd actually like a relationship with the grandchildren who, at the moment, don't seem to know that we exist. As hard as we try with the eldest, we don't know where we actually stand, how she feels, or what she's been told about whatever has gone on in the past. I've just recently managed to convince D to believe that he deserves a relationship with her, and that he deserves to be a grandad to his granddaughters. But I'm not convinced that his daughters deserve him. We've asked the youngest's mum a couple of times to get her to call her Dad, but we don't believe the message has been passed on. D makes excuses for her but the truth is that the girls are rude because they've been brought up to be so. So no idea if she's just not bothered, or if her mum hasn't passed on any messages. I don't think that a simple message or call or text to say thank you for Christmas presents is too much to ask or expect. If we were likely to see them, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that they might just thank us in person. But they live 200 miles away. The eldest has either come up with excuses or simply ignored us when we've talked about visiting (even though she's said she'd like to see us, but I wouldn't expect the truth from someone who's been brought up by a manipulative liar). Their mother seems to be stopping any communication with the youngest, and I can't even explain how I know that. I contacted the mother (because the youngest never goes on Facebook and I have no other contact information) to ask if the youngest would like to spend Christmas and/or New Year with us. She said that youngest would be working. That turned out to be a lie. D had convinced himself that the mother was a good mum and a good person. But I don't understand why a good person would be so spiteful. We haven't seen either of the girls for well over a year now. That is, partly, D's fault, though. I thought he was going to arrange something for his granddaughter's first birthday but he never did. That's a part of another long story, which I won't go into here. Anyway, how would you feel about this? I mean not getting a thank you. I'd be ashamed if I had adult kids who didn't have the decency to thank people for something. Perhaps they didn't like what they had. Perhaps they didn't appreciated it. Or perhaps, it's just their way of pushing us away even further and letting us know we're wasting our time making any effort with them.