[DBlain]

to me one of the best parts of past Gift Exchanges was viewing the thank you smile boxes. I know they were never mandatory but most participants made them and I really enjoyed watching them. I can remember the first ones I saw (before I participated) actually brought a tear to my eye because of the sentiment and the thought that went into buying the gifts. I have not seen that in the last 3 or 4 gift exchanges, now I or others hardly even look at the thank you threads because viewing each picture is frankly to much work and time consuming, it is nothing like viewing a slide show with music and captions. Perhaps it's because people are posting more from their phones or tablets and making a smile box/slide show is hard to do that way, but regardless of the reason it's just not the same for me. Many people stay away because they don't want to spend a certain amount of money and not have that amount spent on them in return, but for me I don't really care what I receive, because I can buy what I want, I care more about the excitement on the end of the receiver, and of late the majority of receivers don't seem to put as much effort into the back end as they do to the front end. You don't have to take my word for it, just look at the thank you threads from GE's from 3 to 4 years ago compared to the last few and you will see what I mean