Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com.

Dear Prudie,
My husband and I have been married for almost a year and a half. Lately, I found all the thank-you notes that I had written to the guests at our wedding. They had been tucked into the back of the closet instead of mailed. Should I rewrite the thank-you notes or just let it go?

—In Trouble

Dear In,
Forgive the oxymoron, but good grief! Prudie can understand someone maybe putting an envelope or two in a pocket and forgetting to mail them, but how does anyone put a collection of letters to be mailed in the back of a closet? Were either of you drunk, perhaps mistaking the closet for a mailbox? This is a very odd fix to be in, but here is what you must do. Rewrite the notes, beginning each with a mea culpa, mea cuckoo, explaining the closet glitch. People will most likely be amused and forgive this rather unusual lapse.

—Prudie, postally

Dear Prudence,
My husband and I got acquainted with another couple a few months ago. We've had dinner a couple of times, but that's it. The last time we had them over the wife announced that she had found my Christmas gift, but she hadn't found one for my husband yet. She said they don't expect a gift back, but her husband—kidding on the square—said he did. The way I was raised, you only buy gifts for very close friends and family. I resent that this couple has put me in this position. What should I do?

—S.

Dear S.,
While we're still in the pre-Christmas season, tell this woman of your family tradition where you only exchange gifts with close friends and relatives. That way, she can do something else with the gift she has for you. If she says she is still going to give you the present, do not be blackmailed into reciprocating. Should this woman be so dense or pushy as not to back off, write a gracious thank-you note, enjoy the gift, and leave it at that. Your situation is a perfect example of the rightness of Noel Coward's annual holiday card: "Christmas is at our throats again."

—Prudie, decisively

Dear Prudence,
My brother has recently moved to my area, and his serious girlfriend swiftly followed. He and I had a great time in the few months he was here on his own, but now that she has arrived I find myself making excuses not to see them ... and it is always them. My problem with her is her complete lack of awareness that there may be a world beyond her own experience. Every sentence starts with "I" or "My." If I say, "How about that election recount?!" She says, "I know someone who worked for a state election commission." If I say, "Did you read about the guy who got shot at 20^th Street?" She says, "My brother's best friend was shot." You get the picture. I thought about sitting down and talking nicely about it, because she might marry my brother, but how do you bring that kind of thing up?