NEWS

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Over the past 70 years, I’ve probably written more than 1,200 thank-you notes. I started this ritual the day after my mother determined my handwriting was legible enough to decipher. So, in 1964, at age 11, I was inducted into the formal “Thank-You Note Writing Program.” My first thank-you note, written in my best cursive handwriting went something like this:

Dear Grandmother,

 Thank you for the grammar and spelling book you gave me for Christmas. I know it will look nice sitting on the pink shelf in my room.

 Love,
Jeanie

 As it seems, it’s apparently up to mothers to pound home the message to their children that writing thank you notes is as important as wearing clean underwear. Over the years, the style of my notecards has ranged from beige with embossed initials on the front, to fold-over cards that feature illustrations of nature or designs by children in the Congo. My seemingly endless supply of thank you notes has been given to me as Christmas and birthday presents. I find it ironic that I am being given thank-you notes so I can write a thank-you note for a box of thank-you notes! Right now, I have enough to last me well into the next millennium.

I know the etiquette police (my late and wonderful mother) would say that thanking people by email, text, or phone just doesn’t cut it. I contend that anyone over 50 or someone who has given birth to her third child should be exonerated from writing thank you notes. When I deliver a baby gift, I make the mother pinky swear that she won’t write me a thank-you note. I figure she has enough on her hands to use one to write me a note. The look on the faces of these mothers when I tell them they don’t have to endure this ritual is thanks enough.

Now, there are exceptions when written thank-you notes delivered by our beloved postal service are highly appropriate:

1. When someone gives you a kidney, liver, heart, or other body part.
2. When a friend takes your small children to the park for three hours so you can take a nap or watch The Housewives of New York.
3. When someone saves you from drowning.
4. When someone helps your son or daughter find an internship or better yet, a job that’s not holding a spinning sign for tax services at an intersection.

Admittedly, I don’t have a formula anymore for thank-you notes. I live in a row of townhouses now, and I find it a bit confusing when I see someone walking past my house with a thank-you note for me that will take three days or more to receive.  I’m all for the postal service, so I guess that’s my contribution to helping people keep their jobs. However, now I text or phone to thank someone for most gifts. My son says not using paper is helping the environment, so I have that positive excuse, as well.

I do think the writing of thank-you notes is an art form most women can relate to. I’m curious as to why men often don’t find it necessary to write these expressions of thanks. When I was married, my husband and I received some wonderful gifts, but did it ever occur to him to write a thank-you note?  I used to tell my spouse that I didn’t take “Thank-You Note Writing 101” in college and that with a little effort, he too could do it. Men are great at giving the gifter a hearty handshake and that’s the end of it. Women should be so lucky.

If you’re a parent of a child who can hold a pen, you may know the worry and frustration holiday time can cause. That’s because I was taught that with every gift opening there needed to be a “prompt and proper” thank-you note. When my son turned 12, I bought him 500 notecards with his full name reversed out of a manly blue ink. He is 36 and probably has 491 cards left.

Technology has had its impact on handwritten thank-you notes. Thanks to the computer my once beautiful cursive writing looks like chicken scratch. Computers have also allowed us to Facetime, text, and email our appreciation, and I find no fault with that on occasion. I find myself writing a note when something very personal compels me to do so.

A few years ago, I was cleaning out a bin of personal notes and cards when I spotted what was once a piece of bright white stationery. In words, pounded out on a manual typewriter, was the thank-you note I received in 1975 from the wife of a Prisoner of War (POW) imprisoned somewhere in Vietnam. I had signed up to wear a metal bracelet engraved with this soldier’s name until he was found or the war ended. His wife had written me a long thank-you note for wearing this bracelet. She went onto describe her sweet “Dennis” who was a husband and father. Miraculously, he was among the POWs to return after the war. Her note is almost 50 years old and is a treasured artifact that I’ll hold dear forever.

Now that I think about it, maybe handwritten notes are the way to go. Maybe we should just take a closer look at what we have to say and the way we say it. After all, it is the thought and the thank-you note that counts.