The Lost Art of Writing Thank You Notes

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When I was younger and at an age where I could spell and write on my own, writing thank you notes was routine after receiving birthday or Christmas gifts. Since both of those holidays fall in December for me, I got lots of writing practice that month!

It was ingrained in my head that when you receive a gift you always send a written thank you note. Since the giver spent time thinking of a gift, shopping and sometimes shipping it, it was the least we could do to sit for five minutes to compose a well-thought note.

With our busy lives and reliance on technology, it appears the art of writing thank you notes has all but disappeared and I’m just as guilty as the next person. For years we never exchanged thank you notes with my inlaws because I came to believe that a verbal “thank you” sufficed. Writing a note or forcing an unwanting child to write a note seemed redundant.

With my own family, I convinced myself that they would forgive my lack of notes because I was busy with two kids. Certainly they would understand.

Well, it appears that my sister-in-law has changed the rules a bit because we received three four very nice thank you notes: one from each of her children and one from her. The youngest typed hers on computer paper but was still very thoughtful. Even my 6-year-old goddaughter sent us a note, albeit one printed line with a beautiful drawing.

Tomorrow after school I’m sitting down with my girls to get our thank you notes written. My 10-year-old can certainly write and spell on her own but she tends to take the easy way out of doing things so I will have to sit to be sure she writes more than just one sentence. My 5-year-old will want to write all her own letters, which sometimes is like water torture but she takes great pride in her work, even at this young age.

Hopefully our families will understand our tardiness and will still smile at the hard work put forth by both girls. I was very tempted to write all the cards myself tonight and let them sign their own names - since that would be much quicker and I know just what to say - but we’re trying to teach our 5th grader that she must start doing things for herself.

So that’s where we will be tomorrow afternoon, sitting around the kitchen table, trying to send a little bit of sunshine to our relatives and hopefully the girls will start to really understand just how fortunate we are in life.