Thank You!!

I am entering an incredible time in my life. Today is my (and by "my" I mean Ashley's) first wedding shower (first of three). Tomorrow we will load up the Yukon with shower gifts and presents and taken them to the house that will be our first home. Soon after arriving the gifts will be inventoried and then it begins...the "thank you" notes. Leslie Harold columnist for The Morning News wrote a column on the proper etiquette for writing a thank you note. In it she includes a six point guide to writing a thank you note, giving proper examples of each (**Disclaimer: example given is actual example for thank you note**).

1. Greet the giver: Dear Aunt Sally,
2. Express your gratitude: Thank you for the slippers.
3. Discuss use: It gets very chilly here in the winter, so they will get a lot of use when winter comes.
4. Mention the pass, allude to the future: It was great to see you at the birthday party, and I hope to see you at Dad's retirement in February.
   
5. Grace: Thanks again for the gift.
   
6. Regards: Love Leslie
   

I don't know about any of you but I always feel awkward when I get a thank you note and don't know what to do with it, so I have devised the six stages of receiving a thank you note:

1. Excite over receiving personal mail: "Wow!! mail that is not a bill or credit card application"
2. Realizing that the letter is a thank you note: "Oh! This must be a thank you note for the slippers I gave Leslie...re-gifting is so convenient."
3. Reading the thank you note: "Dear Aunt Sally...blah blah blah...thanks for the slippers...yadda yadda yadda...cold in winter...yeah yeah...Dad's retirement...Love Leslie!"
4. Throw card on pile of papers on corner of desk: "On the pile it goes."
   
5. Feel awkward about card as if it would be wrong to throw it way: "Maybe I will frame it or put it on display for when she comes to visit."
6. Months/Years later throw card away: "I really shouldn't let my desk get this junky."
   

So I say that we scrap the whole thing. Lets just stop, stop writing thank you notes. No one likes writing them so I say we get rid of them. I honestly urge you all to think seriously about the enjoyment factor of writing thank you notes. So the question I have is, "Why?" For any of you out there who have the proper answer of, "To show your gratitude," let me offer you this little tid-bit of knowledge, the people who are the recipients of your thank you notes...they don't want to write thank you notes either. So we are stuck in a paradox of, hating writing thank you notes to people who hate to write thank you notes. Don't get me wrong I think it is very important to show authentic sincere gratitude but I think that we should pick a new way of doing it. Perhaps a secret handshake, or a mention in a prayer, or even better than that...help abolish thank you note writing so they will never have to write one again.


Related Article: