Some things you learn because you are taught them – others
you learn by example. In our home, thank you notes was a little of both. My mom
always insisted we sit down and write them. But it wasn’t a lesson she spoke
and didn’t do. My mom is always sitting at her desk writing thank you notes for
just about everything: gifts, meals, hospitality. Her taking the time to thank
someone was a bigger lesson than her insisting we do it ourselves.
I realized when I was about thirty how much thank you notes
were a part of my life. This guy at church invited me to play mini golf with
him one Saturday. A friend and I went and had a good time. Afterwards, I had to
nearly sit on my hands not to write a thank-you note for an enjoyable
afternoon. Not because it wasn’t a nice gesture (although I had thanked him
personally), but it just didn’t seem like the appropriate thing to do. So, no
note was written. But since I married him three and a half years later, we’ll
call it even.
Who knows how many thank-you notes I have written over the
course of my life. Quite a few I’m guessing since I’ve actually been told after
someone gave me something not to write them yet another thank-you note. But
over the past year I swear I have written more thank you notes than I have in
my past life put together. Between a wedding and having a baby…well, that’s a
lot of notes to write. And since the baby hasn’t even arrived yet, there are
many more to be written! So, funny enough, one of my favorite gifts for the
baby has been a box of thank you notes already stamped and the return address
written in the corner. What a wonderful idea!
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