The Lost Art of The Thank You Note

Most people are back to their normal routines following the holidays and New Year’s.  The gifts have been given and received, but have the Thank You notes been written?  When I was a child, Thank You notes had to be written within a few days of receiving a gift.  According to my mother, if someone cared enough about you to take their time and spend their hard earned money to select and purchase a gift for you, you had a responsibility to thank them.  She felt this was especially important when you received a gift in the mail because how would that person even know you had received the gift.  Today, it appears that many people do not write Thank You notes which I think deprives the gift giver of some special attention for caring about you on your special day or holiday. Furthermore, today there are so many ways to thank someone.  If you do not want to write out a Thank You note the old fashioned way and send it by “snail mail”, a Thank You e-mail or even a Thank You phone text still acknowledges the other person.  Most of us like to receive some form of recognition for our efforts.  We recently sent a wedding gift through a store wedding registry as we were unable to attend the wedding.  To date, several months later, we still have not received a Thank You note and we do not know if they received the gift we purchased or if they received it in one piece?  It would have really been nice to get a brief note.  Over the holidays, I was also amazed at how many people were sent gifts that were never acknowledged.  I was discussing this with some friends and it was interesting to hear some of their opinions.  One friend shared that if she did not receive some form of Thank You, she no longer sent that person gifts in the future.  Another friend would call and ask the person if they received the gift and whether or not they liked it.  A third friend told us that she stopped sending gifts, but would continue to send cards to celebrate the occasion.  A couple of friends said they just continued to send the gifts if the recipient was a child but stopped sending gifts after graduation from High School.  The general theme here is that people were hurt to not be thanked and recognized.  Let’s all remember this the next time we receive a gift.

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