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Christi Diggs
on May 23 2013 - 06:00 AM
A drop of spin, a cup of deception and tsp. politics=Apathy
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Lindsay Metcalf
on May 22 2013 - 06:00 AM
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mara williams
on May 21 2013 - 06:00 AM
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My late grandmother is having a fit, I’m just sure of it.
She was never one to scold harshly. She'd just say, “oh honey, that’s not very nice,” for basically everything I did and shouldn’t have. Or didn’t do but should have.
The thing she was biggest on was being appreciative to people. Never go somewhere without taking something. Always help clean up. And always, always send a thank you card.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad?
I think we’ve discussed this before, but please let me digress. It’s almost the New Year and by golly I’m determined in some ways to be better than I was this year. So I may spend a few weeks sorting all this out.
First come the thank you notes. And how I don’t send them. Or, if I do send them, they’re like three months after the fact and of course then the person thinks I’m not really thanking them but just trying to get the damn note in the mail before it’s too late.
That said, I think I’m not teaching our kids to be thankful. Oh, in person, they always say thank you. Oldest loves absolutely every gift he gets and hugs each person after he opens theirs.
Little one, who just celebrated his second Christmas, kept saying, “Wow!!” after each gift. Well, not the clothes, so I said “Wow!” for him.
We’re so appreciative for everything yet I just can’t seem to write out a note or get them in the mail. (Just the other day, I found stack of cards my oldest wrote out thanking people for his birthday gifts. The envelopes were addressed, just no stamp and obviously never mailed. His birthday is in March.)
I can hear my grandmother now, "Oh, honey, that wasn't nice." She'd definitely be disappointed.
“They spent time thinking of you, can’t you spend time thinking of them?” is something she would say.
A few years ago I married into a family very big on thank you notes. My mother-in-law comes to visit, even brings dinner for one of the nights and then sends a note thanking us once she gets home. And my husband? He’s already started his Christmas notes.
He used to write each one out by hand (and they were at least a full page) but because his handwriting is getting worse and some of his relatives are getting older, he types them in big font.
He knows I’m a slacker, so normally just adds my gratitude and includes my name.
Horrible. What type of message am I sending? I want to raise thank-you note writers, not sons who marry them and only hope to get their name included.
So, here’s No. 1 on my improvement plan for 2009.
Write thank you notes to everyone. Heck, I may even throw in notes to people who sent us Christmas cards (Yay!!! We got six!!!)
I already told oldest that he needs to write his by the end of the week, and I’m just going to ignore his little comment about me mailing them. I’m also going to write an extra long letter to husband’s grandma who never got a thank you for sending me a birthday gift. Never mind my birthday is in June.
If I want to have grateful and thankful kids, I better show them how to show it, right. My mother-in-law read somewhere that Brad Pitt always send thank you notes. For every little gift he or his slew of children get.
“How proud his mother must be,” she said.
Indeed. And how proud will my mother-in-law be when she actually gets handwritten notes from her grandsons before April, maybe even March. (Well, let's stick to April for now.)
Now I’ll go to work on the second way I’m going to improve myself. I'll spare you that one for now.
Yes, the art of personal correspondence is fading but I think A LOT of people struggle with this. Heaven knows, I'm TRYING to send out notes, too. Good luck. I always tell myself it's the thought that counts, even when I'm sending notes out late.Okay. Here's the deal. It used to be (and if you look it up in etiquette rules, it still is) that thank-you notes were ONLY WRITTEN IF YOU DID NOT OPEN THE GIFT IN THE GIFT-GIVER'S PRESENCE!!! So I do NOT send thank-you's for every gift I or my kids have received, because I think it's overkill. If my kid said "thank you" with his mouth, hugged you, told you he loved it... why does he need to send a note, too? For goodness sake, it's a gift, not life-saving CPR. Furthermore... when we receive a gift in the mail from an elderly family member, rather than write a thank-you, we call. I figure the elderly family member would so much rather enjoy having a great-nephew or grandson call to chat than receive a two-sentence note in the mail. It's not that I'm against thank-you notes, per say... it's just that I have a problem with overkill. Somehow the proper way to thank people has turned into another guilt-ridden obligation. I feel no guilt for not sending out a note for a gift I said, "thank you" for with my mouth. And I tell other people to save a tree and NOT send me a thank-you, either! They never listen.Thanks to you, in a good way, we are going to work on thank you notes today. I always have good intentions but then just well don't do it. Here is to getting them done and out.Jen that makes sense. The guilt part. I have heard persons, I am not going to say who, that will go on and on that they didn't get a thank you note how rude. But my kids, or the one that can walk and talk go up and hug and thank everyone. Maybe it's the stress of just wanting everyone to know how much we appreciate the gifts and the thoughts.I gotta agree with Jennifer here too. If I've thanked them in person, why do I have to send a note too?If we opened the gifts in front of the person and said thank you then I don't usually send a Thank You note. I still think that they're nice for shower gifts and wedding gifts.We've been having this same discussion. I made the girls get their Christmas thank yous out, only to have the oldest have to do birthday thank yous after today. Ugh. It's such a romantic idea, but I'm not sure exactly why we are doing it. Of course, we want to tell the person how much we enjoy the gift, but is it realistic to do it in a handwritten note? And with a 42 cent stamp? We have 8 families who are regularly part of our celebrations. That's 16 cards for both girls. Just for Christmas. I'm thinking we only write to the older people, or a friend for a birthday party gift. The rest can be via email or phone, right? Maybe we just are getting too much stuff...
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