16 August 05
The Lost Art of the Thank You Note
I have a birthday coming up next week, and my mother sent a card and a gift before she left to visit my brother in Alaska.
We’re in touch a lot, my mother and I: she lives about two hours away. We speak on the phone often, we email. But I don’t write her letters so much anymore. She’s a very thoughtful letter-writer, and whatever awkwardness she might feel socially vanishes when her pen hits the page. Anyway, I picked up my own pen to thank her for my birthday present and suddenly it dawned on me it had been a long time since I had done this for anyone.
She taught us to write thank-you notes growing up. It’s an art, and it follows a very simple formula. The art comes in making it sound less formulaic. It’s not about you, this letter; it’s thanking someone for their thoughtful generosity.
Leslie Harpold of The Morning News has a good column on this (via Rebecca’s Pocket via MakeReady).
- Happy birthday for next week Pica. I have always been a lazy letter writer and have found emails a very useful way to ensure I keep in touch with people. As a fairly inept person in social situations I find I can communicate with people more easily by email but this post makes me reflect on whether I should challenge myself to put pen to actual paper more often. I enjoyed the reference to writing thank you notes….a dying art indeed. I am also noticing a trend for people not RSVP to invitations and have had several arguments with my teenagers about this quite recently…perhaps I am showing my age….— Jenny 18. August 2005, 15:17 Link
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