The Anatomy of a Thank You Note

When I was growing up, I never needed to go to a card store. I never needed to combat the scrutinizing eyes of the ornery old sales lady at Cards Plus. And I never needed to shield my eyes and scurry past the "adult card room" to find a birthday card at Kards Unlimited, the more liberal card store in town. The cards came to us. By way of our very own card dealer, my mother, who after a long day using legal language must have a sought refuge in the poems and riddles of Hallmark and moonlighted as a greeting card collector.

About once a week she would come home with a little paper bag filled with cards. She would quietly call us one by one into her room to pick a card - for grandpa's birthday, for Anna's Christening, for Teacher Appreciation Day, for Dad (just because he's Dad and he deserved lots of cards.)

You always wanted to be the first to pick your card - to get the cream of the crop. The fold out, story one that depicted you and your grandpa, say, as house mice, reading by the fire, picking tomatoes in the garden, watching the big game, and laughing together. The one that wasn't as childlike as the others.

Occasionally, the little brown bag had something else in it though. The other purchase you can make at card stores. Thank you notes. Two 10-packs of cute little thank you notes, that my mom had picked out just for me. I could thank all my relatives with one set, and all my friends with the other, for all the shiny, new birthday gifts that lined my twin bed.

While I loved writing a message and signing my name on greeting cards, I was a little less enthusiastic about the repetitive messaging on thank you notes. My Mom taught me how to write them - the winning formula. Tell them thank you for the gift. Name the gift. Tell them thank you for coming to your party. Tell them that you love them a lot. And then sign your name.

I mostly followed my Mom's etiquette, except for once, around my eighth birthday. I can still remember the Snoopy themed thank you cards. I skipped the first four sentences, and went straight to signing my name. And not even signing my full name, just my initials. I opened up each each Snoopy card, wrote "L.F." on the inside, and sealed them. Word traveled quickly across the chatty Auntie network and soon enough my Mom found out about my faux pas, My thank you note writing was under surveillance for several years later, until I developed an affinity and appreciation for the art of writing "thank you," and my own little formula.

True to form, my Mom (and Dad) got me my thank you cards for the wedding. Three giant boxes of them. And I'm nearly through box two. This time around, I didn't only get schooled in thank you note etiquette from my Mom, I got it from the high class card lady at Marjie Allen, who told me not to fall behind! And I'm proud to say, I haven't. I believe that I have written more than 200 thank you notes at this point, with a couple more to go, and they don't just have my new initials "L.S." on them, they each have a different, personalized, and thoughtful message.

While my hand gets a cramp each evening, my handwriting goes from somewhat cryptic to completely so, and I continue to wish that I was just done already, there is something really special in writing each message. And I start to wonder, how one card can express all the gratitude that Peter and I have. It can't, but its an artful gesture.

Last night, after card #201 most likely, I sent a tweet that went something like this, "So tired of thank you notes. I wish a thank you tweet covered it." I didn't mean it, and a tweet most certainly wouldn't express it all, but if I could expand the field beyond 140 characters, it would have gone something like this.

Thank you for making our house, a home sweet ranch home.
Thank you for making our toasts sing crystal's sweet tune.
Thank you for allowing dinner to have such stunning edges.

Thank you for framing our most special moments.

Thank you for encouraging our bed to go from orange and brown to white.
Thank you for wrapping us in steely gray warmth.
Thank you for making cooking and carving even more exciting.

Thank you for being there.

For praying with us, dining with us, dancing with us, loving us, making us smile.

You made our day. And you will continue to make our life.

Lo. (and PTS.)