Wednesday, July 28, 2010

giving thanks

i'm a stickler for etiquette. it's something that i inherited from my grandmother and mother. I try really hard to follow the rules set by the pros on the subject, like ms. emily post, but there are times when i slide a bit...Now that the wedding is over, I've been devoting a ridiculous amount of time to writing thank you notes. Ideally, i like to get my notes out as quickly as possible, but in the exciting and hectic few months leading up to the wedding, my schedule, combined with the fact that i live 2 hours from my parents (where most of my gifts were sent), i have fallen terribly behind. (seriously. some of them that should have gone out two months ago are still being written today). In the case of a wedding, i think people tend to be more accepting when they get a "late" thank you note, so while i'm internally spazzing out about my tardiness, i think that the rule of "better late than never" definitely applies here.

Part of my problem lies in the fact that i take so damn long to write ONE note. i go through an entire, lengthy process. i think about the gift, i imagine what i can or have used it for, i think of all the bonuses to the item, etc, i try to include some witty anecdote, etc...and then, before i ever even put pen to paper, i type out exactly what the note will say on my computer. i proofread the note at least 3 times, and usually i make changes. THEN, i pull out a card and write down what i've typed out. when all is said and done, I've usually written enough to fill up the front AND back of a notecard. I timed the process a few times when i was writing them earlier today, and writing ONE note typically takes me, on average, 12 minutes.

some of you who are former brides, or who frequently write than you notes may think "why in the world are you taking 12 minutes to write each thank you note" and for me, the answer is simple.

someone had to get into a car, drive to a store, find your registry, and then made a thoughtful choice about what to send you for a wedding gift. I dare say that the entire process took them much longer than 12 minutes. don't you think their effort, time, thoughtfulness, etc. deserves a bit more than a sub-par, 3 sentence long blurb of thanks?

i've sent a crapload of wedding gifts, baby gifts, etc. in my day, and i've gotten quite a few thank-you notes as a result. want to hear a secret? i keep them ALL. every single thank you note i've ever gotten. I use them as a guidelines for what to do, and what NOT to do, and as the wedding gifts started showing up, i started looking at these old notes more an more frequently. while some of them were great, MOST of them were bad. my favorite was the one that said:

"Dear Charlee, Thank you so much for the wedding gift. We really appreciate it."

really? that's all i get?

i wondered at the time why this bride even bothered buying the obviously pricey personalized notes that she did...i mean, she could have just gotten some of those fill-in-the-blank thank you notes that they have designed for kids to send out for birthday gifts, and saved herself a ton of cash....really, what was the point?

that particular thank-you note rubbed me the wrong way for many reasons. first, because it was quite possibly the most thoughtless, lame-ass excuse for a thank-you note that's ever been written, and second, because that particular gift had been a pain in the ass for me to even get to the bride and groom. I remember that it was something they had mentioned many times that they really wanted, so they registered for it at one of the "big box" chain stores. it wasn't something that was available online, so i had to physically drive to the store to pick it up....with my luck, the first of these chains i went to didn't have it, and neither did the second, so by the time i'd actually found the gift, i'd been to three different stores. THEN, i had to wrap it, pack it, and ship it to the bride and groom..none of which i minded, because i love both of these people, and wanted them to have the gift, but, while i'm not tooting my own horn here, i think i can honestly say that i went through an awful lot of trouble for a thank-you note that was so.......lame.

notes like that one stick with me in my mind, so when i sit down to write one, i try to do it with the same thoughtfulness that people used when selecting a gift for us. i realize that writing thank you notes is exhausting, boring and time consuming, but when a person sends you, for example, a stainless steel cuisinart toaster, then you should recognize that you know exactly what it is that they sent you. you should also tell them how great it looks in your kitchen, or how much it complements your other new appliances, and mention that it's already getting plenty of use in the morning's at your house, or how you and your new husband have toast and coffee together every morning before work. then tell them how happy you were that they were able to make it to the wedding, or, if they couldn't be there, how much they were missed. say that you hope to see them soon, or something else of that nature.

how hard is that? it's not....at ALL. so i don't understand why there are so many shitty thank-you notes going out in the world.

and then there's this new "modern" way of thinking where it's somehow acceptable to thank people via email (it's fine to thank someone this way for some things, but most definitely NOT a wedding gift) or (gasp!) to not send a thank-you note AT ALL. a couple of years ago, a family friend's daughter got married. My parents and grandparents sent gifts, and a couple of months after the wedding, were having a conversation about the wedding with the bride's parents, who mentioned to them how horrified they were that their daughter had announced to them that she had no intention of writing thank-you notes.

WHO DOES THAT?
apparently, she's not the only one - there's a whole group of people in the world who think that thank-you notes are outdated or some such nonsense.....you've got to be KIDDING me.

so while some of my notes are a bit...late, at least i'm sending them at all, and i think as people get them, they will really get the feeling while reading them that their gifts were appreciated and loved, and that all the trouble they went to was recognized.


as for all you crappy thank-you note writers, and non-writers.....didn't your mamas teach you better?

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