I have noticed a trend among my family and friends who live in this area of the country regarding thank you notes that has become a pet peeve, but maybe ehellions can help me view it more charitably. Whether for a wedding or a child’s birthday party, people have been sending printed thank you cards with a picture of the honoree and a generic “Thank you for sharing my special day” message. Even their name is preprinted.
Am I completely out of line in thinking that this is about the sender making this more about them than actually thanking the recipient? I would rather receive a text or phone call after the event with a personalized message than a thank you that doesn’t actually acknowledge what the sender is thanking me for.
I’ll admit that I send Christmas cards like this – Merry Christmas from the family with a picture of the kids on it. Is this simply the same thing? Should I just be thankful that any sort of acknowledgement was sent and put less effort into personalizing gifts? 0516-16
When a thank you note is nothing more than a pre-printed, impersonal, generic acknowledgement of a gift, it has become a receipt.
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Years back one of my uncles died, and everyone of course pitched in. Afterwards, within the month after, there was dealing with the thank you cards for all the cards and donations. We set up an assembly line but. Direct family dealt with processing the cards and writing how much was taken out of each one and putting who it came from right on the card. Someone else was writing and signing cards. It went to another person who checked the thank you matched. Someone wrote the TO part on the envelopes. I was in low teens and was writing the return address on the envelopes. Someone doublechecked that the inside and outside matched and someone used the little sponge and sealed and stamped them all. There may have been three different kinds of handwriting per each card and envelope but we got it done (that was days before getting preprinted address labels was expensive and took a long time, so that was handwritten). The fact was, the thankyous were handwritten, and they were gotten out on time. I learned for my wedding, I did get return address labels, and did up a goodly stack of envelopes with postage, signed a bunch of cards in a standard place, then started writing, addressing and stuffing. Some gifts had several people go in on it so it might be 8-10 thank yous for one item. At least you knew I wrote them and yes I mentioned what it was.
If people can’t bother to thank you, it’s time to stop giving them gifts.
I went to a wedding last summer and brought a nice gift. I received, nearly nine months later, a card thanking us for our presence at the wedding, but no mention of a gift. So now, I wonder if they even got it, but it’s a little late to ask since it was nine months ago! Maybe they didn’t write down who gave them what, then forgot, and then had to send out cards to everyone thanking them for their presence, since they have no idea what anyone got them? Not too happy about that.