Thank you notes are a standard way of expressing your gratitude in our society today. This has been so for many generations with some more modern variations. For instance, in my generation, an electronic thank you via email is appropriate in many cases. Some of my friends don't write paper thank you's and only do electronic. Some friends prefer not to write thank you's at all. I do write thank you notes and I've gotten a lot more practice at them over the past three years because getting married, being pregnant and having children tend to up the present-giving situations in your life.
I've noticed something with thank you notes, or just cards in general. There seem to be three ways people put an emphasis on their cards and each of them seems almost mutually exclusive.
Consider your friend or relative who loves to send Christmas or holiday cards. They take pride in their card, and that card is the message. Their hope is that you read the sentiment on the card and enjoy the humor or touching words and they simply add a small message or maybe they only sign the card.
I have an aunt who loves to send cards for any occasion. She sends cards for holidays I didn't even know they made cards for. They are cute or sweet or funny and she does a nice little signature. Sending the cards is important to her, but the message is delivered by the card.
There is a second type of card sender that focuses on not the physical card itself, but the message written by the sender. That's the type of card writer I am. The card is almost always blank or has only the words, "Thank You" on it. I commonly have to try and find bigger cards because I can fill up the front and back with words explaining how much the present meant and thankful we are that the giver would take the time to get us such a nice present.
There seems to be a third type of card sender though, and I realized this because of a card I got in the mail just the other day. This type of card sender seems to want meet the requirements of sending the card, but the content of the card and the sentiment aren't that important. Just sending something with a, "Thank you" and name signed is what counts. I just got a thank you card from someone who had stickers made up with the words, "Thank you" and their name on the line below. No need to even sign the card now, just stick a sticker on it and address it.
Any of these three ways is a way to say thank you, I'm not saying one is better than the other. I just got to thinking how cards sending means different things to different people.
The Big Boy Update: Raspberry Tub. He dislikes getting out of the tub. If he had his way, I think he'd still be in the tub from mid-week last week. If you catch him off guard, he won't notice you're draining the water out, although he frequently notices and stops the draining. Recently when a bath was more than finished with his sister already out, dried off and dressed for bed, I heard strange noises coming from the bathroom. With no water left, he had come up with a new game. He was making raspberry sounds on the bottom of the tub and spinning around to see if it sounded different from one area to another.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Choo choo. In the, "words you didn't realize she knew" realm, she can say, "choo choo." Her brother says this all the time because he sees trains everywhere and in everything. We were heading off to play with the train set he got for his birthday and he was saying, "choo choo," and much to my surprise, she said it right after him each time.
Fitness Update: Surgical follow-up visit and everything is healing well and my surgeon confirmed that I can continue running. Uncle Jonathan and I have a run scheduled for this afternoon.
Someone Once Said: When the need arises -- and it does -- you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out -- that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.
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