THANK YOU NOTES
I am enchanted by receiving them.
I am haunted when I don’t write mine.
I am mortified how often I thank by email.
We learned as children to write notes.
It was just one of those things that was a part of our generation’s requirements.
I bought Eliza’s first set of engraved stationery when she was born from Dempsey and Carroll in NY where her birth announcements were printed.
It seemed de rigueur really.
Being a first time mother in my 40’s, no one mentioned how hard it is to get any child to write notes these days.
Birthday party thank you’s (Eliza is a late Sept baby) are often sent just before Christmas cards are tackled and written long after the memory of who gave what.
This of course makes thanking really awkward. “Thank you for the awesome pressie”.
Living on an island in a tiny community where we entertain at home often, and where most people are at leisure there is plenty of time for old fashioned gestures.
The art of the thank you note still exists here big time.
The morning after a dinner or lunch party there are usually a few lovely hand written notes dropped at our front door, perched on the little lantern stand by the side of the door OR bravely dropped neatly on the seat of the fan chairs in our foyer.
Our Dutch door is always open at the top to catch the breeze which invites a brave “thank you note dropper” easy access.
My technique has always been more stealth.
After taking pen to fancy card stock, thinking of something amusing to say, I tuck the envelope flap (the English way, no licking or sticking the glue-y part) and dash to the party-giver’s house.
I keep the car running and tip-toe to the door and drop and run.
My great friend John has his own funny Thank You note tales.
Once, after a particularly amusing late night back when we were young he simply scribbled, “Thank you for the best party I have ever been to in my whole life”. He popped it in the envelope and dropped it off just like that.
Another naughty time, he thanked a hostess for a party he did not attend.
The party was an annual “town sweeper” as my mother would have called it.
With such a large group he gambled the hostess would not know he was not there and decided it was more polite to thank and compliment the event than to admit to be a no-show.
Naughty John got that one right and was invited again the following year!
Below are a few items from my collection that perfectly display, catch & keep your thank you notes!
xx, -Amanda
