The Thank You Card: A Service Announcement

Something has been weighing on my mind and I'm using my blog as an outlet of information. Before you read this let me make something clear:
This is in no way shape or form directed at any particular person, event, or situation. I DO NOT use my blog as a means of being passive aggressive. It's not my style.

Everyone with me? I'm going to make a point on etiquette that I think the world needs to know because I sincerely think some people don't know and I want to help. Okay? So don't come at me saying "Oh Shanna talked about me on her blog." No I didn't. Maybe it's your guilty conscience talking. Not me.
Whew.

Let's talk about the Thank You card. I was procrastinating some work today and I made a list of all of the people that we need to buy gifts for in the next six months (this blog is ALSO not directed at them). We have five weddings and 2 babies coming up. I love love love weddings and baby showers and really do enjoy getting gifts for people. I start by looking at the dates when said gift needs to be purchased, set a budget, and typically try to think of some cute theme for the gift like a color scheme or bath stuff or one couple I am doing an "entertaining" theme.

When we got married, people were so generous that it really was unbelievable. The out pour of love when you have a major event really reminds you of who your friends are and how kind people really truly can be. I will never forget how kind people were during our wedding season, and I also have a really strange memory for stuff like that. I spent a large part of the summer last year writing out personalized thank you cards by hand until my hand almost fell off. I also felt the need to include a thank you picture... but I didn't think about the size of the picture in relation to the size of the cards that I had... so I had to cut down all of the pictures to fit in the envelop. Maybe I went a little overboard, but so help me I was going to make sure people knew how much I appreciated them.

Not to toot my own horn, but I've always been pretty good about the thank you card. This is likely for three reasons. First, my mom has always been an etiquette nut and made sure that if Joe and I did nothing else, we would surely be polite. Second, I have a grandmother who has always lived far from us, but she would regularly send us a "box" of goodies and always remembered our birthdays. However, if you ever forgot to send a thank you card, you were dead to her. So, I'm also pretty prompt about those cards because I don't want to be dead to anyone. Finally, for an environmentalist, I'm a little nutty for stationery. I love the stuff. I think there's something special about getting something nice and hand written in the mail. I love getting fun mail, so I assume other people love it too, so I try to send something to someone probably at least once a week. A lot of times it's to my mom or to Anna because I think they both enjoy it and already know that I'm crazy and will send mail for no particularly good reason.

Back to the point. Perhaps some people are unaware of the appropriateness of a thank you card, especially after an event that's all about you like a wedding or baby shower or graduation. There's some grey areas like birthdays and Christmas because there may be an on going exchange. You should probably set standards for situations like that for yourself. BUT for things like baby showers and weddings there should be no question. Absolutely send a thank you. It really shouldn't take you more than a month or so. My wedding etiquette book said that it's appropriate to take up to 2 months to send a thank you after the wedding. I'm not sure how far you can wait for showers or parties or whatever, but my advice is: keep it reasonable. People don't buy you a gift for the thank you, or at least they shouldn't. But, it is nice to hear someone say "thanks, that meant a lot" when you've gone out of your way for them.
Furthermore, this is even more important when someone has shipped something to you and didn't give it to you in person. If I mail you something because I couldn't attend your event, a thank you card is a good way for me to know that it made it to you. Otherwise, I'm just wondering if you got the gift at all and whether or not I should be calling the company to track down your package. Did I completely waste my money because it got lost? Do you think I forgot about you because it didn't make it to you? Then I'm sitting there feeling bad that maybe you didn't get it. I don't want to call and ask because I don't want you to think I'm calling you out on your lack of thank you card. See what I mean? This could all be solved by a little card and a stamp.
Plus, the postal service is having a hard time these days. Let's all do our part to help them out and let people know that we love and appreciate what they do for us.

That is all. Not a rant. Just an FYI.

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