Thank you notes

Old school etiquette requires thank you notes for gifties and thoughtful gestures. I have my chicklets 'write' them -- ok for 3 of the 4 I write them and for the 4th, I heavily assist. This year after Christmas, I was pretty much a zombie for weeks. I was fighting off a cold, I was tired, I had all 4 boys trapped indoors.

So I'd decided we'd just do e-cards this year and cut the number way down to just 1 to great-grandma. That very day, in the mail came a check for the boys to have a day out courtesy of Mark's (grand) aunt in Arizona. I began to feel like a heel, could I justify being green and sending e-cards when someone whose only met 2 of the 4 boys remembers them every year and asks us do something so nice for the chicklets? I could not.

So down we all sat at the table. I cut paper down to manageable sizes. I got out the thank you notes. I wrote them all out, except for Alex who had to decorate and write out his own. Sixty thank you notes later, my hand ached, my chicklets were whining, but I felt like a better person than before sitting down.

At one point, Alex announced, "Mommy, I'm going abstract of these thank you note. I'm just throwing color on the paper." Markers in each hand, he did just scribble-scrabble all over a few before I insisted on a bit more effort.

Andrew said, "Mommy, who is this one for?" "Where does it say Transformers?" "What is Uncle Adam's favorite color?"

Last night, I read The Last Lecture. Everyone should read The Last Lecture. He does a whole chapter on the importance of hand written thank you notes. I already knew I needed to do them, that it was important. It was nice having my opinions validated in such an unexpected way.