Just Common Courtesy

What has happened to writing thank you notes for gifts received?

This past May we were invited to three high school graduation open houses.  We were not able to attend any of them, but we did send a card and a gift card to each graduate.  We received only two acknowledgments of those gifts.  Gifts are not given so one can receive a thank you note.  However when they are sent through the mail, left on a table at a reception, or given to another guest to deliver in one's place, then an acknowledgment is proof that the gift was indeed received, not just floating around somewhere in the back of someone's car or in a mailbag.

One graduate who sent a note misspelled our name, botched the address completely to the point that it was amazing it was even delivered----and this was a relative too!--but she did write a note!

This summer I attended a close-to-the-family bridal shower where the guests were asked to address their own envelopes for the thank you notes.  Even with that none of us in our family received notes in those envelopes.  When the wedding date arrived, the same thing happened, minus our addressing the envelopes.  No thank you notes for either of the gifts we left on the table at the reception hall.  But then...the bride and groom weren't sure what had happened to the gifts the day after the wedding, so who knows?  I think the bride's father picked them up---or so we heard.

Finally our niece was married a month ago.  I did receive a note for the gift from the bridal shower. Our wedding invitation was 'lost in the mail' so we received another one a few weeks later.  However no thank you for the wedding gift or the gift we sent along with them on the honeymoon has been received.  Today she sent a text asking me for our address so they knew how to drive to our house from another town on Thanksgiving, so maybe our address was lost again! 

Yesterday, in light of the recent absence of thank you notes, I reminded Megan to send a note to a family friend who had sent a gift with me for Lynnlee.  Megan gave me 'the look' and told me she wasn't raised to NOT write thank you notes.  She knew that notes of appreciation were the right thing to do. 

Maybe I will just stop giving gifts to graduates and stop attending bridal showers and baby showers.  But then, going to an open house or attending a shower is to honor a milestone or to welcome a new baby or offer congratulations to the newly married couple.  I don't want to miss those opportunities!

Maybe my thank you notes have been lost in the mail?  Could be!