A Reader Submission--Thank You Notes, What Not to Do

I have been a bit remiss in checking my email as of late, so imagine my surprise when I opened it today and found a lovely email from a reader, we'll call her S. S linked me with these on Craigslist. Oh, the humanity! This is a horror to my eyes and my sensibilities! FILL IN THE BLANK thank you notes (in case the pictures are not large enough). S wondered if perhaps she was old-fashioned for thinking that thank you notes should be written out by hand (or I guess typed if you are lacking hands) and related an amusing anecdote about Santa taking back all the presents if he was not properly thanked.

Reader's, I hope this is just an anomaly and there are not more out there, but I FEAR for our society in which, when one receives a thoughtful gift, one is too busy to take the time to write out an equally thoughtful note and instead turns to this meaningless, fill-in-the-blank abomination. All this does is alert the gift-giver that one is not deserving of a gift in the future.

And for good measure, a proper thank you note should be hand-written (as discussed above), one should open with a sentence or two about how good it was to see the gift-giver, or how it has been too long since you have seen said gift-giver, and then move on to how thoughtful the gift of X (if money, it is alright to just say gift) was and how precisely you will use it or what you will do with said gift. Then you sign off with some mention of how you look forward to seeing gift-giver soon, or something lovely of the sort, and then sign off with your platitude of choice (sincerely, love, best wishes). And yes, you do this even if you don't like the gift.