It’s Not too Late to Say Thanks

On Christmas Adam (the day before Christmas Eve) my daughter found a package and envelope on the doorstep addressed to Tiffany.   I opened it up and it was a beautiful hand made apron.  There was a note that said thank you for all that you do and for sharing your talents.  I do not know who gave it to me, but it made my Christmas season.

(I will take a picture and insert it here.)

The thoughtful note and gift reminded me of the importance of saying thank you.

So we sat down over our stay-at home, sickness laden Christmas break and wrote thank you notes for our Christmas gifts.

Since each child is at a different ability level, each thank you note was different.

Locke (age 3) dictated a sentence to us and we wrote it down.  We drew a picture for him and he colored it.

Croft (Kindergarten) wrote just one or two sentences.  She could spell a few words on her own and we helped her spell the rest.  She did do all of her own writing.

Crew (2nd grade) wrote a short note.  We encouraged him to say thank you, name the gift specifically and think of one follow up statement to the the thank you.

Elle (5th grade) was completely independent and could write a full thank you letter.

I decided to spice things up and wrote an acrostic thank you note to Chad’s parents instead of a traditional note.

Chad had Crew take a picture of Chad wearing his gift.  He printed out the picture and sent it to my brother along with a short note.

I would love to say that every person that gave us a gift got a hand-written thank you note.  But then I would be lying.

My rule of thumb is grandmas and grandpas and Santa get official notes because they usually give multiple gifts.  Aunts, uncles, cousins, and others that were not there in person when we opened the gifts got (or will get) texts or Facebook messages or emails saying thanks.  And if you were right there when we opened it, we said thank you to your face.   That is the best I can do right now.

As you can see, there are multiple ways to say thank you.  Whether it is a colored picture, a hand written note, a rhyming poem, a quick text, or a camera picture, just say thanks.  It is not too late.