When I was young, I thought most of the “wisdom” my parents tried to impart upon me was stuff they made-up.  “Turn on the lamp, or you’ll go blind, reading in the dark!”  “Use both straps on your backpack.  I don’t care if the “cool” kids only use one strap; you’ll ruin your shoulder!”  “Quit biting your nails and chewing on pens.  You’ll ruin your teeth!”  Well, sure enough, I eventually needed glasses, then Lasik; I got bursitis and tendonitis in my neck and shoulder, and have ground my teeth down from the size of Chiclets to Tic-Tacs.

One lesson to which I paid heed from the very beginning was the importance of thank you notes.  Starting in first or second grade, I can’t remember a birthday or Chanukah where my mom didn’t oversee thank you notes to every person from whom my brother and I received a gift.  Then, the real deal started when I was twelve, and gifts started pouring in for my upcoming Bar Mitzvah.

This was the first time I was writing on unlined cards, yet the writing had to be straight.  It was unacceptable to write a generic “Thanks for the present.  It was great to see you.  Love, Michael”  Each note had to be customized – about the gift, the individual, future plans, and a sincere expression of gratitude.  According to my mother, with my grandmothers’ friends, they were likely to have nothing better to do than to call each other and talk about the thank you notes they received (which I thought was absurd, but more on that in a minute).

And while gifts were arriving in droves (sometimes as many as five or six each day, for a couple of months), the rule was that I wasn’t allowed to open a present until I’d written an “approved” thank you note for the last gift.  This meant that both my mom and dad would give the note a once-over and their sign of approval.  Oftentimes, I would have to redo the note two or three times.  Here are some of the comments: “It sounds like you’re just filling in the blanks.”  “It’s not at all personal!”  “Your aunt and uncle put a lot of thought into what to give you.  The least you can do is to take a few minutes and show them how much you appreciate it!” (This last one has stuck with me this past quarter-century, because I’m still not sure how much “thought” goes into buying a $50 US Treasury Bond for a twelve year old…)

Regardless, the lesson paid off.  Shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, my mother received notes from two of my grandmothers’ friends saying that they had never received such lovely cards from a young person and how nice it was to see that some lessons were being instilled in the new generation.  To this day, my mom still tells me that as a parent, there is no greater compliment than hearing from one’s mother’s (or mother-in-law’s) friends about how well mannered your child is.  (Of course, these were people who saw me once or twice every ten years; and were completely unaware that I was the poster-boy for Ritalin with a severe case of ADHD and was a virtual terror – well, that’d be our little secret…)

To this day, I am obsessive about writing thank you notes.  As the day of the first reception for Jacob’s and my Domestic Partnership looms closer, I have been writing thank you notes two or three nights, each week.  And with the online registry at NeimanMarcus.com, not only do I know when someone buys us a gift, and what it is; but next to each gift is the query “Thank you card yet?” written in red.  I wonder if it’s a coincidence that my mother moved to Texas, and now she’s being channeled through the Neiman Marcus website.

Neiman Marcus Gift Registry
Registry.NeimanMarcus.com/Napp/Neimans

Get into it!