So Christmas has come and gone. You have shiny new clothes/electronics/stuff and you want to thank the person who gave them to you. You want to thank the person in style. You want to thank them in a way that would make Emily Post proud. The thank you note is key here, but believe it or not, there are many ways of writing a note of gratitude.
First, you can buy a card that has “Thank You” written on the front. Often sold in boxes, these notes are obviously used only for giving thanks to the person. These are the type of note my wife uses. I printed the cards for my wife on an old printing press I have in our garage.
I’m not a huge fan of pre-printed thank you cards myself, which leads me into the second option, plain letter sheets or cards. More versatile than a thank you card, plain letter sheets or blank-inside cards are handy to have around for sending off a note or letter, either thoroughly thought through or simply a note to let someone know you’re thinking of them.
Because I can print my own stationery at a very low cost, I have my own correspondence cards with my initials on them, but before I had personalized stationery I used plain letter sheets to write notes.
When it comes to the cost of personalized stationery, prices range from $35 for fifty cards and envelopes (found at thestationerystudio.com) to several hundred dollars for letterpress printed cards (ex: the Los Angeles paper boutique Sugar Paper sells 50 printed cards with a return address printed on the envelopes for $335).
In this economy, it’s tough to justify spending ten times as much for personalized cards printed on a letterpress than similar cards printed on the same equipment with simply a different method (embossing). There’s a diminishing return to the quality of printed matter. Once you get over the hurdle of putting your name on something, most recipients are going to be more excited about getting a hand-written note from you than the method of printing used to print the cards. Occasionally I get a compliment on a card I’ve sent to someone, but it may be more a function of the person knowing I printed the card myself.
The other side of the argument for high-quality stationery comes from a friend of mine whom I printed correspondence cards for. I printed him a set of monogramed, two-color 4×6 cards on a fine imported paper. It was a gift for his passing a significant professional milestone. A few weeks later, he sent me a note that said,
“I love writing on the stuff, and I love having it as a sort of icon for me, so I find myself actually WANTING to sit down and jot thank yous! Very unusual for me, and I think for most guys!”
My friend’s comment about wanting to write thank you notes is important. One of the most important skills or habits one can have in life is to be thankful, but so often we either offer an all-too-brief “Thanks.” Taking a moment to tell someone that you truly appreciate the thought they put into a gift, as well as your relationship with them, means a lot to people.
Having stationery you enjoy writing on may be just the right encouragement for you to express your gratitude, but it doesn’t need to be the finest stationery for the recipient to be happy to see a note from you. It just needs to be the stationery that makes you happy to write.
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