How to Write a Thank-you Note

With the advent of email, many thank-you notes have become electronic (I confess to doing it that way myself), but the best, truest, most polite, and personal thank-you notes are handwritten (not typed) on physical paper, and sent by post. Note paper, which is smaller than letter paper is good (the writing won’t look so lost), and if it’s personalized stationery, all the better. The idea is for your reader to be able to tell that you went to a certain amount of work to show your thanks.

You can get away with a printed greeting-card-type note if you include something handwritten in it. (See step 2 below.)

Besides the customary opening and closing salutations, what do you write? Three things.

1. “Thank you for the [whatever it is].” An adjective such as lovely, fascinating, unexpected, fragrant, colorful is a good idea. Use your imagination.
2. Something nice about the gift. You wear it every day, you’re saving it for the wedding, you put it in your office, on the wall, in the center of your tool board, it matches the other one perfectly, whatever. I cannot in good conscience recommend that you lie outright.
3. “Thank you again.” or “Thanks again.” Put this right above the closing salutation.

Depending on your relationship with the giver, that second step can contain more more-or-less-related info, but it’s not necessary. Technically, the longer that paragraph is, the better, but people are happy to get anything if it’s handwritten. For example, if you got a thousand wedding gifts, people will understand that you have a lot of thank-you notes to write, and need to be brief. If you got money, mention what you plan to do with it. Don’t say “that cute twenty-dollar bill.”

Every now and then someone (such as Jack Riepe) thanks me for writing this blog, and it makes my day. Thanks, Jack.