Thank you, for everything you do-o

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Thank you, for everything you do-o

My favorite episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is when Daniel has to go to the garden for Thank You Day.  He spends the day reflecting on his friends and their unique specialness.  Then he gets down to business, writing out thank you cards. He even gets a few cards in return.  It is a very sweet episode and it teaches children the art of saying thank you.

It made me wonder, how good are we Americans at saying thank you?  Isn’t it amazing that in between two holidays where we get things (attention and candy on halloween for awesome costumes, or presents on Christmas/ Chanukah) there is a holiday where we are expected to give thanks? Indeed, this is the time of year where churches, synagogues and soup kitchens step up their charity game. This is the time of year where food drives have a surplus, and coat drives get the most attention.  It can be a month where we focus on gratitude, but the rest of the year might be void of these sentiments. Or worse yet, our gratitude and social service might be entirely self-centered, and based on the idea that, “We have so much, while they have so little, so I am thankful.”  Still worse than that, we may be thankful for something that someone in our life has done for us, but because of the business of life, we might never actually tell them thank you.

Because of these thoughts, last year I determined to set aside some time to write thank you notes to my friends and family.  I felt inspired by Daniel Tiger. I also felt a little silly. I hadn’t told anyone my reasons for writing thank you cards, and many friends and family members got thank you notes out of the blue. My generation isn’t exactly known for gratitude, and many of us haven’t written thank you notes since Christmas when we were 10. But write them I did. I decided on writing 5 thank you day cards.  The responses were interesting.  Some recipients didn’t respond.  Others texted me a “wow thanks for thinking of me, that thing I did was no big deal.” While still others wrote back that it was nice to be thanked for something.

So this year I want to do the same thing.  It’s not very showy, and there are plenty of other things you can do this month to show you are thankful for all your blessings.  I know some people spend the month of November writing 30 things they are thankful for.  Other people cut out paper leaves and have their children spend the month writing out one thing each day that they are thankful for.  These are all pinterest worthy ideas, and if you do them, let me know in the comments!  But I want to challenge you to set aside time to write out 5 thank you notes. Send them to people near or far, but be sure to let the person know how thankful you are for them.  If you need some ideas, November is “National Military Family Appreciation Month”, “National Inspirational Role Models Month” and “National Adoption Month.”  I’m sure you know someone in one of those categories whom you can thank.  

Need more inspiration?  Imagine the person you want to thank.  In their mail box most likely they are just getting bills, amazon prime purchases and those 20% off coupons for bed bath and beyond. Wouldn’t it be nice if for once they opened up their mailbox to find a hand -written note from you? After all, no one writes letters anymore. Of course, this might mean you have to call them up and ask them for their addresses to begin with… And who knows, maybe next year you will get a thank you card in your mailbox too.