jemck: rune logo from The Thief's Gamble (Default)
jemck ([personal profile] jemck) wrote2007-01-03 03:17 pm

thank you letters

I've just sat the sons down to do their thankyous - by email rather than yer actual ink on paper letter this year.

And it was still an exercise akin to drawing teeth/watching paint dry, as they took ten minutes of concentrated thought to crank out 'thank you for my.... I hope all you had a good Christmas....' with furrowed brows as they tried to think up a third line.

Which isn't to say they're not genuinely grateful for their various highly-appreciated presents, and sincerely fond of the assorted real and honorary uncles and aunties who sent them.

And I don't think I can even put it down to them being boys of a primarily mathematical bent and thus inclined to inarticulacy, or whatever the writerly equivalent might be. It's just the whole 'thank you' letters thing.

I could cover pages in English lessons, I used to put my hand up for extra paper in exams, and now I'm a professional wordsmith for goodness sake. But I vividly recall the agonies of Boxing Day afternoon in my grandmother's dining room, struggling to manage to fill a page of Basildon Bond, even using my biggest handwriting and spacing the address and date out as much as I dared. Even when writing to my Auntie Annie and Uncle Peter, or to Great Auntie Ivy, relatives I adored.

But they do have to learn some social manners and saying thank you is important. So hopefully email will be acceptable, and taken in the spirit it's meant.

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