Shopping for Thank You Cards with Grandmother

Now that Christmas is over and the shopping frenzy is behind us, it’s time to start letting our loved ones know just how much their generosity has meant to us.


I went shopping for Thank You cards with my grandmother today. I suggested we go to the dollar store in order to save money, but my grandmother is not the kind to pinch pennies when it comes to her family. She would do anything for us, just as we would do anything for her, and when she is given a generous gift, she wants to make sure she takes the time to send out a proper "Thank You."



So we drove to Hallmark. And she perused the card section. And she scoffed at all the pictures of puppies and kittens. “I don’t want something with a cat on it!” she said. And so I led her to where there were some packages of Thank You cards that were devoid of such offensive artwork. But they were too “ugly.” Or they included the word “gratitude,” and she made it plain that she was not looking to express “Gratitude.” “What is it with all this talk of gratitude! I just want a simple Thank You card.” Messages like “Your thoughtfulness warms my heart” and “It meant more than you know” were not at all the sentiment she wished to express. “You have to read the message,” she told me. “There are different kinds of Thank You cards out there. You have to buy the right one.”


We left the store with Grammy going on about how disappointed she was in Hallmark. “It’s not the same Hallmark I once knew.”



We ended up at the Dollar Tree. At first, it was more of the same. Any card that made mention of “Your kind deed” was out. “I’m not thanking them for a deed!” Once again, you had to read between the lines and see what it was the card was actually saying.


She did finally find a package of blank cards with a couple of butterflies on the front. “I’ll just write my own message,” she conceded. “I’m not gonna bother with theirs.”


So that’s the story of how we started out with the noblest of intentions, only to end up paying the bare minimum.


But hey, it’s the correctly expressed thought that counts!