Whatever happened to thank you notes?

Has the thank you note and the act of saying thank you become extinct in Canadian society?

Of the last three weddings my wife and I attended — or sent a gift (due to a long travel distance) — we’ve received one acknowledgement ... and that was a thank you sent online.

It was always our belief that sending a thank you card in the mail was up there on the list of wedding traditions with the bride walking down the aisle with her father.

Did the couple even receive our gift? Did they like our gift? Where in the house did they put the gift? What did they use the cheque for?

Apparently, it’s no longer in vogue to say “thank you.”

Perhaps wedding traditions have changed, but it doesn’t explain older people who have also forgotten the art of saying “thank you,” even in the age of text messaging and email. I’ll use a personal example. My mother always received great press coverage for all of the social causes she was involved with, in part, to the fact she would mail a thank you card to her local newspaper whenever they came to a special event. (It had nothing to do with me. In those days, I was a cubby reporter with no influence whatsoever.)

While it’s a reporter’s job to cover the news, I think the fact that Mom made the extra effort to send thanks worked in her favour. Reporters always found a moment to pop by her events, even if it was to grab a quick photograph and run. They knew they were appreciated.

Ditto for charitable donations and volunteer hours.

How many minor sports coaches receive a thank you card signed by their team, accompanied by a token gift, at the end of a season?

That used to be a ritual — and it was one of the better players who was allowed to do the honours. It was the captain or leading scorer who snuck a card around the dressing room and collected five bucks from each of the players.

What’s happened to a note to an exceptional school teacher, a holiday tip for the newspaper carrier or a card of thanks to someone who looked after your pet while you were on holidays?

So forget the predicted demise of print journalism, traditional radio and the LP, the thank you note is quickly going extinct.

As a footnote, of the three couples referenced in the second paragraph, the thank you came from a couple both in their early 60s (it was a second or third-marriage for both.) The ages of the other two couples — mid-20s.