Land of the unwritten thank you notes

I am very glad to report that the days of January have not yet hit double digits, and I have written my first thank you note of 2010.  I am sorry to report that this is probably the first thank you note that I have written in the last 12 months.  I was trying to tidy up the house before the spousal unit gets back after a long vacation back east, and I came across the box of items that his mom had sent to me because I couldn't* join him on the holiday trip.

* OK, maybe I COULD HAVE gone with him, but since I took two weeks off at Christmas last year, I felt like it was my turn to stay back and run the office while the two bigger cheeses took some well earned leave from their official duties.

I remembered the first time I spent Christmas with his mom, and she had a pen and notepad handy while she opened her gifts, so that she could remember to whom she should write a thank you note.  My mom used to do the same thing with my brother and me when we were  kids, but somehow I grew out of that habit.

I gave the two guys who work for me a modest gift certificate to a local book store for Christmas, and each of them promptly brought in a thank you card.  The one who has kids had them write the message on the inside, which was TOO CUTE.

But it made me think of all the thank you notes I should have written, but didn't, or the ones that I wrote, but never mailed.  [that is the well developed sense of catholic guilt going into overdrive!!]

I can honestly say that I DO remember the person who thought enough of us to provide the gift, when I use items around the house, or my gaze passes them at work in my messy cubicle.  Does that positive energy count more than a card which someone opened, then (I hope) immediately recycled once they shared it with their family, because there really isn't room in anyone's life for boxes of old stored thank you notes?

I guess it would depend on who you talked to, and what else you did after fondly remembering that person, but I am going to count the positive cosmic energy as a virtual thank you card!