I love my kids’ birthday parties. We have them at the house, everybody runs arounds, plays, yells, eats and has a ball.
Then I look at the pile of gifts and a feeling of dread starts to build in my gut.
Presents mean thank-you cards. And thank-you cards mean constant emotional anguish in my house.
ME: “Have you written your thank-you cards yet?
8-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER: “SpongeBob is on.”
ME: “I’m throwing the TV out the window.”
8-YEAR-OLD-DAUGHTER: “Mommmmyyyy.”
There’s the problem. My wife, a very dedicated and loving mother, always insisted our daughter hand-make her thank-you cards. The Iraq war took less planning than hand-writing 25 thank-you cards. Um, that didn’t come out right.
There’s three catagories of thank-you cards:
1. Hand-made. Subtext: Look how caring and smart my child is.
2. Store-bought. Subtext: Look how caring my child is.
3. A new trend: e-mailed thank-yous. Subtext: Look how much SpongeBob my kid is watching right now.
This year, my wife caved and we went with store-bought. It still took days. Hopefully by next year, that e-mail trend will be what everyone does.