Are Thank You Cards Becoming Obsolete?

Growing up with parents who ran a small business, winter and the holiday season were synonymous with family gatherings not just for festive meals, but for an important tradition: handwriting thank you notes to our cherished customers.

My brother would be the one to venture into the attic, retrieving boxes of greeting cards my mom and I snagged on sale after the previous Christmas. With everything marked down by 75% in clearance aisles, we stocked up for the next year.

My father, a dedicated mechanic, would return home exhausted from his day at the auto repair shop. After changing out of his work clothes, he’d sit down with pen in hand, his rough fingers showing the wear of his trade. He’d use those last waking hours to express gratitude: “Thank you for being our customer,” “Thank you for trusting us with your car,” “Thank you for your loyalty.”

I was just a kid, probably around 10 or 11, when I joined in. My handwriting wasn’t anything to boast about, but perfection wasn’t the aim. The meaningful act was in taking the time to put our thanks on paper.

These days, I teach writing at Harvard. Here, time is a rare commodity. Students scramble to find enough hours to study, research, and meet deadlines, while teachers wish for more to return papers and provide guidance.

In such a hurried environment, small gestures like writing a thank you can swiftly disappear, even in a class focused on writing.

So, when the chance arose, I jumped on it. My class had two sessions outside of our regular setting. One at Lamont Library for research learning, and another at Harvard Art Museums to spark thoughts about art as primary sources. We thanked the librarian and research curator in person, applauding their efforts. But I felt it was equally important to thank them in writing.

The following week, I made my way to CVS in Harvard Square intending to pick up a couple of thank you cards for the class to sign. To my surprise, there were barely a few to choose from, amidst a wall covered in birthday, baby, and wedding cards. One lonely card read, “Thank You for Being My Person.”

With Americans buying about 6.5 billion cards annually, it’s puzzling why thank you cards, which rank third in popularity, were so scarce.

What I thought was a quick errand turned into a quest, as I dashed from one shop to another, in search of a suitable card.

Sure, a blank card was an option, but the lack of dedicated thank you notes seemed to symbolize a deeper issue — a disconnect from knowing who and what to express gratitude for.

Have we stopped showing thanks? Do we default to emails or texts? Has our tech-savvy world made the simple act of choosing and sending a card seem too hard? Or have we just lost touch with being thankful altogether?

Maybe my experience was unique to Harvard Square, yet it prompts pondering: if gratitude is fading in a university town, what values will students carry forward?

Early on, my parents taught me there’s a distinction between saying and writing thank you. The spoken words are ephemeral — important but fleeting. Writing, however, fixes that gratitude in time, a tangible memory we can revisit.

Eventually, in Bob Slate Stationer, a small Harvard Square business, I found a colorful assortment of thank you cards. The one I picked read, “I want to thank you in writing.” I turned the “I” into a “We” with a Sharpie, inviting my students to pen their thanks. Some wrote short notes; others chose to express gratitude in their native tongues like Ukrainian and Choctaw.

I’m not your writing instructor, but here’s a tip: next time someone goes above and beyond for you, pause, and find a thank you card. Writing it down makes a world of difference. These businesses, moments, and gestures might seem minor, but they paint a much grimmer picture without them.

Taleen Mardirossian, originally from Torrance, now resides in Cambridge, where she teaches writing at Harvard University. She’s currently working on a collection of essays exploring themes of body and identity.