A new Thanksgiving tradition

By Carew Papritz
Author
"The Legacy Letters"

At the heart of Thanksgiving is the communal act of sharing gratitude—for the giving of thanks for the food at our table, for the well-being of our family and friends, and for the great bounty of life bestowed upon us all. A most simple and profound rite of passage—this gratitude tradition—woven into the very fabric of our American lives and culture.

But why not do something different—a unique way to give thanks. Something to last beyond the turkey and appreciations, the mashed potatoes and the thank-you’s, yes, and even the pumpkin pie and football games.  Consider adding a new “gratitude tradition” to your rite of passage—a thank you letter.

We all know the normal thank you letter is a brief missive for a recent act of help or assistance.  And we all lament that the thank you letter seems to be an old-fashioned act of politeness, slowly withering on the paper-and-ink vine of yesteryear, easily supplanted by the flash thanks of a text or e-mail.  

But what I’m talking about is a handwritten letter of thanks for someone who changed our life, in some way big or small. For some act of kindness from someone that we never fully appreciated, nor conveyed our appreciation. For a person who was there for us when no one else was.   

This letter of thanks could be for a friend or family member you haven’t seen in year or months or days, a teacher or coach of long ago, or a mentor or advisor who enlightened you, at some perfect moment in your life, as to your strengths and maybe even your shortcomings.

Here is a gift of gratitude that will last long beyond the last mouthful of sweet potatoes and cranberry dressing. This letter will reverberate with good will, and love, and appreciation long after the last crumbs of the feast have been swept away. And what a perfect gift of gratitude to give on the day when giving thanks is our very purpose and reason. 

What inspired this new Thanksgiving tradition?

Six years ago, I was helping to teach a 4th-grade cursive handwriting class at our local elementary school. I remembered how fun it was to learn cursive when I was a kid—not. It was a rote exercise in writing the same letters and words over and over again until they were all nicely connected in a beautiful cursive sentence—and I saw the boredom on the kids’ faces.

I chose to use a line about saying “please and thank you” from my book, "The Legacy Letters." Maybe that would inspire them—not. As I loop-de-looped another word on the whiteboard, I suddenly had a gorgeous, beautiful, epiphany of an idea burst into my brain. I blurted out: “How about we make a giant handwritten thank you letter the size of a football field?” Suddenly, I was the master of all things cool. I had broken through the boredom and the repetition. Their faces beamed in delight.  

“When do we start?” And now the joy of inspiration immediately turned to the shocking reality of walking my talk, because that’s what adults are supposed to do.  

Six years later, the talk got walked. It wasn’t the size of a football field. But it was the size of a high school basketball gym. It took over 30 rolls of 3-foot butcher paper, hundreds of feet of tape, umpteen pizza and boxes of cookies, countless kids, and about 3 months of planning and creating. The World’s Largest Handwritten Thank You Letter was rolled out on November 14th, the inaugural day of National Thank You Letter Day, in front of 600 screaming happy-to-be-alive kids at Continental Elementary School in Green Valley, Ariz.

Six years later, after having sent The World’s Largest Handwritten Thank You Letter in the World’s Largest Envelope, postmarked with the World’s Largest Stamp through the post office to our sister school nearby, we received a Guinness World Record and then Kelly Clarkson had us on her show and—and now what do we do to top all of this?

We write more thank you letters.  And say please and thank you to everyone, every day, in every way possible. Because every day should be National Thank You Letter Day, National “Please” Day, and National “Can I Help You?” Day.  

And what more perfect day than our national holiday of thankfulness to send a thank you letter . . .  To remind us of the simple and powerful act of thanking someone we care about or love who has affected our lives.  To celebrate the timeless values of kindness and manners, civility and gratitude as revealed in the simple act of writing a handwritten Thank You letter.

What’s the best way to write a Thank You letter?  Write from your heart! A Thank You letter is a genuine act of gratitude that we all love to receive. It’s just another way of spreading kindness and civility throughout the world.

How long does the letter have to be? The beauty of a Thank You letter is that it can be any length. From a couple of lines to a couple of paragraphs–or longer. What is most important is actually writing the letter and then sending it, or even giving it in person.

Why a letter? Why not just send a text or an e-mail?

It might be quicker to send a text or e-mail but if you really want to make it personal and memorable, there is nothing better than receiving a handwritten letter from someone.  Does everything have to happen at the speed of light?

The magic of letters is that they contain time.  The time we put into writing a letter is given to another person. And if the greatest gift we have in life is our time on this planet, then giving the gift of our time to another is powerful beyond measure.   

“Letters are real. They are made of paper and the paper holds the time that you place into the words. And the paper can be held. It is human-sized and made for hands to hold and touch—and feel. It is not electronic or made of electrons. And because letters are real, they can be saved and cherished for a long time. And you can always feel the person in the way they write—even long after they are gone. And that is a profound legacy to leave someone.” (from The Legacy Letters)

In this day and time, we need more thank-you letters than ever. Every letter is another act of kindness, civility and gratitude that reminds us of how many better angels of our nature truly exist. Like the kids who beamed with happiness on that first National Thank You Letter Day—and yes, even wrote thank you letters to their parents and loved ones, we too can bring a smile to someone’s face with this simple, beautiful, powerful act of writing a thank you letter. So don’t wait. One letter. A few minutes. A lifetime of gratitude and thanks received. All on this day of thanks.

Carew Papritz is an educational thought leader, literacy advocate, and author of the multi-award-winning book, The Legacy Letters. Through his YouTube videos (including the I Love to Read series) and events (like the annual literacy-driven charity drive The Great Book Balloon Launch), he spreads the love of reading and learning to people of all ages. Papritz has made a global impact by being an advocate for literacy and teaching future generations about the importance of legacy.  Papritz's writing has been published in a number of media outlets including Huffpost, Inc., Reader's Digest & First Time Parent Magazine.