HOLIDAY GIFTS With etiquette rising, it's better to give if you receive

Thank-you notes -- not just generic, preprinted cards -- show true gratitude and graciousness on any occasion.
By ANNIE GROER
WASHINGTON POST
Dear Aunt Martha,
Thank you for the beautiful sweater. How did you know pink was my favorite color? I can't wait to see you and Uncle Dave when you visit at Easter. Every time I wear my beautiful sweater, I'll think of you.
Love, Peggy
Read those four sentences carefully and consider them a holiday gift.
They illustrate the simple architecture of an all-purpose thank-you note -- whether scrawled in pencil by a first-grader or penned with a Mont Blanc by a Fortune 500 CEO.
This is the way to do it, declares Peggy Newfield, founder and president of the American School of Protocol in Atlanta, which trains adults to teach etiquette to children.
In Newfield's universe, the Aunt Martha template requires that "the first and second sentences and fourth sentence are about the same thing" -- to wit, the wonderful gift -- "and the third sentence is unrelated" -- it's about the benefactors.
Her lesson could not be more timely.
Making a difference
'Tis the giving season: Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year celebrations, holiday weddings and engagement parties. Though standards may have slipped precariously in these modern times, gift-givers and hosts can still become righteously offended by a recipient's failure to acknowledge generosity and hospitality.
"Thank-you notes make all the difference between feeling grateful and showing your gratitude," says Kate Spade, author of a slim new etiquette book, "Manners" (Simon & amp; Schuster, 96 pp., $20).
The longtime note-writer -- a line of social stationery followed Spade's signature handbag collection -- credits Mom with raising her right.
"Every Christmas without fail, my mother gave me stationery," then "hounded me" until all the thank-yous were written, she says.
Once one is beyond reach of parental prodding, the specter of having to pick up pen and commit grateful prose to paper can paralyze some respondents for months. The same prospect can deeply irk others, who consider the social nicety an outmoded act of institutional insincerity.
Counter-trend
Yet the practice of expressing thanks in writing is on the rise, according to those in the correspondence industry.
"Things became so informal," says Rachel Bolton, a spokeswoman at Hallmark Cards. "But now there is a counter-trend in a return to etiquette. . . . More than 80 percent of people think a handwritten note is the best way to say thank you for a gift."
At Crane & amp; Co., a leading stationery manufacturer based in Dalton, Mass., sales of pre-printed thank-you cards have enjoyed "high, significant double-digit growth over the last two years," says Anita Brady, vice president of the social stationery division. Personalized note cards and paper are enjoying a resurgence, and sales of etiquette books are "exploding."
Surprisingly, Brady credits e-mail, so often blamed for the decline of personal correspondence, for easing millions of people into the thank-you note habit.
"E-mail made a lot of people who would not put something in writing into writers," she says. "They send e-mails that might not look pretty, but they have to use the written word, and we think it has taken away that hurdle of sitting down and saying, 'Oh, what am I going to write?'"
Still, there is that little matter of getting into the habit of actually writing a thank-you note.
The Emily Post Institute, run by descendants of America's most famous etiquette adviser, suggests that parents "make it fun. If you view this as drudgery, so will your child." The lesson to drive home is "receiving thank-you notes makes people feel good. And it lets them know that the gift arrived safely and is appreciated," counsels the institute Web site, www.emilypost.com.
Thank-a-thon
One woman earned Post plaudits for staging a family thank-a-thon at the kitchen table every January. She assembles pens, pencils, crayons, stationery, stamps, lists and addresses. Little ones draw pictures, older children write a few sentences, Mom and Dad help with spelling and envelope addressing. When everyone is done, out come the cookies and cocoa.
Frequent note-writers recommend putting pen to paper the night of, or morning after, a dinner or a weekend stay at a friend's home, when memories are still fresh and those few sentences will sound conversational and genuine. Multi-taskers advise keeping note cards and pre-stamped envelopes in the office, the glove compartment, the purse or briefcase to take advantage of short bursts of down time.
Once you sit down to write a thank-you note, there are conflicting etiquette edicts to sort out. We talked to a half-dozen "experts" in etiquette and the stationery industry, and consulted another half-dozen books and Web sites to determine the "correct" way of doing things. Gray areas remain.
Wait, there's more. Some protocol purists insist notes be written only in dark ink on pale, personalized stock -- folded note paper for women, flat correspondence cards for men and, increasingly, women. But millions of Americans send and receive cards pre-printed with a cheery "Thank You!" on the front. (Never mind that it may be considered redundant because the first two words of the note should also be "thank you.")