On Writing Postcards

For the last couple of years, we’ve had Wonder Pens postcards with various pictures on them. Sometimes we print out ones for special events or occasions, but mostly they are scenes from our shop and our favourite stationery supplies. Normally, people can pick up postcards in the shops, and we also include them in online orders, but even with the decreased foot traffic in our brick and mortar, we ran out just at the beginning of the pandemic. It was bad timing with the virus and also our printer had a fire, so there was some juggling and changed locations, and we went through an unusually long phase where we didn’t have any for the first weeks of the pandemic.

But now they’re back! The postcards have been back for a few weeks now, and I’ve been enjoying writing thank you notes on them.

As part of my rigorous homeschooling curriculum, I have been wrangling the children into helping out with signing thank you postcards for customer orders. Both of the kids participate because it’s impossible to do anything with only one of them. Because we now have abundant washi tape, we’ve also been putting a few strips onto the postcards, which is a lot of fun.

Caleb’s the only one who can write, so Naomi is just scribbling on postcards. I try to salvage these by sending to our most understanding customers, but she is prolific, so I have a growing stack. Every time I recognize a particularly friendly customer, I’m glad to pull one from the pile. Caleb’s output when it comes to writing is not yet incredibly impressive: on a good day he can get up to four done in one sitting, but usually he caps out around 1-2 before needing a break, but at least it’s actual words. Also working on spatial sense.

It’s been interesting to do these in a discussion of gratitude, mostly with Caleb at this point. Recognizing familiar names, reading aloud comments on orders together. We are truly a family business, and Caleb is already helping out a bit, although I’m not sure what’s going to happen for him as he gets older.

Gratitude, appreciation, community, working hard. The act of writing a thank you note.