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Thank you gift boxes for a favour too big for a text

Some things are too big to be settled with a message. The friend who drove four hours, the neighbour who took the dog for a fortnight, the colleague who quietly did your work for a week and never mentioned it. A box turns gratitude into something with weight, which is the difference between saying thank you and being thanked.

For the favour that a message does not cover. I pack every box by hand here in Canada and write your card myself.

Four boxes for a thank you, $99 and $119, and the rest of what I pack underneath.

The Sweet Thanks Box, a thank you gift box packed by hand in Canada
An example of the card, written in your words

Bea. You did not have to do any of that. Thank you.

From Ollie

The Sweet Thanks Boxabout five things. About two more things at $119.From$99Buy now, $99: The Sweet Thanks Box, $99

Four boxes for saying it properly

Four boxes, from $99 to $119. Every one of them comes in two sizes. The larger size of one is that same box with about two more things in it, picked the way the rest of it was picked. A thank you is the one gift where the size genuinely does carry meaning, because it is a rough measure of what the favour was worth to you.

Not quite it? Every box on the site is in one place, sorted by price and by who it is for. Browse all of them and pick something else to say thank you with.

Other boxes that suit a thank you

Each of these is sold here for another reason as well, so nothing on this page renames them.

Showing all 8

If you want to spend more than this

These four stop at what these boxes cost. A thank you that is far larger than the favour makes the other person feel they have to even it up, which is the opposite of what you are trying to do. Eight boxes on the site run a ladder of three sizes instead: $119 for the smallest, $189 for the middle one and $299 for the fullest box I pack.

For the genuinely enormous favour, the two below are $299 each and are the largest boxes I pack. Neither is a thank you box, so the card carries the reason. Nothing on this page is a smaller gift for costing less.

Or start from every box I make, sorted by priceThe whole range, $70 to $299, including the sizes between these and those.

The card is where the thank you actually happens

A thank you that names nothing is the same as a text with an emoji in it. Name the thing they did and say what it meant, in two sentences. That card gets kept, and the box is eaten by the weekend. You type the message at checkout and I write it out by hand.

Stuck on the card? People start with something like:

"You did not have to.""I owe you one.""Thank you, properly."

A few you can send as they are, or change at checkout:

  • Short and sincere"Thank you so much for your help. I really do appreciate it."
  • For a big favour"I do not know what I would have done without you. Thank you for stepping in when it counted."
  • For a coworker"Thank you for going above and beyond on that. It is genuinely good working with you."
  • For a neighbour"Thank you for keeping an eye on everything. It made the whole trip easier to be away."
  • When it was a long stretch"You showed up every week for months and never once made it feel like a favour. Thank you."
  • Late"This is months late and I have thought about it the whole time. Thank you for what you did."

There are more lines worth borrowing in my guide to writing a gift card message.

An example of the card, written in your words

You did not have to do any of that, and you did all of it anyway. Thank you, properly.

From Ollie

How to choose a thank you gift

Scale it to what they actually gave up. An hour of someone's time and a fortnight of it are not the same favour, and the gap between them is the thing a card alone cannot show. After that, the only real question is whether it is going to a house or to a desk.

If it took them days rather than hours

Two boxes from $99 to $119: the Cozy Gratitude Box and the Spa & Thank You Box. Both are built around a person stopping, which is what somebody needs after they have spent a weekend on your move, your kids or your emergency. The card should name the specific thing they did.

If it is a neighbour

Send it to the house rather than handing it over, and keep the card short. A neighbour who has done you a favour is going to keep living next door, and a gift that is too effusive makes the next conversation over the fence slightly awkward for both of you.

If it is a colleague or a client

The Coffee & Appreciation Box at $99 or $119 is the safe one for a desk: nothing personal in it and nothing that has to be taken home on a train. Check the gift policy where they work before you send anything to a client, because plenty of companies have one and a returned parcel is worse than a good email.

If you can never actually repay it

The Sweet Thanks Box at $99 or $119 and a long card. Some favours cannot be settled and trying to settle them with an object is the wrong instinct, so let the box be modest and put the real thing in the handwriting.

Thank yous with a shelf of their own

Some thank yous are specific enough to have their own boxes, and the card writes itself more easily when the shelf already knows who it is for.

If it is a teacher, the teacher boxes are written for the end of a school year and for the thing that is actually being thanked, which is a year of one person's attention.

If somebody is leaving after decades, the retirement shelf is the one built for a group thanking one person at once.

And if what you mean is closer to I have been thinking about you than thank you, that shelf has no occasion attached to it at all.

You are not expected to send all of them. It is worth knowing the next one is here when it comes around.

Questions people ask me

What do you send to say thank you properly?

Something scaled to the favour, with a card that names what they did. The Sweet Thanks Box at $99 or $119 is the one I would send for a favour that cost somebody real time.

Is a thank you gift appropriate for a colleague or a client?

Usually yes, with two checks first. Plenty of companies have a gift policy with a value limit on it, and some regulated industries will not accept anything at all, so a quick check saves an awkward return. Keep it impersonal, send it to the office, and know that there is no price on anything inside, so nobody is put in the position of working out what it cost.

How late is too late to send a thank you?

There is no point at which it stops counting, and a late thank you with the delay admitted in the card reads better than none. Say it plainly: that it is late, that you have thought about what they did since, and what it actually meant. People remember being thanked months afterwards precisely because almost nobody does it.

Can I send it straight to them?

Yes. Put their address in at checkout and type your message, and I write it onto the card by hand before the box is closed, so the note from you is the only thing in there with words on it.

Do you ship anywhere in Canada?

Yes, free anywhere in the country, to a house or an office. Shipping is free anywhere in Canada and takes 1 to 7 days in transit. I can't promise an exact arrival date. You can pick a preferred delivery date at checkout, which tells me when to send it rather than when it will land.

Can I send a box back?

All sales are final. Every box is food, skin care and other things that can't be sold on once they have left here, and each one is packed by hand to order. If you have a question before you buy, write to me at team@swipegifts.com.

Thank you gift boxes, packed by hand in Canada

Gratitude has an inflation problem. Thank you is said forty times a day for held doors and passed salt, which leaves nothing left over for the person who took two days off work to help you move. A box solves that by changing the medium: it costs something, it takes effort to send, and it arrives at a door with someone's name on it, which is why it reads as a different order of thank you from the same two words in a message.

There are four here, from $99 to $119, and they scale with the favour rather than with the person. Every one of them comes in two sizes. The larger size of one is that same box with about two more things in it, picked the way the rest of it was picked. One is for a desk, one is for a weekend given up, one is for somebody who has been looking after everybody else, and one is the straightforward version that suits almost anybody.

Every box is packed by hand here in Canada and ships free anywhere in the country. There's no price on anything inside the box. You write the card at checkout and I copy it out by hand, and the single most useful thing you can do on a thank you card is name the specific thing they did rather than thanking them for everything.

While you are here

If you are not sure which one to send, write to me at team@swipegifts.com and tell me who it is for. I read every email myself and I answer them.