Word Gift Certificates: Fill & Download for Free

My dad, no matter what we would get him, would unwrap it, grunt a “how nice” or something similar, and throw the gift aside. He just didn’t care.After awhile, family members stopped trying to please him. They’d give him gift certificates.After he died in 2009 and I started clearing up his things in the condo, I went into the desk that was in his bedroom, and in one of the drawers I found gift certificates, most of them in the original envelopes with cards from the givers.Hundreds of dollars of gift certificates, some dating back to the 1970’s, some for places like Wherehouse Records and Pickwick Books that no longer existed.What really angered me was that some of the gift certificates were gifts from ME, given at a time when I was barely getting by financially. Some of them were from my younger brothers, from a time when scraping together $10 to buy a gift certificate was a real sacrifice.My mother would have been ecstatic to have had some of those gift certificates. But he wouldn’t let her, he just shoved them in the desk drawer.I went through the certificates, and the ones that were still valid were split among me and my brothers. About half of them were no longer valid.It still makes me both sad and angry. People were trying to please him, to make him happy, and he just didn’t give a damn. Not even enough to tell people to stop getting him gift certificates, he didn’t want to use them.”Ungrateful” is perhaps not a strong enough word to describe it.

Yes, in fact my husband and I received a $50 gift certificate in the mail along with an invitation to return to their fine establishment. In the beautifully copied and pasted, standard fill-in-the-blank form letter, we were respectfully requested to give them another chance. It was explained to us our previous meal and the service we'd received was in no way acceptable nor a reflection of the high standards within their organization. T'was a very pretty letter, indeed. It included enough pretty words to have won the drafter a nomination for Customer Retention Manager of the Year. Folks, that piece of beautifully embossed, high dollar letterhead, paper was covered from top to bottom in sincere apology…..for the delicious meal, outstanding service, and overall amazing experience we'd reported to have on our previous visit there.I shook my head, after reading it to the sound of my husband's laughter. We were both delighted we'd get to go again sooner than our finances would allow. (We were young parents, just getting started, as was our bank account.) Obviously someone read just enough of my letter to glean my name and address, typed those into the form letter, and hit print. I was frustrated my words of praise had not reached anyone at the corporate office, nor the management and staff at the restaurant. I was horrified at the thought my contact may have been relayed as a complaint to people I had showered praise upon. That just wouldn't do!Before we went to dinner, where I made sure to relay and clarify the entire situation to the manager that evening, I placed a call to corporate. “Please allow me to start by saying thank you for the gift certificate. I'd like you to know my ONLY complaint with your company is with the individual who did not read what they erroneously assumed to be my letter of complaint……”

After reading this, a few people asked about the wonderful drivers. So I added this photo.My dog died in June, Two coyotes ambushed us right on our residential street as I took out the trash. One clawed my chest, my sheltie bit him, but ended up with rabies. Ten years old, too old for an operation.Ten years old also means he loved to lay around the front yard as I read on the stoop. Amazon Prime drivers loved him, once I showed how the deliveries in those white and blue bubble packaging were filled with Dreambones and Dreamballs. Presumably, Pal got to thinking that the blue van was his personal delivery service.One day the following week, a driver named Bart came by with a package. I knew he had a dog, told him to keep it, and told him about the coyotes and showed the scars on my chest and leg. The warehouse isn’t that far away, so word must have gotten around. I have cerebral palsy and take care of my now 89 year old mom, so I am now sitting on the porch reading far more often than in the years before the pandemic.Two women drivers stopped by, one was crying. One driver, this big, burly guy, hopped out of a van to shake my hand, then we stopped because of social distance, sort of shrugged and saluted. Thing is, he backed into a driveway and went the way he came. So he actually went out of his way.And just before Christmas, I saw him across the street, the guy who lives there always gets deliveries. Then he walked over and put an envelope in my mailbox.The envelope held a $25 gift certificate and the name on the envelope was Pal. I used the card and donated the same amount to an animal shelter. But what a wonderful thing to do. Remembering half a year later.