All I Want

Gift giving: oy! What do people want? That's why the wish list is simultaneously the biggest injustice and the biggest help. Unless you tell me what you want, I can't give you want you want, but if you tell me what you want, then it both takes the surprise out of gifts and makes it seem like you're telling me what to buy you, an act of supreme ego. So we try to hint at what we want, and every year we wind up with things that we either can't or won't use.

We could give money, but that's unoriginal and unthoughtful, and it's the thought that counts right up to the time when the thinker is shown to be completely insane. I'm sure we can all give examples of bizarre gifts we've received. So we give gift certificates, but as many people have pointed out those are just as bad as cash in the thought-counting department and worse than cash in every other way because half the time, we can't use them. Who has fifteen cents worth of gift certificate left over after a purchase that they will probably never use? I thought so. Or how about those gift cards that grow mold in our wallets because they are from places we don't shop ordinarily, or perhaps ever. Getting a gift certificate to a clothing store is like getting underwear, except at least with underwear you're not required to choose the gift yourself.

So we return gifts. If the giver saved the receipt, it's almost an acknowledgement that the gift was bad, so givers don't save receipts. If you ask from whence the gift came, it's rude, so half the time, we don't know where to return our gifts, and the other half, we can only get store credit because we don't have a receipt. So we now have credit at a store which is undoubtedly someplace which we wouldn't shop, because why else would anyone get us a gift from that store?

So what's wrong with just not giving gifts, or getting really cheap, thoughtful gifts which are accompanied by wads of cash? I know the temptation is there to simply take a gift-wad and spend it on gasoline, or groceries, or some other mundane and non-gift thing. You could even spend it on a gift for someone else. But the small thoughtful gift can make up for those people who give in to the temptation and buy a fill-up for Christmas, or you can simply look at it as giving, regardless of where the gift winds up.

Too long have we felt (this country in particular, although I'm sure it's a problem elsewhere too) that gifts need to be something other than normal things, that we cannot simply give a gift that people would buy for themselves. We look for "gifts" that only exist to be given, luxury items that, were they not gifts, we could never afford, even items which simply have no function at all.

Next year, if anyone wants to give me something, I'll be perfectly happy with money. Or a gift that I have stated, in that egotistical tradition, that I want. If you won't give either of those things, then please, take the money you were going to spend and give it to charity. I acknowledge that simply giving things is fun, probably more fun that receiving them, so that seems like a good way to both satisfy the givers and keep me from drowning in presents that I don't need.