It won’t be long now before the Christmas season kicks off in earnest and with it the need to buy Christmas gifts for your nearest and dearest. You may well have made a start already if you’re well-organized, but it’s one of those tasks that many people get stuck on, or even put off altogether until the time is running out.
Gift giving is a task filled with potential problems as well. What if you get the wrong gift, or the recipient doesn’t like it? How do you know if you’ve spent enough on someone? And it’s not just giving that presents issues; receiving gifts can be tricky at times too. What do you do if you get a gift you don’t like? What if you’ve spent a lot on someone, and they’ve spent very little on you? It’s an emotional minefield and is one of the reasons Christmas can be an exhausting experience rather than a relaxing, enjoyable occasion.
How to choose the right gifts
One of the best ways to make sure you buy the right gifts is to gather information from people you intend to buy for throughout the year, so you have some data on which to base your buying decisions. You can glean a fair bit of information from people you know well just by listening to them during regular conversations and picking up on anything that could help with the gift buying process.
For instance, if they mention a particular band, author, game, gadget, or other specific product, make a note for your Christmas shopping list. The only thing you need to watch out for is whether anyone else is doing the same thing – or whether the recipient decides to buy the item for themselves, which can often happen if they’re particularly passionate about their hobby. If they do buy the item for themselves, you can still use the knowledge concerning their interests to purchase related or supplementary gifts.
Even if you don’t know someone that well or see them infrequently, they can often give you clues to their likes and dislikes. For instance, a toiletry or perfume gift set is a fairly generic type of gift that’s usually given to people you don’t know that well, or find it hard to buy for. However, if you’ve clocked to the brands of perfume they wear, or the scents they like, it personalizes the gift and makes it far more thoughtful.
You can also try coming at traditional style gifts from a new angle. For instance, jewelry is a popular gift for all sorts of special occasions, but you don’t have to stick to necklaces and bracelets. A classic watch, such as Alpina Watch, is great for anybody.
If your friend has body piercings, you could buy a new belly button ring or nose stud from this website that specializes in body jewelry. If you know your friend always buys the latest books by their favorite author, visit a good bookshop and ask for advice on choosing similar authors’ books that they might enjoy.
Knowing how much to spend
This is a sticking point for many people when it comes to buying gifts. It’s common to find yourself trying to second-guess how much someone else is likely to spend on you, but this is generally a fairly fruitless exercise. For one thing, unless you have some kind of agreement about how much to spend on each other, you’re only going to be guessing at their budget. For another, what you spend is far less significant than what you buy. You could spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of jewelry for instance, that gets put away in a drawer because your friend doesn’t like the style. Or you could spend a few bucks on a book of peculiar place names that hits their funny bone and keeps them entertained for hours.
Giving your gift
When the time comes to hand your gift over, there’ll be a moment of trepidation while they’re unwrapping it as you wonder if they’ll like it. Regardless of how much money or effort you put into the gift, this moment is about the recipient, not you, so try not to make the experience all about your feelings.
If someone likes their gift, it makes you feel good; glad you got it right, and glad you’ve made them happy. The best way to ruin a gift-giving experience is to start going on about how expensive something was, how hard it was to get, or any other facts relating to how great a friend you are for giving them this gift. Take the pleasure and appreciation on offer, but don’t go trawling for more.
If they don’t like it, some people will say so, while others pretend to be pleased and then hide the item away or pass it on. You can’t control how someone will feel about your gift, and even the most well-intentioned gifts can sometimes fall flat. Try not to take it as a personal insult, and if they do ask for the receipt so they can exchange it, be gracious – and make sure you know why they want to take it back, so you can add the information to your knowledge base.
Receiving a gift
We’ve all been there; your friend has bought you a beautiful, thoughtful gift and you bought them a box of chocolates. Or you spend extravagantly on your friend, and they give you a pair of socks. Try to be gracious in either situation and be grateful for what you’ve received. It’s not a competition to see who can secure the superior gift; it’s an expression of your regard for someone and theirs of you. If the disparity is significant, just add that information to your knowledge base, so your spending is more proportional next year.
Christmas is supposed to be a time to eat, drink and be merry, and of course to celebrate Christ’s birth. Don’t make the mistake of making life stressful for yourself by worrying too much about the gift-giving. The old saying “It’s the thought that counts” has a lot of truth in it, so take a more relaxed approach to your Christmas shopping and enjoy a less stressful holiday time.
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