5 Approaches to Making Gift Giving More Pleasurable For Everyone
I love buying presents.
No. I love buying presents when I’m inspired.
No. I love buying presents when I’m inspired and not under pressure.
Yep, definitely the third one of those.
Buying presents according to a schedule because of some sense of obligation is not something that many people find pleasurable. Worse still, feeling that you’ve bought something for the sake of it, or being given something that you really don’t want are both miserable experiences.
And yet finding and gifting the right present can be such a fantastic experience both for the gifter and the recipient.
So how to reduce the stress and increase the pleasure for all concerned? Over the past couple of years I’ve experimented with a few different approaches that may well be useful for you to use or adapt to your own gifting needs.
1. ‘Would you rather’ alternatives
A few years ago, due to a company merger, my colleagues and I found ourselves in the position of buying Secret Santa presents for people that only a few weeks earlier we’d not even met. I’m not really a Secret Santa person at the best of times (no bah humbug here, I just don’t enjoy the pressure of this office tradition) but the additional pressure of buying for people we barely knew meant it was time to think of a different way to tackle this gift giving task.
I came up with the idea of a quick questionnaire with questions such as: “amusing or practical”, “sparkly or sleek”, “edible or ornamental”. The idea was for people to get a sense of what colleagues would prefer to receive so that when they knew who they had been allocated they would have a head start on deciding on their gift. And this idea was well received. Of course, this didn’t stop some people deliberately going against their recipient’s preferences (I’m sure you can imagine a colleague who would do just that).
This gave me the idea the following year to do something similar for my friends to help me select the gift that they would appreciate, rather than the present I’d assumed they’d want.
2. The ‘how do you want to feel’ approach
This idea was a direct result of the ‘would you rather’ gifting method. But instead of focusing on the sort of gift that my friends would like, I asked them to choose from a selection of adjectives describing how they would like their present to make them feel.
We had words such as pampered, knowledgeable, entertained and full-up! I then tried to find presents that would meet one or more of these criteria.
The other aspect of making this (and the previous idea) less stressful was that I asked the questions several months in advance to give myself lots of time to find the gifts that I wanted. If anything is going to strip any possible pleasure from shopping for presents for me it will always be time.
3. Removing the settling up stress
This was a really simple but very much appreciated idea. My close friends and I always try to go out for a meal together to celebrate when we can. A couple of years ago we ended up having our ‘Christmas’ get together in January as we often struggle to find a suitable date in December.
We love dining out together. The food, the drinks, the venue and the company combine to make a lovely evening. But what is less enjoyable is working out who will pay what at the end of the meal. Due to differing circumstances a straight split of the total is not the fair way to go and we spend ages trying to work our who owes what.
So on this occasion, when it came to that part of the evening, I announced to my friends that for their birthday presents in the upcoming year I was covering the total cost for all of us. They loved this as it removed the normal anticlimax to the evening. And I have to admit from a selfish point of view, I knew I had sorted all their birthday presents in January and didn’t need to worry for another year.
4. No gifts here please
In 2020 my close friends and I decided we would go for this approach. We agreed that what was most important to us all was the time we spend together. And of course we’ve had a year of not really being able to do that. So what we wanted, when spending time together was something that was a standard part of every day life again, was to do just that.
So rather than give each other presents, we would save the money that we would have normally spent and use it to make sure that we could afford to get together to do the things we’d been missing out on whilst the conditions of ‘stay at home' and ‘social distancing' had hampered our normal get togethers.
Which leads me to the final strategy:
5. ‘Just because’ presents
Actually, I haven’t not given presents to my friends. I’ve just stopped feeling I have to get them for particular reasons and instead have organised presents on a whim. These include:
- Baking particular treats I know people like to cheer them up.
- Recording me playing and singing my friends’ favourite seasonal songs to send them via private message in December.
- Getting an e-book sent to someone I knew would appreciate it.
- Ordering boxes of treats to be sent to friends, just because.
- Sending flowers to someone who was struggling with home schooling.
The point is, the gifts can be whatever you are inspired to give, whenever you are inspired to give them.
And personally I have found this by far the most rewarding form of gifting.
Your relationships are the most important gift
Clearly the ideas above will only work for the right people and in the right circumstances. There are some people for whom the idea of stopping traditional gift giving would be difficult or upsetting. Discussing any changes sensitively with the people that you usually exchange gifts with should probably be the first thing you think about.
But in my experience, it’s the time we spend with and on each other that is the gift that is most appreciated. It’s just sometimes easy to lose sight of that under the weight of perceived obligations.
Perhaps it’s time to review why you’re giving presents at all?
