I've found that one of the hardest things at the holidays is finding the right gift. As I get older my list of people I have to shop for gets longer and longer, which is frustrating because I'm not made of money people. I don't have money trees growing in my backyard, or anywhere in my yard for that matter. If I did, I would just give money. Do you see me giving money? No, you do not. Because I have no money trees. ...Since money is part cloth, would it still grow on a tree? Just like, a cloth tree, right? That kinda makes sense.
Really though, this list thing is becoming an issue. Sometimes, at various points throughout the year, I'll be perusing the internet and come across a gift that I think would be great for someone and then I'll remember that I didn't buy them a gift last year because I didn't think we were that close and if I buy them a gift this year then I'm saying that we are that close and what if they didn't feel the same way and they haven't bought me a gift but now they feel obligated and we have to buy each other gifts next year out of an obligation and not because we like each other. Or worse, they don't buy me a gift and I just feel like a loser giving gifts away without provocation because I don't know what kind of relationship we have.
See how that got out of control so quickly?
I go through this all the time.
Even with people I know I have to buy for, siblings, parents, significant other; it still get complicated. Sometimes I spend months trying to find the perfect gift, the one that makes the receiver think "she really gets me and knows who I am as a person, she pays attention when I talk." But I never find it. And then I'm scrambling at the last minute to come up with something and it ends up being crap. It's like I remember the one thing they used to be really into and I have two days before the gift-giving and I am running out of options damn it! So enjoy your one millionth copy of The Complete Collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brother, because it's not like I bought you the other nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine copies.
Are those numbers accurate? I have no idea. I don't do numbers. Which never seems to stop me from making number jokes. (Why was six afraid of seven?)
I've found this trend happening lately where I find a gift for someone and make a mental note to go back to it closer to the holidays, because if I buy when I see it, then I'll forget that it's in the house and that person will end up with a dozen gifts to the two that I got everyone else. So I remember it, or bookmark it, whatever. Then November comes around and I start seriously thinking about gifts. Because I tend to shop online I like to get those gifts in as soon as I can so I'm not sitting there like a asshole on Christmas morning handing out IOU's cause I was too cheap to pay for 2-day shipping. And then I see it: this whole time I've been thinking, 'oh she'd love that! this would be perfect! she'll probably cry when she opens this.' Those thoughts are for different gifts. All for the same person. So I've compiled a list. Terrific. Of nearly a dozen items. For one person.
I haven't bought them though. Which is better, somehow. But now I have to narrow down the items and then I come back into the territory of, 'what is this gift saying about how I view our relationship?' This one item is $XX, but I know she'll really love it. On the other hand these two items are even cheaper than that one item and I know she's kind of into this thing. Do I go expensive and get the gift I know the person will really love and hope that they also went the same route, or do I go relatively cheaper and get the gift I know they'll put on a good face for but wish they had gotten something a little more personal?
I think the biggest problem I face isn't a monetary value, or how many people I keep having to buy for. It's that I never know how they're going to shop, so I don't know how I'm supposed to shop. Maybe this is why people put price limits on gift giving.
Is it cool to do that with family?
No comments:
Post a Comment