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Diatribe on Gifting

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blarg314:

I've been reading the various complaints about present swaps, gift exchanges and secret santas and wondering why people insist on organising these things. 

You have the Yankee Swap/Gift Grab/White elephant which encourages greedy behaviour in order to get the best gift by taking it away from someone else.

You have the office Secret Santa which involves attempting to pick a gift for someone when you don't know their likes and dislikes, food restrictions, religious restrictions, allergies or taste in music, books or knicknacks.  For under 10 dollars. During the busiest shopping season of the year.

You have children's gift swap where people participate without bringing a toy, requiring the organiser to bring extras, or leaving some poor kid without a gift.

In all these cases you have some people struggling to manage the time and money to participate while other people bring crap gifts which are actually worse than getting than nothing (they're totally useless and then have to be disposed of).  You have people participating because it's mandatory  or because they'll be seen as a Scrooge if they don't. 

As a result, after a lot of frustration, effort and money a bunch of people go home with gifts that they like a lot less than the one they gave out.  Over the years I've gotten bath products and cosmetics I couldn't use because of allergies, knicknacks that I promptly gave to Goodwill because they're not at all to my taste, books and magazines I didn't read, scented candles that made me sneeze and more bad chocolate and stale cookies than I care to think about.   In the best case scenario, well all end up financing each other's coffee habits, and Starbucks is the real winner.

---

I propose ditching all holiday gift giving between adults unless there is a personal relationship that means that the giver wants to give a gift and knows the recipient well enough to actually be able to pick a gift that the recipient would like - even if it's just to the point of knowing what store they'd like a gift certificate to.

Business style gifting (employer to employee, customer to mail carrier/cleaning lady/newspaper deliverer) should then be in the form of a Christmas bonus, rather than in generically chosen material goods.

Okay, so the bath beads, scented candles and cheap chocolate industries might collapse, but there would be a lot less stress over the holidays, and a lot less junk to get rid of after the fuss dies down.

Thoughts?

artk2002:

--- Quote from: blarg314 on December 24, 2006, 02:31:53 AM ---I propose ditching all holiday gift giving between adults unless there is a personal relationship that means that the giver wants to give a gift and knows the recipient well enough to actually be able to pick a gift that the recipient would like - even if it's just to the point of knowing what store they'd like a gift certificate to.

Business style gifting (employer to employee, customer to mail carrier/cleaning lady/newspaper deliverer) should then be in the form of a Christmas bonus, rather than in generically chosen material goods.

Okay, so the bath beads, scented candles and cheap chocolate industries might collapse, but there would be a lot less stress over the holidays, and a lot less junk to get rid of after the fuss dies down.

--- End quote ---

BatCity:
I'm with you on this one.

Anything that is clearly optional is okay...neighborhood cookie swaps, etc...but my particular beef is with the ones that involve children.

I returned last Sunday morning at 3 AM from a business trip overseas.  I wasn't really human again till I packed my daughter's school backpack on Monday morning.  What do I see?  A tiny slip of paper in her folder reading "Don't forget to send a new, wrapped book for the book exchange Monday!"

I called the teacher and told her the situation, and she told me they had extras, so DD came home with a book.  What a relief!  And don't ask why my dear husband didn't notice it...he had his hands full with me gone; I'm not sure he even looked in her folder at all while I was gone.

ZipTheWonder:
Everybody hold hands and sing it with me now

"I'd like to teach the world to sing and keep it company......"

This year, as my gift to all of you, I'm letting you off the hook for getting me those bath salts you've been considering.

Lisbeth:
Sounds good to me!  ;D

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