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This post is dedicated to every generous person who give out gifts during the holiday season! Have a great end to this year!
I grew up wishing all my gifts were cash. It didn’t matter whether it was my birthday or Christmas. Nothing is more versatile than money and I can buy anything with it, so I thought. These days, I know how ignorant I was.
Was I Even Happy?
Thinking back, I realized that I probably only bought a gift for myself with 5% of all the cash gifts that I ever got throughout childhood. While I didn’t waste the cash, I absolutely missed the joy and excitement we were supposed to get in the holiday season. The moment of opening the gifts, looking at those boxes under the Christmas tree and trying to guess what the box contains were memories that I didn’t have.
Giving Gifts is About Showing Them Your Love
I even carried the idea further. Since I wanted cash, I figured that everyone would do the same. Gift cards or cash gifts became a common present from me, but I now realize that it was all because of my laziness. I never took the time to think about what people really wanted. I didn’t spend the time to pick out a gift, and told myself that people would be happier with gift cards or cash.
What Made Me Realize All This
It was last night when it dawned on me that all the golf clubs were giving to me by the closest people to me. I remembered how many times I was out in the golf course and using those clubs, and how much I appreciated the wonderful gestures. I remembered the cash gifts too, but the names and what each person gave was vague.
It was at that moment when I realize that if I spend the time to pick a gift that someone could enjoy, it’s better for the both of us. Sure it wasn’t as versatile as cash but it creates another bond between the two of us. It allows us to share the same happiness - me picking the gift and the other person using it.
Enjoy The Holiday Season
If you were planning to buy someone a bunch of gift cards for everyone this holiday season, stop and think about this for a second. Is this really how you want to be remembered by? The person who can’t spend the time to get someone a thoughtful gift?
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I have always hated the idea of gift cards/cash as gifts, some people I talk to just don’t understand it, but I know it just does not show any thoughts about the person.
I still know some of the gifts that I got from certain people for my HIGH SCHOOL graduation because they were gifts. The people that gave cash I have no idea about.
A college friend also agreed with me and did not like cash as gifts, he was happier with a national audobon (sp?) society book (on birds) even though he was not particularly interested in it than getting an equivelant amount of cash from that person.
The only problem arises is if the gift ends up as clutter or something that they don’t want, and hopefully they don’t feel they have to have it out all the time to make up for it.
Thanks for posting this. I hope that people will spend more time to pick out gifts that others will enjoy. I don’t want to see those huge refund lines after the holiday season this year!
Gift cards are just horrendous. I still appreciate it if people gave me gift cards then the usual gift though because I can actually choose what I want but the reason I don’t like gift cards is because I can only buy from the stores they select.
I read an article a while ago about giftcards. I’m sorry that I can’t find it, but basically the sentiment behind it was that giftcards work — but only if they REALLY make sense and they still have thought behind them.
What does this mean? It means that you don’t just buy a gift card for $10 and give it to someone. Instead, you find some nice things that MIGHT work for the person, pick one of them that you’d normally give them, figure out how much that costs + tax and then get the gift card for THAT amount.
You’ve then given a good amount of thought into what to get for a person, but you don’t shoe them into having to return whatever it was that you bought because they already had it, it didn’t fit, the color wasn’t right, or they simply didn’t like it.
So true. A well thought out gift beats a gift card any day. Though, some times what the person needs is a gift card from a particular store.
Also, sometimes it’s difficult to find the “right” something for everyone and something may need to be returned. Over the years I figure it all evens out.