Gifts People Love

I hate Christmas shopping.

It feels like I’m fighting a losing battle. I go down my list, staring at each name, trying to imagine what each person would like. But I keep picturing the things I’d like.

So I end up giving my son a LEGO set, then spend Christmas Day building it while he plays with the Magnetix his grandparents got him. I give my wife a surround sound system, then test it out while she reads a novel a friend sent her.

So whether I’m walking through the mall or drifting between websites, a sense of looming catastrophe creeps over me. What dreadful waste will I commit this year? How will I fail to delight those I love?

So when I heard about a new book that says we should give up on giving gifts, I was ready to sing in the choir. 

Economist Joel Waldfogel argues in Scroogenomics that gifts just aren’t worth giving. Many of the presents we give are unwanted. They end up being tossed, stowed, returned, or “regifted.” This is a waste of money (not to mention an embarrassment) that our economy could do without.

Think about the gifts you’ve received in recent years. Even the ones that seemed well-chosen and thoughtful were often not the first thing you would have spent your own money on. I mean, obviously. Otherwise, why hadn’t you already bought them? You may have appreciated them, but they weren’t the things you valued most. Therefore gifts, on average, offer less value to the people who receive them than the cash value spent by the person who bought them. That’s a waste. And that’s the idea behind Scroogenomics.

Money, Waldfogel says, is the most efficient gift. With cash the recipient can get exactly what they want. The cash value of the gift and its perceived value are most closely aligned. Economically speaking.

But we’d be even more efficient if we get rid of gifting altogether. No presents, no gifts cards, no cash. Because then we could each just buy for ourselves exactly what we want and need. No messing around with postage or envelopes or checks or greeting cards. Pure efficiency, according to Waldfogel.

Personally, I’m not ready to go that far. When I imagine a world without presents I picture a cold, gray landscape of unsmiling adults folding their arms, smoking pipes and long cigarettes, and discussing Satre over bitter espressos. (And they’re wearing turtlenecks, oddly enough.) It’s a cynical world, tired and spent. Does anyone really want to live there?

It seems to me that Scroogenomics misses something obvious. The real world is sweeter for having gifts. There is more to giving presents than cash value or economic efficiency. As they say, it’s the thought that counts.

A gift is not only a commodity. It’s a message. A gift says something about the giver. It says something about the receiver. About the relationship, the connection between the person who packed the box and the person who tears it open. A good gift evokes memories of the past and hopes for the future. It makes a new memory, a new talking point, something new to share. A good gift plucks the string that ties the gifter and the giftee.

Still, there’s something to what Waldfogel says. Perhaps it is a bit silly to give a present to another adult—some ephemeral trinket they could probably buy themselves.

So as we shop for gifts this Christmas season, how can we choose gifts that add value instead of waste it? Here are three ideas.

Give Something No One Else can Give

The best gifts are those that nobody but you can offer. What should baby send grandpa this year? A new nosewarmer from Brookstone? Or a fingerpainting she made with grandpa in mind? Unless grandpa is living on rice and beans and suffers from nasalfrigidia, the artwork, though cheaper, probably holds more value.

Anything that only you can make or do is a great gift for anyone who loves you. For instance:

• A crafted item
• A date
• A family video
• A poem
• A performance
• A promise

Think of it this way. What would Mommy rather find in her stocking? The new Dr. Dre CD? Or an album of songs penned and sung by her children?

Give Something Unexpectedly Cool

Some of my favorite gifts are those I could have bought, I just didn’t think to. A toy I loved as a child but had long since forgotten. A fascinating book that I had always hoped, but never knew, existed. A collectable I had never seen from a beloved movie I had seen many times.

It’s not the price of these gifts that make them valuable—it’s the sheer fun. They are unexpected delights, discoveries that jump out of the box and catch me by surprise.

We love to get them, we love to give them. But they are hard gifts to give.

You have to know your recipient well enough to know what he likes—what his hobbies and interests are. Then you have to search around the fringe of those interests. It’s not enough to give him something obvious—if he’s interested enough he probably already has it. Every Star Wars fan has a Millenium Falcon somewhere. Another is no delight.

Nor is it enough to give something simply obscure. Unless your Star Wars fan is truly rabid, an original ’84 Princess Leia napkin press may fail to evoke joy.

The gift has to be mainstream enough to be cool, yet unexpected enough to have remained unnoticed. The goal is for your recipient to open the gift with a stupid smile on his face, “This is awesome! How come I’ve never seen this?” or “I haven’t seen one of these in years!”

A person who is good at giving this kind of gift is like a mystery writer. She knows how to think like her recipient, knowing what they know and what they’ve overlooked. The box she wraps is like the last page of a good mystery. It hides something you almost, but not quite, knew was there all along.

Give Something They Can’t Afford

Gifts among adults are usually a wash, with neither person coming out ahead financially. It’s hard for your spouse, for instance, to give you something you can’t afford (and probably not a good thing if he or she did). And how often do you get presents from coworkers that would have broken your own bank if you had bought them for yourself?

But everyone knows someone who has less than they have. Your kids, naturally, if you have them. And who else? Well, how many families in your town have been hit by unemployment this year, or sickness, or loss?

Hey I’m not trying to guilt you. Just sayin’. Gifts are at their best when they meet real needs. What’s gift-giving for if not providing people with things they can’t get any other way? Why else did we fall in love with Christmas as children, back before we had checking accounts and credit cards and compact cars? If you want to give a gift that generates delight, find somebody who has enough needs to still be capable of real joy.

If you, like me, struggle with feelings of dread and confusion as you work through your shopping list, I’ve offered three ideas for how to choose good gifts.

Or you can take Waldfogel’s advice and sit on your wallet. Do that, and you’ll start the new year a little richer. Congratulations.

You’ll also start poorer. Because giving brings another kind of wealth that economists can’t track. And clinging to coins at Christmas… well, that kind of Scroogenomics doesn’t just make you economical. It makes you a Scrooge.