This is Not the Year: Master Gift Giving

Of all the things that were not on my list this year, there is one that I am regretting: improve my gift giving. 

I’m just not good at giving gifts.  It’s so stressful!  I agonize over whether people will like what I’ve chosen and usually end up delegating the task to Donnie or just not getting anything.  There is nothing that I like more than a good old-fashioned registry. 

People say that you can learn to be a better gift-giver by writing down a list of ideas when people mention off-hand that they like something or that they wish they had a [insert random item].  This is fine and good but what if they go ahead and purchase this thing for themselves before I get the chance to give it to them?  Now I’ve given them something they already have.  Awk-ward!

I also find it hard to think of something to get someone that if they really wanted they wouldn’t just go ahead and purchase for themselves.  We’re all adults here—if you need something there is nothing stopping you from logging onto Amazon and adding it to your cart. 

But on Valentine’s Day, I thought I nailed it:

I had come home from Trader Joe’s about a week ago and Donnie was pouting that I hadn’t picked up a bag of his favorite peanut butter pretzels.  So when I saw this tub of them at World Market for $6.99 I was feeling pretty good about it.  It is something I knew he would like, something he probably wouldn’t purchase for himself, and it fell squarely within our $10 limit.  I even put it in a pink gift bag with tissue paper. 

Great.  Except this is what he got me:

A month’s worth of haikus.  That he wrote himself.  Using his creative writing degree.  "To welcome winter's end."

Whoops.

Luckily, he saw the humor in the inequity and we had a good long laugh before he ate the entire bin of pretzels in one sitting.  He even gave me a few of them. 

Next year: improve my gift giving.

 

-K.