Ask HN: what's on your Christmas list?

I do typically get a few gift cards for restaurants from family members - these are nice because it lets me and my wife have a nice meal out. That's a key right there - the gift is providing me a nice experience, not a 'thing' to house and maintain.

What I've started to do - as a bit offputting as it seemed at first - is sending pics of my gift-card meals to the giver. It's a way to let them know we did actually use the gift, and that we had a good time. It gets around the giver feeling like they just handed over cash with no personal meaning. For other sorts of gift-cards, I will send an email or phone call thanking them and letting them know what I selected.

As 'impersonal' as this may be, it's the best balance I've come up with.

Side note: The emails and pics feel strangely a bit like old-fashioned 'thank you' notes that my folks tried to get me to write as a kid after birthdays. I hated that experience, and when I didn't do it I felt like I was a bad kid.

Between getting older and getting computerized, I'm much more willing to follow up with email. I don't mind the process of thank you notes, but I hate writing by hand, even as a kid.

In my time, we had no real options (well, typewriter I guess) so I was forced in to writing by hand, which I was (and still am) horrible at. I can't write more than a few lines before my hand aches and the writing is illegible (even to me).

tl;dr: I wish I'd had email as a kid and been mature enough to use it to keep in touch with well-meaning family members.

If you're really stumped, maybe think of something you don't like to shop for (clothes, bowls&plates, a lamp, laundry detergent? boring household stuff) and ask for that and let them pick what type.