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How to buy gifts that people actually want

willpatrick.co.uk

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Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#41

Post by IndySun »

pbuzbee wrote: post #8

Last year, the adults in my immediate family put a limit on how much we'd spend on each other for Christmas. I think we picked around $20/person, when in the past we probably spent $75-100. This has been good for us, mainly because it lowers the pressure of gift exchanges. There's a big difference between giving (and getting) an unwanted $10 item compared to an unwanted $50 item. The limit removes emphasis from the m…

I agree. Choosing a cost limit is smart. People long for 'things' less and less, excluding the very poor or unfortunate.

Buying for loved ones should not be stressful, and should not be criticized. Setting a spend limit aids this.

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#42

Post by jackpirate »

PapaSpaceDelta wrote: post #23
tbirdz wrote: post #18

What do you do if you genuinely don't want anything? It seems like people don't believe you and keep harassing you asking for what you really want, and then get really frustrated when you keep saying "No, really I don't want anything ". Then they either respect your wishes and don't get anything, but seem to harbor some kind of resentment against you in their heart, or they get some random garbage you don't want and…

My family have always been happy to make a donation on my behalf to the good cause of their choice, perhaps that might work for you?

My family does an email thread where everyone posts gifts ideas... I'd actually really want the donation, but I don't want to say that publicly for fear of seeming "holier than thou" and ruining other people's fun.

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#43

Post by samizdis »

From the perspective of someone who suffers from gift-choice anxiety, that was a useful article. (Kudos, too, to several commenters here, particularly @afton wrt domain expertise. This is so easy to mess up, especially buying for kids/teens.)

But - tangential, I realise - what about asking why we buy Christmas (or holiday) gifts, and especially with a scattergun approach: buy for everyone you know (family, friends, colleagues - driven in some cases by fear that they might have got you something but you haven't got them anything - it gets ridiculous), just because, er, xmas? (Comment here about power and gifts by @blueyes gave me pause for uneasy thought - genuine thanks for that.)

I spent quite a few years in places where Christmas wasn't a thing. In a couple of places, Eid was the big celebration, and the emphasis seemed to me to be on hospitality, a lot of food, loads of get-togethers, but not so much on presents. I sort of miss that - and miss the emphasis on charity in the run-up to Eid during Ramadan.

Perhaps we have lost something. I'm a fan of the poet Louis MacNeice. Here's an amateur animation to illustrate his section of Autumn Journal which starts, " A week to Christmas"[1], which I voiced quite a few years ago. (I can't find a stand-alone version of the text online.)

I am not religious, but the commercialisation of Christmas does make me uncomfortable.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fV5hOWChnE

Edited to add: another amateur animation (same software, now sadly defunct) of Tim Minchin's Christmas song "White Wine in the Sun", which celebrates Christmas from the perspective of an atheist, but which also abhors the hypocrisy of its commercialism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWQuDtxD2-c

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#44

Post by dsr_ »

Afton wrote: post #4

Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…

Since I know about knives, I would buy them a knife.

If I was an accomplished bread baker, I would give them a couple of loaves each week for a month -- unless I knew they had a dietary issue.

Don't buy a book about programming for a programmer; do buy the best book on programming in Python for a kid who shows interest.

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#45

Post by pbuzbee »

mxuribe wrote: post #13
pbuzbee wrote: post #8

Last year, the adults in my immediate family put a limit on how much we'd spend on each other for Christmas. I think we picked around $20/person, when in the past we probably spent $75-100. This has been good for us, mainly because it lowers the pressure of gift exchanges. There's a big difference between giving (and getting) an unwanted $10 item compared to an unwanted $50 item. The limit removes emphasis from the m…

Since around the time of the Great Recession, my siblings, parents, cousins, etc., and I agreed to give gifts to each other only via one of those secret Santa methods with a limit of $40/gift. This has made things so much easier! We only have to gift something to a single recipient, making it less costlier, simplifying the gift idea hassle, and allowing us to focus less on the "shopping bonanza" and more on just enjo…

This is a good idea. A "white elephant" gift exchange is another alternative, though with gifts that are desirable and not just amusing.

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#46

Post by [deleted] »

pbuzbee wrote: post #45
mxuribe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since around the time of the Great Recession, my siblings, parents, cousins, etc., and I agreed to give gifts to each other only via one of those secret Santa methods with a limit of $40/gift. This has made things so much easier! We only have to gift something to a single recipient, making it less costlier, simplifying the gift idea hassle, and allowing us to focus less on the "shopping bonanza" and more on just enjo…

This is a good idea. A "white elephant" gift exchange is another alternative, though with gifts that are desirable and not just amusing.

[deleted]

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#48

Post by codeulike »

Stopped reading at 'Nobody Actually Likes Charity Gifts'

I understand the social bonds of gift giving but this whole Christmas thing is completely out of hand, so much pointless consumption. The idea of gift giving at christmas is like a good instinct that has been hideously amplified to 1000x what it should be and turned into a monster. I pretty much insist on people giving me charity gifts most years.

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#49

Post by leetcrew »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #28
Afton wrote: post #4

Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…

Your post really struck a chord with me because I'm the type of person that likes to give books as a gift. As the type of person that would totally give a book of 100 bread recipes to someone that I just know "bakes bread," I'm wondering if you think there are book gifts that someone could get you using that mindset and just a little more thinking about depth of domains. One doesn't need to know anything about baking…

in all likelihood, this person knows way more about bread and bread-related items than you do. if it's bread related and costs less than $20, assume they either have it already or know about it and don't want it.

I find it's usually not a good idea to buy someone this kind of present unless you're willing to just ask them exactly what they want. instead, why not select something that you know a lot about that could still be useful to them? last christmas I set up backblaze on my mom's NAS (which I built for her several years ago) and paid for the first few months of service. my mom couldn't care less about the nuances of cloud storage providers, but she's quite happy to be paying a fraction of what a 10TB google drive subscription would have cost.

Re: How to buy gifts that people actually want

#50

Post by boatsie »

Afton wrote: post #4

Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…

Yes, this is the problem with gift giving something a person is “passionate” about— that passion means they probably already have the things they want and likely also has strong preferences you are unlikely to know anyways.

I find buying a shared experience is better— a meal, dessert, golf, spa, etc. You get to spend time together, you get the benefit too, and it will not tend to be more memorable than some random gift.

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