Musings

Reflections on life lived by a coast

  • Home
  • Travel
  • Yoga
You are here: Home / Archives for Christmas gifts

Gifting from the Heart and Hands

December 9, 2012 •

As the Christ­mas hol­i­days near, I find myself think­ing about gift­ing strate­gies — what’s the right thing to do for both giver and receiver.

I used to pride myself on mak­ing or find­ing that spe­cial some­thing that would delight the recip­i­ent, with­out being either too lav­ish or too stingy. Com­ing up with just the right per­sonal gift requires an under­stand­ing of what each indi­vid­ual finds pleas­ing, taste­ful or appro­pri­ate. That requires insight into what they do, what they find beau­ti­ful, amus­ing or use­ful; what would fit into their home décor, their cook­ing style, etc. Insights like that require con­nec­tion and prox­im­ity — much harder to develop when you live far away, no longer part of some­one’s every­day life.

Joy in Giving

A lot of the gift-giv­ing plea­sure dis­ap­pears when you can’t see peo­ple open your gifts or put them to use… Gift giv­ing at a dis­tance becomes a sym­bolic act, an annual rit­ual or even an abstrac­tion devoid of plea­sure. Just a chore to be done in a rush so there’s time for UPS to deliver the pack­ages in time for the hol­i­days.

This year I’ve decided to bring more plea­sure to the act of giv­ing by doing less shop­ping and more “mak­ing,” such as these three scarves that I’ve knit­ted for friends. (Each scarf is about 12 feet long, with grad­u­ated color schemes and a metal­lic fin­ish to the edges. The color schemes suit my friends’ per­sonal pref­er­ences, their will­ing­ness to make a bold state­ment in their fash­ion sen­si­bil­ity.)

Per­haps it’s my yoga prac­tice but I find that the gift of time, made tan­gi­ble in hand­crafted items that take at least a few days to cre­ate, is espe­cially pre­cious…

Joy in Re-gifting

My hus­band and I have also decided to begin “re-gift­ing” — pass­ing on items that he has inher­ited from his fam­ily to the next gen­er­a­tion. We have a small but pre­cious (mem­ory-filled) set of antiques. Why wait until we down­size (or worse yet, die) before giv­ing these items to fam­ily mem­bers? We’re now debat­ing what to give to whom, and over what period of time.

While Obama, Wall Street and econ­o­mists will decry our behav­ior as insuf­fi­ciently con­sumerist — we’re not boost­ing the econ­omy by giv­ing our money to mer­chants — this approach is much more sat­is­fy­ing to us as givers. And hope­fully to the recip­i­ents as well.

Yes, we have pur­chased some gifts, but mostly from arti­sans, crafts­peo­ple or small busi­ness own­ers where our money means a lot more than if we were spend­ing our dol­lars at mega-mer­chants like Ama­zon. Even though we buy many things from Ama­zon through the year, mak­ing hand­made items or shar­ing fam­ily trea­sures feels much more true to the Christ­mas spirit.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

  • Wet Sand, Wet Boots, Birds
  • Living with Vintage Items
  • Slowing Down
  • Reflections on My Camino
  • Going Off the Beaten Track in France

© 2020 by Christine Thompson. All rights reserved. • Log in