Maybe you’ve finished your holiday shopping, proving yourself to be the caring friend, the thoughtful sibling, the person who truly understands your beloved’s secret desires.
Didn’t think so.
The pressure is on to deliver the perfect gift: personal, original, not too expensive and, most definitely, not too cheap.
For the super-shoppers who anchor our consumer society, that’s no big deal.
For the rest of us, there is help. People have written entire books to steer hapless would-be consumers toward smart choices. Websites offer questionnaires to narrow your choices.
Much of the advice is obvious. Don’t buy lingerie for your boss.
Duh.
But a nice handbag is considered a good choice for most women – personal, flashy enough to offer bragging rights but more noncommittal (and less expensive) than a diamond ring.
Golfers, on the other hand, might appreciate private lessons with a pro.
To most adults, giving a gift matters more than getting one, says
Trish Vandiver, chairwoman of the psychology department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
Although we’re only human.
“If you’re given something that seems less good than (what) your best friend got, I guess it can be a big deal,” she says. “But most of the time, the giving is the thing that is most important.” So before you hit the mall, take some time to plan.
Leah Ingram, a Pennsylvania-based gift and etiquette expert and author of “You Shouldn’t Have: How to Give Gifts They’ll Never Forget,” says you can almost always come up with a winner if you think about what the recipient enjoys doing in his or her free time.
Someone who likes to read might like a reading lamp, a gift certificate to a bookstore or even an inscribed copy of a special book.
Still stuck? Browse the pantheon of magazines devoted to the acquisition of things – Cargo, Lucky, Domino, to name a few. If someone on your list is desperately in need of an expensive doodad, check out the Sharper Image catalog.
But don’t think about it too much. If last year’s CD gift set was a hit, consider doing that again (different CDs, of course).
“People get uncomfortable that every year they give a similar gift,” Ingram says. “They think they need to come up with something different every year. … Why reinvent the wheel?” Well, because what we give says a lot about who we are.
To understand why the stakes are so high, it helps to go back to our past as hunters and gatherers. Shopping, it turns out, is a lot like gathering roots and berries.
Shopping is love.
“Women go into a store, and they look through everything,” Vandiver says. “They’re essentially gathering, checking out everything to find just the right thing. That’s tied to that gathering past, where you had to find the right fruit, or the biggest root, to help your family survive.” Shopping is also a way to display our status.
In the old days, a man could prove he was a good provider by showing off a zaftig wife.
Zaftig’s not so popular these days, however, which may explain the proliferation of jewelry stores.
“I don’t think we’re consciously thinking, ‘Wow, if I were a hunter-gatherer, this (gift) would represent a dead deer,’ but we do at some level buy into that,” Vandiver says. “When we buy a gift for somebody, it is associated with our status and our ability as a provider.” How many dead deer is a $35 gift certificate to Circuit City worth? Hard to say, but gift cards can convey status.
And Ingram says they’re cool, even if they don’t have the personal touch that traditionalists insist upon.
That’s especially true for children, she says, because kids love to shop for themselves. Just make sure the gift card is from a store that is both convenient and suited to the recipient’s interests.
Audrey Mansfield, a personal shopper for politicians and other high-profile people, recommends a few safe choices – Burberry scarves, leather goods, travel umbrellas -for business colleagues and not-so-close friends and relatives.
For something more personal, she would go with a handbag.
“I don’t know a woman who doesn’t like handbags and shoes, but shoes are too difficult to buy,” Mansfield says.
