this is not a gift guide

it’s a gift… philosophy

I am good at giving gifts. I’m not saying every gift I’ve ever given is a hit; plenty have either not been hits or have just been okay. But I’m good at it. In fact, I’m a little bit of a maniac about it. I have, in the past, bought things just to have them on hand to give to the intended recipient should an occasion arise. I’ve certainly bookmarked things as gifts for people with whom I don’t actually exchange gifts. Just in case!

It’s my belief that a good gift comes down to one thing: paying attention.¹ And then being a good gift giver comes down to two things: a spirit of generosity and not taking it personally if your gift isn’t quite the right thing. If you give somebody a work of art or a piece of clothing you have to be OK with the possibility they won’t actually want it on their wall or their body.

That part is very important! If you do not have this kind of detachment about gifts then people will dread receiving them from you. I think “it’s the thought that counts” is a very true statement about many things, but it has to work both ways: if somebody appreciates the thought but doesn’t really want the actual object, you should be happy with that, as a gift-giver. Apply your newfound knowledge to future presents.

Here’s, however, what I mean about paying attention. We are going to look at a case that demonstrates how I’m kind of insane about this and then we’ll look at what it means to practice this as a non-crazy person.

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Once I was watching a movie with somebody who will remain nameless and he said, “I like that lamp.”

I am not sure if this was actually the lamp in question, but let’s just say it is:

image source

Now there’s very little likelihood of going out and finding that exact lamp and in fact that might be the kind of miscalculation that breeds resentment (“don’t you recognize that lamp? it was in a movie? I can’t believe this?”). Instead, I had prior knowledge that this person was always in the market for a nice lamp, and a general aesthetic vibe (art deco, metal and glass).

Armed with this knowledge, I took to various websites like eBay, Etsy, and Chairish. And after a lot of days of patient hunting, the right lamp in the right price range turned up (on Chairish). Here it is.

it was in need of a lampshade

It was a good present! You won’t have a present like this for every occasion, or every year, and honestly it would probably be tiresome if you did (“here comes Barbara with her present based off of something I liked on Instagram five years ago, she thinks she’s sooooo clever”).

I have used this trick (noticing when people say they like an object in a movie or TV show) often. It is obviously not fail-proof, and you should balance it against other things you know about the person or the likelihood of getting them the right thing without their involvement.

And as always, if you are not buying people things off their own curated wish list, only buy things you aren’t going to be hurt if they don’t like. If you spend a lot of money on… uh… this spider ring, let’s say, you can’t be mad if it turns out the person you got it for likes spider rings in movies but has no interest in actually wearing them. Some people make a gift list and they want you to buy stuff on the gift list and if you go off script they don’t appreciate it. So don’t do this kind of thing for them—you would be, once again, not paying attention.

But this is all what I mean by paying attention: people are constantly dropping information about what they like and don’t like. What they use and don’t use, what household items they’re often replacing or wish they had on hand, various areas of dissatisfaction or aspiration—people are saying stuff about this all the time. One of my other Successful Presents was just this egg cooker. Not expensive in terms of money or time but still something the recipient had an obvious use for and did not know existed.

The dreaded hard to shop fors are real and it’s usually because they don’t want much and what they do want, they just buy, and what they don’t buy, they don’t buy because it’s expensive. My entire immediate family is made of people like this and it’s probably why I’m so insane about presents now that I think about it.

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Here are some categories of gifts and my thoughts on them. Handmade presents are their own thing and I think they carry their own strategies, so this is just for presents you buy. This is also really about being an adult who buys presents for other adults.

Getting a present directly tied to a hobby. Very high-risk (unless you’re getting a present for a literal child). If somebody is really into film photography, then you are probably not going to pick out the right thing for them on your own. This is the kind of present where you probably want the person involved unless you are very sure of yourself and know a lot about the hobby, what the person already has, and what they would like.

And you might be! And some kinds of hobby gifts are probably less fraught than others—nice yarn is probably easier to get right than a camera acessory. (Not to mention, less expensive.) And things related to the hobby might be different. For instance, you might get somebody a book of Vivian Maier photographs, or something like that. But, in general, tread carefully.

Getting somebody a gift subscription. Not a fan of this, at least if we’re talking about streaming platforms or publications. I’ve considered it in the past but the subtext always seems to be “have fun spending $X/month if you like this.” Now, if it’s one of those curated monthly or quarterly boxes, I think it’s a different story.

(If it’s a subscription to this Substack? Well, maybe I’d look the other way….)

Getting somebody a gift set. This is a bit of a “depends” situation but I’m generally pro. While, like a gift subscription, you’re potentially locking somebody into an expensive taste, a lot of gift sample sets are fun and aren’t going to run out immediately. Perfect for a friend who wants to explore an interest or even try one out for the first time. I do think good gift sets tend to run feminine: perfume samplers, special salts, things of that nature. But maybe I’m just not seeing the other kinds.

Getting somebody art. I find doing this very fun but you have to have zero sensitivity around rejection because nobody is going to hang something they don’t much like up on the wall. Go watch that episode of Frasier where Frasier’s dad gets him a painting and ask yourself if you are ready for this scenario. If not, do not do it.

A somewhat less fraught gift along these lines, however, is a coffee table book. I think coffee table books are very underrated as presents! They are luxurious and maybe the kind of thing it feels silly to buy for yourself, especially if you are still an iterant young professional who doesn’t have a coffee table.

Getting a luxe version of an everyday object. This is usually a winning approach—though of course it’s not a great option if you’re on a budget. This strategy is basically half the reason “getting socks for Christmas” is a running joke, but hey… sometimes the socks are nice.

Getting a book or a movie or another piece of “physical media.” Books are and remain the workhorses of presents and the only real rule I have about them is that usually you should only give books you’ve read. (But it’s not always necessary.) You can get people books you think they’d like, you can get them special or rare editions of books they do like, you can get them books about books they like… a truly endless list of possibilities here.

Movies, however, are more complicated since not everybody has a set up for playing them anymore—kind of like music, where it does not always make sense to give somebody a CD or a vinyl of an artist they like. In that case it might make sense to look for something related to the movie or the music, like a poster or a book.

Getting a gift card. You might think I am down on this, since I’m crazy, but not so! I think it’s great to give gift cards when you don’t have strong ideas about what the person would like. The only real problem with gift cards is that they put the amount you spent front and center and if you’re financially constrained it might make you feel awkward about it.

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Anyway, this is how I think about giving presents. It’s fun! Or it should be fun.

1. The converse is not true: being bad at gift giving doesn’t mean you don’t pay attention. It just means you don’t connect whatever you’re noticing with gifts.