The dilemma of gifts

What a difficult topic!

I am one for giving. I get a lot of satisfaction out of buying gifts for others, and hopefully as a result they are gratefully received.  I don't really go overboard, but if we are going to someone's for a meal, a bottle of wine or bouquet of flowers is a typical gift from us.  Then obviously there are birthday and Christmas gifts, for family and close friends - and, increasingly, the children of friends.

We have a reasonable budget (most people would probably think it modest), we don't go overboard with wrapping (for environmental reasons), and we also like to give charity gifts.  The charity present idea has had mixed responses, though, and I will return to this in a separate post. There are a few issues I wanted to concentrate on here. These fall under the heading of gifts from me, gifts for my children, and gifts to me.

Gifts from me. Here, I suppose the simplest answer would be that you do not need to give gifts, so I shouldn't buy them at all this year.  However, these are not things for myself and one of the things that bugs me about modern life is that we are so focused on our own lives now (of course that is a generalisation), and so at least buying a gift is a token/ way of showing that you have thought about someone else.  I also think that gifts can be useful things; I don't believe in buying things for the sake of it, or because they come in glossy wrapping.  I try to think about whether the person I am giving to needs anything, and if that would be appreciated as a gift.  Sometimes of course I will actually ask them if they would like anything in particular, or if I know them well, then I may have observed something they could do with.  So I think for this year, I will just be extra careful to make sure I am buying useful gifts for people.

Gifts for my children. Well, just in case they're reading, I should make clear that I do think they should have presents for birthdays and Christmas!  After all I  shouldn't inflict my experiment on them!  Again, we believe things should be given in moderation and have in the past had a 'Victorian Christmas' where everyone in the family clubs together to give each member one present.  We don't do that every year, but it balances out the other years when there seem to be mountains of presents under the tree!  For my children, the most important thing  is that they learn to appreciate what they have.  It is a slow process!

Gifts to me. I will try not to get around 'the not spending money' thing by encouraging other people to buy me presents, tempting though that might be. But I do think that it's okay to accept presents this year - isn't it?  But again, I will try to get my family to think about what I need rather than just buying me something because it is my birthday.

I guess the best solution for gifts would be to make them for others and to encourage others to make things for me. That way giving (and receiving) is much more rewarding and cheaper - perhaps using materials that I already have.  So I hope to work on this. I love crafts and I am getting into baking more, as well as making jams and preserves, so that is definitely an avenue I can explore!

We always have brown paper and ribbon ready for wrapping!

Bye for now.