The Good-Enough Gift

Helpful Suggestions for Holiday Cheer

If you are one of those people who loves to shop for gifts and has already purchased and decoratively wrapped the perfect gifts for all your loved ones, this post is not for you. If, on the other hand, you have only begun to think about your holiday shopping and are starting to panic, or if you are really terrible at buying gifts even under the best conditions, read on! I sympathize with your plight completely because I am just awful at buying gifts. As soon as I walk into a store and am confronted by all the choices, my mind shuts down. When I see the prices I wonder whether I can retrench without hurting anyone’s feelings or coming off as a cheapskate. And the more I shop, the less possible it seems that I will actually find anything whatsoever.

Here’s an embarrassing story. I once wanted to buy the perfect gift for my college boyfriend. I went to Watertower Place, an enormous, posh mall on the North Side of Chicago. The mall had by my best estimate 50,000 stores, and I went into every single one of them, growing increasingly desperate as the afternoon wore on. And after all that effort, what did I finally choose? A paperweight. I know! I cringe just thinking about it.¹ But in retrospect, it is no wonder that I had trouble. For the perfect gift to be possible, three criteria must apply:

1. The recipient must be easy to shop for,

2. Appropriately-priced items must be available for purchase, and

3. The giver must enjoy and be good at shopping.

I think readers will agree that it’s pretty rare for all three criteria to apply at once. And even when these criteria are met, holiday shopping isn’t conducive to thoughtful gift-giving. The crowds, the grouchy customers, the lines, the grabbiness—these conditions will defeat even the most talented and enthusiastic shopper. We ought to cut ourselves and our loved ones some slack. It’s ok to give the good-enough gift.

This is why I now give books: I love to read and—if I do say so myself—am pretty good at choosing books for my family and friends. (If you would like to see my 2021 book recommendations, please check last week’s post:)

The Best Books I Read This Year

I hope that the following suggestions² will decrease the stress and guilt that too often accompany holiday gift-shopping—and increase the joy of the season to boot.

Fallback Options

Fallback options come in many forms. As with my book example, if you know a lot about something—books, music, food, wine, sports, etc.—you will likely be good at choosing gifts from that category. Your friends and family will come to expect and appreciate these gifts of your expertise. Another option: if your recipient collects something, you can contribute to the collection. I love cows, for example, and for years, on every birthday and holiday, someone would give me a cow picture, card, statue, or stuffed animal. They were cute!

I posted this picture anonymously in a group chat recently, and everyone immediately knew that I was the one who had posted it.

We shouldn’t actually think of this strategy as a mere fallback. Collections are meaningful. My father-in-law collected bears, and after he died much too young, my mother-in-law asked all of us to choose a favorite bear to keep. Now whenever I look at my playful bear, I think of my father-in-law.

You can’t go wrong if you give a nicer version of something you know the recipient likes. I am a Scotch drinker, but I always buy the cheapest single-malt available—the pricier ones seem too extravagant! So every year, for my birthday, my husband buys me a fancy single-malt. Finally, when all else fails, you can employ the strategy used by harried moms everywhere: ask people for a gift list and then buy from the list. No one should feel guilty about fallback options. Your recipient will know that you were thinking about them, and if they now have yet another cow figurine for their shelf, well, they like cows!

Special Gifts

Once in awhile, with inspiration and serendipity, we happen upon an idea for a truly wonderful gift. Of course, we don’t always get inspired or lucky in the weeks leading up to the holidays. And that’s ok! Spontaneous generosity, whenever it occurs, is a lovely way to make the world a better place. I was at my brother’s house a couple of years ago, snuggling under a weighted blanket he had on his sofa. The next day, what should arrive in the mail but my own weighted blanket, plus some fine whiskey! As soon as my brother saw how much I liked his blanket, he went online and ordered one for me. So, if you suddenly get an idea for a lovely gift for someone, go ahead and get it—and give it!—right away. No need to wait for a special occasion.

If you are an artist, baker, or crafter, a great choice is a homemade gift. On my last birthday, I found a mysterious package in my mailbox, which contained a pair of socks, knitted by my friend Anastasia. They were my favorite color, and they even fit! I had complained many months before about how hard it was to find shoes that fit (I have freakishly large feet), and Anastasia surreptitiously made a note of my shoe size so she could knit the correct size socks for me when my birthday rolled around. Which brings me to another factor in successful gift-giving: sometimes we have to play the long game—to store up information and use it later. When I was in seventh grade, my uncle Gene stayed with us for a week in the summer while he was recovering from knee surgery. We’re both avid readers, so we would hang out and talk about books. I mentioned that I loved The Hobbit and wanted to read The Lord of the Rings, and for Christmas, my uncle gave me a boxed set of all four books.

And now, I would like to redeem myself for my embarrassing paperweight story. I did once luck into the perfect gift. Before I tell the story, you should watch this villain song from The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T., Dr. Seuss’s delightfully weird movie about an evil piano teacher who plots to force 500 children to play his giant piano.

When my husband and I were dating, we watched this movie, and he was quite taken with this marvelously silly song. So for his birthday I rented the video (this was in the pre-internet days) and secretly watched the song five times so that I could jot down all the lyrics. I gave him an envelope and told him it was a letter telling him how much he meant to me,³ but instead it was the lyrics to the song. Here’s the closing stanza: “So come and dress me in the blossoms of a million pink trees, / Come on and dress me up in liverwurst and Camembert cheese! / Come on and dress me up in pretzels, dress me up in bock-beer suds! / Cuz’ I’m going do mi do-ing in my do mi do duds!”

Experiences and Activities

A promising recent trend is to give experiences rather than objects. Tickets to shows or games, gift certificates to restaurants, memberships in museums—all are wonderful options that your loved ones will enjoy. A particular luxury of these gifts is that the recipient gets the treat without the hassle. My mother-in-law, for example, spent a whole day online to score us tickets to Hamilton for a Hanukkah present. Many years ago, my husband wrote a letter of recommendation for a coworker, and to thank him she not only gave us a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant, but she also came over to babysit so she could be sure we’d actually go.

The most meaningful experience you can give is to pass along your knowledge to someone else. What is your special talent or skill? Cooking, music, drawing, yoga, basketball? You can share your knowledge by teaching a friend. For example, one summer, my dear friend Susan was between jobs, and I was on summer vacation, so she taught me to knit. For the whole summer, we met once a week to knit, eat, and chat, and also watch Clint Eastwood movies. (Susan referred to our afternoons as Knitting and Clint.) This was twenty-five years ago, and since then I have knitted almost every day of my life, and I think about Susan every time. You could make the same kind of impact on someone’s life by sharing your own skill!

Charities

Donations to charities are meaningful gifts that make the world a better place. Most people have a favorite cause, and you can donate to it as a gift. A fun party idea is a charity contest: you can write up a trivia quiz,⁴ and whoever gets the best score wins a donation to their favorite charity, as well as the opportunity to talk about that charity with the other guests. My brother has a wonderful variation on this idea that would work well for high-school kids: one rainy day when we were Up North to the Lake,⁵ he told all four cousins that he had a sum of money that he would split up between five charities. Each cousin would research charities using Charity Navigator and then make a pitch to my brother, advocating for their charity. The cousins also had to agree on a fifth charity and pitch that as well. They had fun researching, negotiating, and presenting, and they also felt proud of being able to help five worthy causes they cared about.

The Gift of Time Together

Maybe it’s because I’m frugal by nature, or maybe it’s because I’m a minimalist who is always trying to rid the closets and cupboards of superfluous items, but I do think it’s ok not to buy any material gifts for the holidays, especially if you discuss your decision with your loved ones first. When you choose not to spend time shopping and money on things, you make a smart trade: time instead of stuff. Use the time you might have spent shopping to do a family activity, to write a heartfelt letter (or the lyrics to a Dr. Seuss song!), to make something, to trade stories with an old friend, to pass along your talents and skills, and to show your love through actions.

And finally, a terrific idea for a gift of time together rather than stuff is a Yankee Swap. The rules vary, but this is how I’ve played it: every guest buys (or excavates from their closet) a low-cost gift (under $20 is a good ballpark). Then, wrap your gift and take it to the party. Don’t tell anyone what your gift is! When people arrive at the party, everyone draws a number from a hat for the order of play. You then put your gifts in a pile and sit in a circle around the pile. The first person takes a gift, opens it, and shows it to everybody. The second person takes another gift and opens it and then has a choice: they can keep that gift or swap it for the first person’s gift. The process continues, with every successive player having more gifts to choose from, until all the gifts are distributed, at which point the first person can swap their gift for any gift in the circle. Yankee Swaps are enormous fun, especially if the gifts are silly. One time I brought a ceramic statue of a moose wearing a Santa hat, and for some reason this was the gift everyone wanted. There was a lot of playful wrangling and pretending to protect the moose from the depredations of the other guests. With a Yankee Swap you save money, have a wonderful time with coworkers, friends, or family, and also maybe even luck into a handy Santa moose statue.

What about you, readers? What are some examples of terrific (or terrible) gifts you’ve given or received? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

Of course, the truly perfect gift is chocolate. When we lived in Prague, we hosted kids a few times a year for tournaments and other school programs. They always brought us chocolate, and when our kids traveled for events, we sent chocolate for their host families. Everyone loves chocolate! So here is my recipe for chocolate truffles, which makes a perfect hostess or teacher gift. As a bonus, this is a fun recipe to cook with kids. They love getting their hands all gooey and licking their fingers clean.

Dark Chocolate Truffles

1/4c heavy cream

2T Grand Marnier (omit if you’re giving the chocolates to non-drinkers)

170gms/6oz 72 percent chocolate, broken into small chunks

50gms/4T unsalted butter, softened

powdered unsweetened cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and cinnamon in about a 4-to-2-to-1 ratio

1. In a heavy saucepan, boil the cream until it’s reduced by half. Remove from heat, stir in the Grand Mariner and chocolate, and return to low heat. Stir until the chocolate melts.

2. Whisk in the butter. When mixture is smooth, pour into a shallow bowl and refrigerate until firm.

3. In another shallow bowl, mix the cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and cinnamon. You want a good amount for rolling the truffles. Have a plate ready to receive the coated truffles.

4. Using a spoon, scoop up some chocolate, and then, with your hands, shape into a ball about 1 inch (2cm) across. Roll the ball in the powder until it’s coated and not so sticky. Place on the plate. Repeat for all the truffles. Warning: this step is extremely messy! You might want to keep some butter handy to butter your fingers occasionally in between truffles.

5. Store truffles, covered, in the fridge. Bring to room temperature before serving.

1. You will be amused to learn that German has a long compound word for this kind of gift: Verlegenheitsgeschenk. It literally means “embarrassment gift,” and it refers to the kind of unprepossessing gift you bring when you have absolutely no idea what to get otherwise.

2. Or, if these suggestions don’t work for you, you could always emulate my husband who, in despair at the long list of Pokémon games our kids had requested, announced he was giving them a dirt-making kit instead. (Our then-five-year-old was very excited at this prospect, especially if worms were included!)

3. Tee hee! You should have seen the look on his face as he bravely prepared himself to cope with a sentimental display! I fooled him!

4. You can customize the trivia questions to your guests’ interests. Last year, for example, my niece wrote up a totally adorable family trivia quiz, and we all played it over Zoom.

5. If you ask a Minnesotan where they went on summer vacation, the answer is always Up North to the Lake.