A Gift Guide for the Gift-Averse
For those who give better than they get. And those who get better than they give.
One Sunday morning in early November, my friend Caseyn and I walked to our brunch reservation recapping our weekend to each other. I told him that I cracked out the Feu de Bois candle by Diptyque on Saturday night for a long bath to inaugurate the season of permanently numb toes. I light this $250 candle once a year, really close to my face, and inhale deeply. When the timer goes off at exactly two hours, I make a wish and blow it out. I save this candle for occasions when I need to be soothed by the fact that even though my hopes and dreams are on fire, so too, is this one luxurious item I own. It was gifted to me five years ago from a production company I was working for and I’m already planning all the things I’ll put in it when the wicker vanishes.
On this walk, Caseyn does the calculations for all the lavish gifts he’s given and the meagre ones he gets in return. “For my friend’s birthday this year, I bought her three Le Labo candles. She got me a set of Muji pens for mine. How is this fair?” he ponders out loud.
My initial thought was, “Just tell people what you want.” But I agreed with his response when he said, “I just want someone to know what I’d like.”
The pleasure of receiving a gift is the element of surprise. To tell someone what you what you want feels like picking out your own wedding ring.
Asking someone what gift they want is admitting that you don’t know them as well as you’d like to. And sure, it says, “I’d like to get it right.” But can we do better and take responsibility to get to know someone by asking more personal questions and paying closer attention? To give someone a gift they’d like, simply get to know them.
Every year on my mother’s birthday, she tells me she doesn’t need anything. I’ll try to gift her things I think she’d use, like fuzzy slippers or a massage gift card. She smiles politely and gives a cordial, “Thank you.” But the massage gift card expires. The fuzzy slippers lay to rest in a basket buried deep in the closet until the next Ice Age.
So what kind of gift really matters?
This November, my mother turned fifty-nine. After dozens of fuzzy slippers, butter warmers, crock pots and cashmere sweaters, I was out of ideas. I was on FaceTime with someone checking their mail. Inside the box was a handwritten letter from their distant father, trying to connect with his distant son. He brushes the letter off as another attempt by his father to right his wrongs. I had an idea. I would write my mom a letter.
A snippet from the letter:
Today is your birthday. You are 59 years old. Congratulations! The story of you is not one where you get hit by a bus and die at 45. You could have died in child labor. You could have died at 19. I bet you felt like dying at 19. I bet at 19 you didn’t see yourself at 59. You couldn’t even see what your life would look like at 25. But you made it all the way to 59. You’ve done this thing 59 times. Am I saying 59 a lot?
I drove an hour outside the city to hand her a printed copy on her birthday, before my sister arrived. I told her that if she ever showed anyone this vulnerable, embarrassing letter to anyone, I would take it away from her. My mom teared up reading it. My sister walked through the front door with two pages left to read. My mom glanced at me and understood that she’d have to finish it later. My sister appeared with a gift box — Happy Birthday, Mom!
She unwrapped it. A butter warmer!
Thanksssssss!
My sister then proceeded to play a Youtube video on my parent’s 50 inch TV of a man in Kentucky with an early-aughts camcorder demonstrating how to warm your butter with this bowl contraption. My mom played Candy Crush throughout.
When my sister went downstairs to put her baby to nap, my mom ran over to the drawer to finish the letter.
Now she calls me everyday to chat. If you don’t want to pull your parents in closer, don’t write them a letter. Or write the letter, gift it to them, and immediately take that remote tech job in Berlin.
At Christmas last year, Ben drew an aerial view of Zion National Park in black ink on a card. It was expansive, detailed, and looked like it took him a very long time. Or at least an hour. We visited Zion earlier that year and I kept saying that I felt like I was that kid in Moonrise Kingdom, or at least a caricature of a tourist from a Pixar film, with my Zion hat and film camera strapped around my neck.
I keep that drawing tucked away in the back of my journal. Until the next ice age. Because even though I practically live out of a suitcase, I keep these sentimentalities forever. Even the Christmas cards. If someone left their house to buy me a card at the drug store, I am honouring that errand forever.
You don’t have to draw your coworker a picture or write your best friend a love letter. But these online gift guides suggest so many things we don’t need; Brooklinen towels, Sonos speakers, Ganni loafers. If you’re looking at gift guides for ideas on what to get a person, you’ve already lost the point.
And sure, it would be nice to get those New Balances to replace my Nikes with the holes my big toes stab through every fucking shoe. Except the Earth is on fire. People are lonelier than ever. The Sonos does help with at least one of those.
Finally, here is my gift guide:
A letter — tell someone all the little things you appreciate about them.
A hand-drawn card (The uglier the better.)
The mutual decision to do no gifts at all — book a dinner together, go on a day trip, throw a holiday rager
And if you really want to throw money at something — buy them an experience; a pottery class, a concert, all the ingredients to make a pasta sauce from scratch.
No gift at all. Unless it’s for the less fortunate.
If you want to be a real doll, buy people gifts when it’s not the holidays. Then think a little deeper for the celebratory moments. A Sonos is hardly a celebration.
Slutty heels
A mansion in the Hamptons
I know what you’re thinking — cringe. It is cringe! Being vulnerable is cringy. It’s also what brings us closer together. A good gift makes you feel less alone. And for ego-sake, it might make you a trailblazer in some circles. People will say, “They wrote me a letter. I got them an Hermes bracelet.”
Definitely warn people. Because gift-giving is not a one-size-fits-all — It all depends on how you feel about someone and what you want your gift to say. Is it a fifth date that you’re trying to impress but don’t want to pen a soliloquy to just yet? Or is it a woman you’re casually fucking twice a week? If that’s the case, the Celine bag applies to you. Or some Louis Vuitton heels. Do not write a letter. Unless it’s super hot.
All of this to say that I will probably buy Caseyn a Le Labo candle for Christmas. Because nobody buys him luxurious things. And I know exactly what he likes. Some people come easy and other people are harder to know. The season of gift-giving can teach us a lot about how much or how little we really connect with one another.
I won’t turn down a Sonos. It might make us better friends. Depends on who you are. Always read the room.
2 essays in one week!! Hot and Heavy is for the people!! :')
They're both amazing and topical and pushed me deeper to think about conscious consumption (I also dream about a Triomphe bag). Brava!!