What makes this entire gifting thing tough are the multiple aspects involved. A gift basically signifies to a person that you've invested time and thought to make the occasion special or that you're as happy in his achievement or... well you get the idea.
The value of any gift is overwhelmingly dependent on the nature of the relationship between gifter and giftee. It has to be a fine balance between something that shows how much you value a person, something that finds value/utility in his life and something that shows the material-value you're ready to spend for that person. It's very rare that people achieve this trinity!
So to make life simpler, we think of all the pseudo gifts. I believe pseudo gifts are something which say... I was so busy with my own life that I couldn't give enough thought to your gift so here I am gifting this 'thing' to you which is as useless to you as it would've been to me had anyone else given it to me!!
The favourite pseudo gift is a bouquet but for me they're really are a turn-off. Firstly, I'm not someone who really likes flowers, mainly because of the state in which they are the next day. So to prevent myself from being subjected to that dreadful sight I would rather prefer a dumb gift like a paperweight and this rule is applicable both ways!
I've been gifted in cash only by those close relatives who were incapable of connecting with me or understanding my choices or the reason behind them. So there are very few such relationships for which a cash gift is appropriate.
However, lot of time the attempt to hit the recipients’ preferences is so bad that it is likely that the gift will leave the recipient worse off than if he/she had made her own consumption choice with an equal amount of cash. Its not hard to guess that gift-giving actually destroys the value of gifts.
Gift certificates seem like a golden mean between avoiding a bad gift or a cash gift. They're in a way the perfect substitute for an item that you would've bought from that shop but I think they hold a hidden meaning. It's something like I wanted to give you something from that store but my budget was way too short of anything good. Besides, it wasn't really worth spending too much time thinking however instead of making you think I'm giving you cash, I've given you this gift certificate which would attribute the store brand to my in other ways empty gift! Not surprisingly most gift certificates go unused.
Ideally, you’d want to gift something the giftee might like but doesn’t know about, or some kind of guilty pleasure that he wouldn’t buy for himself. In either case, you are creating value for the recipient by giving him something that is actually worth more to him than the money you spent on it.
I must confess I'm not that good at gifting but I do traverse the oft-travelled road of trial and error. Though, The Perfect Gift may still remain a hypothetical concept since I've never been-there-done-that, a conversation with a friend concerning gifting a XBox 360 made me realise that it does exists. Hmmmm... Xbox 360... What could be more perfect...
Cheers!
The value of any gift is overwhelmingly dependent on the nature of the relationship between gifter and giftee. It has to be a fine balance between something that shows how much you value a person, something that finds value/utility in his life and something that shows the material-value you're ready to spend for that person. It's very rare that people achieve this trinity!
So to make life simpler, we think of all the pseudo gifts. I believe pseudo gifts are something which say... I was so busy with my own life that I couldn't give enough thought to your gift so here I am gifting this 'thing' to you which is as useless to you as it would've been to me had anyone else given it to me!!
The favourite pseudo gift is a bouquet but for me they're really are a turn-off. Firstly, I'm not someone who really likes flowers, mainly because of the state in which they are the next day. So to prevent myself from being subjected to that dreadful sight I would rather prefer a dumb gift like a paperweight and this rule is applicable both ways!
I've been gifted in cash only by those close relatives who were incapable of connecting with me or understanding my choices or the reason behind them. So there are very few such relationships for which a cash gift is appropriate.
However, lot of time the attempt to hit the recipients’ preferences is so bad that it is likely that the gift will leave the recipient worse off than if he/she had made her own consumption choice with an equal amount of cash. Its not hard to guess that gift-giving actually destroys the value of gifts.
Gift certificates seem like a golden mean between avoiding a bad gift or a cash gift. They're in a way the perfect substitute for an item that you would've bought from that shop but I think they hold a hidden meaning. It's something like I wanted to give you something from that store but my budget was way too short of anything good. Besides, it wasn't really worth spending too much time thinking however instead of making you think I'm giving you cash, I've given you this gift certificate which would attribute the store brand to my in other ways empty gift! Not surprisingly most gift certificates go unused.
Ideally, you’d want to gift something the giftee might like but doesn’t know about, or some kind of guilty pleasure that he wouldn’t buy for himself. In either case, you are creating value for the recipient by giving him something that is actually worth more to him than the money you spent on it.
I must confess I'm not that good at gifting but I do traverse the oft-travelled road of trial and error. Though, The Perfect Gift may still remain a hypothetical concept since I've never been-there-done-that, a conversation with a friend concerning gifting a XBox 360 made me realise that it does exists. Hmmmm... Xbox 360... What could be more perfect...
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment