Word of the Week

Consider this...

There are many forms that gifts can take: object, monetary, emotional, verbal and so on. The Holiday Season is know as a time for gift-giving, but no doubt for many, it’s very tough to support, both emotionally and economically, all the giving that’s supposed to go on.

Whether you can’t give any more presents because you don’t have the money, or you can’t give any more time because you don’t have the energy, it’s okay to limit your gift-giving. Sometimes you can say all you need to say to a person - and give them what they need - through a nice holiday card. And I don’t mean spend five bucks a card at Hallmark. I mean, get a pack of generic cards (holiday themed if you like), and write something meaningful to the person to whom you’re giving it.

This may sound like silly advice, but let me give you an example of how it could work.

Let’s say you’re invited to 4 holiday parties this season. You decide that 2 is about as many as you can take, and as those 2 are with different people (say, one family and the other friends), they’ll remain manageable. However, the two people’s parties who you aren’t attending may feel slighted by your absence, and you don’t want to feel guilty about not going, bitter about being forced to go or obligated to give that person a gift to “make up” for your not going. That’s why you give a different kind of gift: the card!

Write that person something nice, thanking them for their friendship and important place in your life (no need to mention the declined invitation), and send it to arrive right around the party. In that way, you’ve given that person a gift, spent very little money, and not spent time doing something you don’t want to do.

Thinking creatively about gifts to save not just time, but money, is important to giving good gifts but also doing what’s right for you. Let’s say time isn’t the issue but money is. Rather than spending lots of money on gifts, why not set aside some special time to spend with special people. Perhaps you can invite them over and cook lunch or dinner as a little holiday gift - something that says you care and think about them, but that doesn’t require a huge outlay of cash.

And remember that when buying gifts, expensive never compensates for relevant (unless we’re talking sports cars). Try to find what’s right for the person to whom you’re giving rather than throwing money at something that won’t necessarily have the same effect on a person.

Finally, you deserve gifts too, and you can’t deny yourself the pleasure of receiving them. Enjoy what you get. Why, just the other day a friend of mine came over with a gift for me. He knows that I love South Park and when he saw a South Park set, complete with posters, mug, magnets, and more, he knew that I’d love it and had to get it for me. I hadn’t gotten him anything because we don’t usually exchange gifts. He’d just seen this and wanted to get it for me. I didn’t let my lack of a gift for him impede my ability to enjoy what he’d given me. Some might say that makes me selfish. Quite frankly, I’m confident that he was much more pleased at seeing how much I was enjoying my gift than worrying about the fact that he hadn’t gotten anything.

Don’t ignore the formal definition of gift: something given willingly without payment. If you’re going to give begrudgingly, whether by having to be somewhere you don’t want to be or by having to spend money on something you can’t afford, it’s not a gift. And it’s likely that you’ll expect something in return, even if it’s the receiver’s acceptance of your resentment at doing what you don’t want to do. Both of those things negate the gift. Give what you want when you want and under no other conditions.

Want to learn more about the pleasure of receiving gifts? Then check out Golda’s fabulous tip this week.