Gifting: Fairness; ugh.
19 November 2008 4 Comments
One of the things my wife and I struggle with is fairness in gifting.
Personally, I find this annoying. The actual monetary value of a gift, in my opinion, is irrelevant if the gifts are of equal value to the recipient. This, however, is much more difficult to predict and control than deciding to spend $50 on both Sally and Rupert’s gifts.
Regardless of how annoying the idea of fairness is to me, our families seem to abide by this rule. In the last year or two it’s become more difficult than ever before, though. Our siblings are getting hitched, adding new in-laws to the gift giving fray — in-laws that we don’t necessarily know very well and who are therefore more difficult to find any gift for, let alone a thoughtful gift.
I’d be curious to know others thoughts and dealings on this particular issue. And in conclusion, here’s a Tim Jones painting that will be for sale soon on a new blog powered by Ebay. The starting bid for this nice little piece will be $85, making it a much more thoughtful gift than, well, lots of other things for $85.
wow. that’s a beautiful little painting…
i usually go with gift cards. sometimes practical is better than thoughtful. of course, i love my giftcards (usually for books)…
My wife thinks gift cards are a cop-out . . .
. . . although that’s what my brother asked for this year.
I’ll never forget the year that my brother bought me a $5 boyscout canteen and he got my other brother a $100 watch. We were both equally happy because all I wanted was a canteen and all the other brother wanted was a new watch. The dollar amount didn’t matter at all.
i ran across your blog sometime ago, i have been enjoying your thoughts on gifting…i read this post (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/holiday-shoppin.html) the other day…though you might find it interesting.