gifting: what makes a gift more meaningful for me

[belenen]

icon: "presents (a photo of a colorful pile of presents: my gifts for others for winter Solstice 2013)"
prompt from kehlen_crow: If someone wanted to give you a gift, what would make the object, or action, more special and meaningful? Unlike most people, a gift is more special to me if it is given in honor of a day that matters to me: winter solstice, spring

Comments

[belenen]

*nods* I love gifts, I'm just really picky about them and would rather not have anything than have something that was just given for the sake of having something to give.

[belenen]

glad you enjoyed!

With Tina Fey, I don't think it is so much a particular issue or moment, but rather it is that they're not very intersectional: they make assumptions from a white, cis, abled point of view rather than considering oppressions other than the oppression of women. I still like them, I just wish they would understand that all oppressions are linked and learn from people who experience oppression that they don't.

[call_me_katya]

Haha, that's okay! Even if you hadn't put in that little disclaimer I wouldn't have felt weird. Gift-giving is a process that grows along with getting to know someone so if I did get something wrong I wouldn't feel too bad, I would just try to do better another time and posts like this help immensely! And I think in-person knowing helps as you can see what the person surrounds themselves with and what they are drawn to.

I've received gifts in the past that showed a huge lack of knowing me and this did make me feel...somehow empty? Undervalued in a friendship? So I understand this.

[belenen]

*resonates* I felt you would get it. I once embarrassed myself to bits complaining to my grandmother about a vanilla-scented bath set (I hate the smell of vanilla as well as bath sets) -- turns out it was from that grandmother, but I had forgotten. Oops.

[raidingparty]

This was part of the reason behind my suggestion for a non-gift Christmas last year.

[belenen]

which part? *confused*

[raidingparty]

Ack, sorry, that was kind of out of nowhere, wasn't it.

My interpretation of your last paragraph is that most people know themselves best, including what they want. In sidestepping the "gift expectation", there would be no risk of getting something disappointing, or disrespectful.

[thatunicornfizz]

This was interesting to read, thank you. We feel quite strange if we get gifts that show no knowledge of us, if they're from people that we thought were close enough to know us and what would appeal. It's vaguely uncomfortable.

By the same token, we don't like giving gifts to people we don't know well as we'd rather a gift have real meaning rather than just be a gift for gift's sake.