Guide to Gift Giving

Why give gifts?

Not everyone wants or needs things, however this doesn’t really help us out of our most basic conundrum: that we want to get someone a gift either out of social obligation, or because we want to show the other person that we care.

You can use gifts as a signal of care or a signifier of how well you know them/listen to them. Giving a gift can mark/create the occasion, elevating it into a higher place in memory.

General Tips

• Always give a card if you can
  • Use it to explain your thought process as a way of gifting the thought too
• Keep a Pinterest board/section per person
  • You essentially are creating a mood board per person which can allow you to fill in gaps with suggestions from Pinterest, or just by you looking at the visualization
• Making something yourself is a great way to lower the expectations of quality of the gift while increasing the sentimental value of the gift
• Keep a list/spreadsheet to remember who you want or need to buy birthday, Christmas, etc. gifts for
• Buy things for people when you see them and keep them in a box to pull from when the time comes
• If you don’t have a big gift to give someone, get them a few smaller ones together to bundle them
  • You could make a themed basket
    • Favorite Things
    • Specific occasions (Moving, sickness, etc.)
• Regifting is completely acceptable!

When should I give gifts?

Being intentional about gift giving means expanding beyond the basic occasions of gift giving.

• When meeting someone for the first time
• When going to someone’s house when they are hosting
• Birthday
• Anniversary
  • Friendaverseries absolutely count!
• Holidays

What can I give?

Although I did say earlier that not everyone wants or needs things, there are still ways to give things to people like that. However, you also have the option to give non-things to them as well, which will usually work better if you know them well enough.

You can give things or non-things.

• Things (Consumables, Elevated Essentials, Hobby Items, etc.)
• Non-Things (Experiences, Charitable Donation, Cash, No Gift, etc.)