How To Confidently Give and Receive Gifts
It turns out, I’ve been giving and receiving gifts wrong my whole life. Have you?
Whenever a holiday or birthday would roll around, I’d inevitably toil over what to get someone, how much to spend on them, and become anxious over thoughts like, “What if they got me something bigger/more extravagant? What if they don’t like what I give them?” or, “I don’t have any money, what if they think I’m being stingy?”
Or, I’d take the total opposite approach and feel overly confident: “Oh my gosh, just looking at this is going to make them cry! How great of a friend am I?”
Regardless of which outcome I was manifesting in my brain, 99.9% of the time, I’d be wrong. If I had stressed about someone disliking a gift, they would meet me with appreciation. And more often than not, the gifts I was SURE were going to leave someone speechless often had a muted response. Conversely, whenever someone gave me something, I felt pressure to like it in a way that resonated with them, which was always a bit of a dance, since different people have different expectations of what it means to be “appreciative.”
This inability to predict how someone will react to my gestures inevitably leaves me feeling disappointed, confused, frustrated, and frankly, relieved to have “gifting season” pass, only to dread it again the following year.
It wasn’t until I was much older I would learn how wrong my approach was, and how that approach in itself was breeding feelings of inadequacy within me.
Growing up, there was one particular relative who shaped my “rules” around what it meant to be a gift giver and receiver.
It was always a production with her, but that had less to do with her love for us and more to do with her need to show control and power through her use of money.
See, she had a lot of money. We did not. My family was so poor, we often relied on donations from friends and family to help support us. We’d even get gift cards to supermarkets over Christmas from local churches so we could buy our groceries. So, because of this particular relative’s affluence, she was a constant figure in our lives. She was generous enough to help fund my horseback riding lessons and my sister’s private school education. But with these big-ticket gifts came big strings, and frankly, it shaped my beliefs of not being beholden to anyone.
She taught me that the gift giver got a say in how gifts would be used, enjoyed, or not used. She would often add a caveat to every gift, “Now, if you don’t like it, don’t use it, or don’t want it, you DON’T get to throw it away or give it away. Give it back to me. It was expensive.” This left both my sister and I holding on to gifts out of obligation, long after we’d finished enjoying them.
She also taught me that the gift giver got to dictate the reaction of the gift-ee. Based upon the amount spent, or time invested to get it, there was a rule around how much you were supposed to “love,” “admire,” or “respect” that person’s counsel.
You can probably start to see how these rules totally ruined future gift-giving opportunities for me. If I didn’t spend a ton of money, I would feel crummy. If the person I was giving a gift to didn’t enjoy it the way I wanted them to, I’d feel crummy. My life was filled with things that didn’t give me joy because someone I cared about had given them to me, and if I let it go, it would “say” something about what I thought of them.
Talk about pressure.
So I started refusing gifts. I would say no to invitations to events I actually wanted to go to and experiences I actually wanted to do, or fight dates over splitting the dinner bill because I didn’t want to be beholden to anyone.
This was All. So. Wrong. And frankly, it cost me a lot of joy.
I should also mention that this relative was very unhappy, controlling, and mean until her dying day. We never had a close relationship, despite her trying to force one with the use of her money. I don’t resent her for how she chose to live her life. She had her own lessons to learn. But I’m grateful that with distance, I now know I don’t have to repeat the cycle.
So, how SHOULD one give a gift?
A gift is defined as: something given willingly to someone without payment.
Lemme repeat that: something given WILLINGLY to someone WITHOUT payment.
It took me a long time to realize I was hoping that gift giving would give me “credits,” or make me look “better” in someone else’s eyes. I wanted them to love me a little more because of the gift.
But that would be a contract, not a gift.
The minute I realized that as a gift-giver, my ONLY job was to supply someone with something I thought they would enjoy, use, or like, my world became a lot easier.
It didn’t matter what they did with the gift. It didn’t matter what they thought of me giving them the gift. My part of the contract was complete just by giving. And as it turns out, when you release any further expectations, the process becomes immensely more enjoyable.
Further, the ONLY responsibility on the part of the receiver is to receive it. They don’t have to like it, they don’t have to keep it, and they certainly don’t need to hide whatever it was you gave them in a closet until you come around for dinner. Nope. Their job is just to acknowledge the exchange.
Sometimes, people acknowledge the exchange by refusing a gift. That still marks the gift-giving experience complete.
Sometimes, people acknowledge the exchange by accepting the gift and re-gifting it. The GREAT news is that this is perfectly fine with you, the gift-giver, as your only job was to give it initially. If they feel someone else could use it better, then hurray! Them forwarding your gift is not a reflection of you, but in fact, possible because of you.
I re-gifted a lot of stuff growing up. Not because I didn’t like them, but because I couldn’t afford to buy presents for my friends. You never know why someone has chosen to share your present with someone else.
The minute I released expectations about how others received a gift, my confidence in this department skyrocketed. And suddenly, it became FUN to spend time thinking of how my gifts could bring my loved ones joy. (It also took energy and worry away from having to stew over what so-and-so did with that necklace I gave them. None of my business! How great!)
There is ONLY ONE RULE to gift giving and receiving: complete your part of the experience by bestowing upon someone something you feel they would enjoy, and acknowledge receipt of that gift. Anything else that happens through that is, well, a gift.
