Christmas gift giving idea

Picking out Christmas presents for loved ones is the seasons most nerve-wracking ritual. The wrong choice can explode the closest of bonds. Why are gifts so hard to give--and to get--and what can you do to defuse the experience?

IT'S THANKSGIVING: a glistening turkey bedecks the table. The scent of cinnamon hovers in the oven. Inhale deeply, and you can even smell ... the fear. That's right: less than 30 shopping days left before Christmas! Chances are, if you're like most American consumers, you already know that. Chances are, too, that you find it annoying. You resent the relentless commercialism of the holidays, the nagging feeling that you must identify and purchase the right present for each person on your list, the endless strategizing, shopping, wrapping and exchanging.

And then the unwrapping, when you cringe in dread, waiting to see if your spurt of spending paid off: Will they like it? Are they just pretending? Why can't I tell? Then it's your turn to take center stage. You smile bravely as your unwrapping reveals ... ahh ... a sweater in a putrid shade of green ("Oh, it's perfect! It will go with my favorite skirt") or ... hmm ... the latest power drill, though you have trouble even screwing in a light bulb ("It's great. Now I can put up those shelves in my den"). Such playacting, such stress, such exhaustion.

NO QUESTION: if the holidays are hell, then the gift-giving ritual is one of its red-hot centers. "For most people," says William Doherty, Ph.D., professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota, "giving gifts is the most nerve-wracking part of the entire season."

Why must a ritual that we believe should be relaxed and joyful be so tortured? The answer is that we pack a lot of psychological baggage into those niftily wrapped packages. While a cigar is sometimes a cigar, a gift is almost never just a gift. We romanticize the exchange of presents as a simple, loving gesture, but in fact it's "a fundamental form of human communication," says anthropologist Richard Handler, Ph.D., of the University of Virginia. Gifts come freighted with hidden meanings and purposes. When exchanged between members of tribes, business acquaintances or heads of state, gifts are tokens of status, respect and appreciation. "They create and cement alliances, allegiances and partnerships," explains Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

In more intimate relationships with family and friends, they take on more personal--and powerful--meaning. "Gifts are symbols of our love," says Ronald Nathan, Ph.D., clinical professor in the department of family practice at Albany Medical College in New York. As such, they signify what we think of each other, what we know of each other. Around each gift swirl essential questions: How well do you understand me? How well do you love me?

Many givers get the answers wrong. Each year Americans fork over $40 billion for holiday presents, or an average of $75 for each person. And up to $4 billion of that money goes for gifts that recipients don't appreciate, according to Wharton professor Joel Waldfogel, Ph.D. Woe betide unsuccessful givers. They hear the silent cry: If you don't understand me, how well can you love me?

WITH SO MUCH AT STAKE, gift giving becomes a high-wire act that sends the stress meter over the top. Picking presents unleashes a fury of calculations that could tax a Nobel economist. A proper Christmas gift must fulfill some basic requirements, discovered social scientist Theodore Caplow and colleagues, who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, scrutinized the gift-giving habits of 350 Muncie, Indiana, families. It must surprise the recipient, it must show familiarity with his or her tastes and its cost must reflect the perceived emotional value of the relationship between the giver and "givee."

Another basic rule: reciprocity. "You want to give a gift proximate in value to the gift you expect to receive," observes Doherty. And since you give based on what you expect to get back, you factor in what that person has given you in the past. Receiving a gift that seems to be far more expensive than the one you give--or far less--is more than embarrassing. It can stir resentment in the purest heart as well as raise questions about motive and character. "A man who gives a woman an unusually elaborate or expensive gift may leave her feeling that he prefers to offer an object instead of his love," notes Dickson Diamond, M.D., a psychiatrist in Washington, D.C.

FIGURED INTO THE gift-giving equation, too, is the relationship of the recipient to the most central people in the family: gifts given to others must be proportionate in value to those given the primary figures. "So, for example," Doherty explains, "you'd never give your nephew, even your favorite one, a gift that seems worth more than the one you give your son."

Spouses must not slight each other's parents; they can't give their own mother or father a gift that dwarfs that presented to their parental in-laws. So, too, must siblings be careful not to favor their own brother or sister at the expense of their brother's or sister's spouse: a perceived puny present to a brother-in-law gets the tension wires humming.

Of course, parents giving gifts to their adult children had better be fair and equitable, because their kids are weighing and measuring the size and value of every trinket and every flourish of ribbon presented to each sibling--and have been since they were tots. One misstep in the gift department can reawaken every sibling rivalry and felt inequity of childhood. Moreover, stepchildren mustn't be overlooked for biological offspring.

All told, the calculus is so complex, says Doherty, that "it's like flying a 747 where you have to concentrate on wind, fuel and airspeed all at the same time."

IF GIVING GIFTS is fraught with tension, so is getting them. Despite all our experience, we have an expectation that others will know exactly what we want and give it to us. The inevitable disappointment is keen. It's not merely disappointment, of course. It's hurt: you discover that the people who are supposed to love you most don't even know your size. "All the frustrations of not being really known by our loved ones are made real," notes Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman, M.D.

Yet the ritual requires that the unhappiness be disguised. We are obliged to be gracious receivers. "Just saying `thank you' is not enough," Doherty says. "If you do that, you're not being gracious." Fulsome praise for the giver's taste and thoughtfulness are de rigueur.

Of course, such graciousness doesn't last much beyond the unwrapping. Some recipients hesitantly approach givers, fearful of wounding them, with explanations that the size is wrong, they already have one of these things at home--and could they please return the oh-so-thoughtful present? Others send emissaries---their spouse, for example--to cautiously question the giver about the intention behind the gift.

Still others simply clam up, tote the unwanted gifts back home--and give them away to someone else. Fully 28% of respondents in a recent American Express survey admitted to practicing such "gift recycling." Passing along presents is an ethical dilemma for many, but Doherty for one, doesn't see a problem. Yes, recycling "violates the social norm," he acknowledges. "People would be mortified if others found out they did this." Yet the practice isn't unethical and is even understandable. "The gifts we recycle are usually neither valuable nor unique," he observes. In other words, they violate one of the key rules of giving: they do not resonate with the recipient.

IS THERE A WAY to avoid the toll that holiday gift giving takes on our psyches and our pocketbooks? Some families, tired of the pressures of rampant giving and getting, have devised some solutions. Among them:

* Set limits. Cap the number of gifts one person can give to another or the amount of money that can be spent per present.

* Give gifts only to the children in the family. Or pick family names out of a hat: each member buys a gift only for the person on the slip.

* Prepare a list of what each family member wants, along with their sizes. Pool money to purchase one big gift for each person.

* Shop early. Pick up a present when something catches your eye as right for a person and put it away in the closet till Christmas.

* Use your imagination. Arrange for theater tickets, a special day's outing (a visit to a spa, say) or a weekend trip.

And when all else fails, simply grin and bear it. Remember Christmas is but one day--and you've got 365 days until next year's giving go-round.

THE WRAP ON CHRISTMAS

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents."--Little Jo in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott