Gifts
Over the weekend I was discussing gift ideas with a friend of mine. This conversation reminded me about the numerous occasions in the past when I had the intention of gifting someone but didn’t end up doing so due to the lack of a good gift idea. I thought about this for a few minutes and wanted to have a cheat-sheet that I can use in the future and hence this blog-post.
Utility Gifts - This involves the task of finding what your friend needs and subtracting that with what your friend already has and intersecting that with what fits in your budget! I feel these gifts are the most tricky ones (especially if you don’t directly ask your friend for ideas). Some things that have helped me to find gifts in past -
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Some occasions naturally make it easier to give utility gifts - like a house warming party or a baby shower.
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Gift items that you would like the other person to use - if you’d like your friend to be fit, gift them a Fitbit.
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It helps a lot if you know your friend very well (that way you don’t have to try to secretly extract information from them about the things they have or need)
Personalized Gifts - The items that can’t be bought from Amazon and hence have a personal touch to it. Things that quickly come to my mind are customized-posters, hand-written letters or gift cards and photo albums.
Safe Gifts - Something that everyone likes - things that come to my mind include gift cards and chocolates. A gift card is the most safest option - when you ran out of ideas/time or if you don’t know your friend really well or if you just want to ensure that your friend uses the gift.
Re-gifting - In this scenario, you’re pretty much forced to gift - like say when you attend a wedding or a birthday party but you’re not too keen on putting a lot of thought into the gift. John Oliver has covered this topic in depth in his video - The Art of Re-gifting.
Happy Gifting!
Kaushik Rangadurai
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