Posted on 12/25/2017 10:10:01 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Christmas, we are told, is not all about presents, and thank goodness for that. If our day is to be defined by disappointing knitwear, strangely shaped tea cosies and ghostwritten tomes fronted by egotists with unexpectedly enormous tax bills, then the 25th is hardly worth celebrating at all. However, the giving of gifts is a tradition that most of us observe, even though we’re not necessarily good at it.
A 2014 study by Nathan Novemsky and Ernest Baskin of Yale has found that our sentimentality is what leads us to make the wrong choices when buying presents. Rather than offering a run-of-the-mill gift that will be used and enjoyed, we try to give something “desirable”, even if it’s less practical. “Ironically, gift giving is one of the rare occasions when focusing on someone else backfires,” Novemsky explained. “The trade-offs that gift givers make between choosing a desirable gift and a practical gift are not in line with what gift receivers actually want.”
Last year, it’s thought that in Britain we received 115m unwanted gifts, worth a total of £2.2bn. This number seems oddly abstract until you think about the UK poverty crisis. In the last six months, the Trussell Trust has given out over half a million food parcels. It’s a bleak and sobering statistic, but the good news is that if you open a gift that makes your heart sink rather than sing, there’s a way of recycling it to ensure that it benefits someone who really needs it. Reselling an unwanted item, and donating the cash you raise will genuinely do some good, and it’s a great way to assuage any guilt generated by your ungratefulness.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Seems to work perfectly for her.
Non rubbish
And best gift EVER!!
Did you check out the video I Freepmailed to you? The woman in the mini bus is supposed to represent “lady” GaGa. The ending cost me a keyboard.
Plant wheat instead of chia. It is the right color and stylable.
My great grandchirruns will have my unopened Donald Chia pet to sell on EBAY for fourteen million somalians one day.
I looked at the mail but not the video yet. In between posts I am trying to get the house cleaned before my wife wakes up. Another Christmas present to her.
I have a Billy Carter coffee cup. What do you offer? :o)
Well arn’t you a sweetheart. No wonder the boomboom.
I'll start the bidding at one Chelsea Clinton prom dress (mint condition/never worn) and a Ron Reagan Jr. Liberace fan club membership card (with signature).
You know you are getting old when you pull a tube of eye cream out of your Christmas stocking.
I do appreciate it though.
Had more than my share of ‘wrong’ size gifts, some not wanted, I re-gift them to someone else if In can’t exchange them. Hubby knows to get me Amazon gift cards.
Which is how I bought gifts this year, a 3 month old granddaughter is not hard to buy for, my boys aren’t either. Hubby is the hard 1, he has everything he wants. We’d just got him a replacement for his 20 yr old Ham Radio 3 months ago. Or we pool the money and buy a nice expensive item we both want, like the double recliner I’m sitting on that has a motor to raise and lower it. Last yr was a split King Tempur Pedic sleep number bed that is motorized. Next year we are thinking about springing for a new Mid-size SUV with the bells and whistles.
Wow, I wouldn’t know how to react if Mr. b was able to find a trash can just once.
We didn’t do presents this year. It was nice.
We haven’t done adult gifts in 20 years. Only buy for the kids. At one time it was the daughter and nephew. Now it’s their kids. Makes life so much easier.
My daughter gave me a ceramic frog she Pepe-fied hehe.
Oooooo...Daddy likey!!
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