Christmas has come and gone once again. Maybe you’re one of the unfortunates and your birthday is very close to the national Buy-Stuff-For-Others-To-Prove-Your-Love holiday. Now your birthday has come and gone as well, along with receiving what you know is the second Christmas present you would have received had your birthday landed a reasonable amount of time past the more famous birthday. Perhaps, too, sitting in your closet in a box under an old shirt next to that dusty crate of classic 45’s is the gift your well-meaning fill-in-the-blank friend or family member gave you with the most sincerity you’ve ever read in another human being’s face. Chances are you opened the present, realized you had absolutely no desire for the thing, but put on your best “thanks a lot for this fantastic piece of print-appropriate expletive” smile, and said how much you appreciated the thought.
So, as Roger Daltery asked, who are you? Are you the type who is the most honest and as kind as you can, say you don’t need another tie/ratchet set/bottle of perfume and suggest giving you the receipt so you can get what you actually want? Maybe you’re the type thinking about that space now taken up by a white elephant, possibly an actual porcelain one, but the well-intentioned face of your friend or family member comes to mind and you’ve already recalculated the square footage of your domicile subtracting every inch of the object which shall not be named.
The practical side of me says it’s important for gift givers to know if their efforts will ultimately go to waste, especially if they may be making a birthday purchase in the future. I like to think when I give a gift it will be used to its utmost and not end up behind the luggage in the attic. So, if I got it wrong, let me know.
However, the emotional side of me says gift giving should be more about appreciation and generosity. That part assumes the giver would be absolutely devastated if I didn’t have a life altering look on my face.
Somewhere in the middle is the re-gifter, the side of me completely appreciative of just getting anything, while at the same time crafting clever ways to put the object I may not actually want in the hands of someone who will…like maybe a thrift store.
Whatever type you are, if the gift came from the heart, respond in kind. Don’t be like the childhood version of me. I talked about G.I. Joes a whole year until November when the A Team toys came out. The way my mom tells the story, I quickly changed my tune and wanted nothing but Mr. T, but it was too late to return all of that. Christmas morning was not a happy one with my attitude; I did not have the Christmas Spirit. As adults, let’s avoid forgetting our generosity and keep it alive even though it’s past December 25.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: What type of giver are you?