MetaChat - Santa vs. Scrooge

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14 December 2007

Santa vs. Scrooge I'm pondering why some people love picking out gifts for people and why others don't. And no, I don't think it's because the people who don't are cheap - the Scrooge thing was just the first title that occurred to me;-)→[More:]

This thread on AskMe about how to be a good gift giver got me thinking about the whole gift giving endeavour. I really enjoy selecting and making gifts. I like the intellectual exercise of figuring out what the person would like, and love the Lady Bountiful feeling of being generous. To my mind the ultimate success in gift giving is when you give someone something they never would have thought of asking for but really love and use to death. I’m very complimented when I later see something I’ve made, like a sweater, is looking worn. I really enjoy thinking about the person I care about, pondering their interests, needs and tastes, and coming to conclusions like, “Hmm, my little niece loves to draw so much but she isn’t showing any especial talent for it. Maybe that’s due to lack of proper instruction at school rather than lack of ability, though, so I’ll get her a kid’s art instruction book for her birthday.”

I don’t really get people who don’t like picking out gifts. There does seem to be a gender divide in this area, with men much more likely to hate present selection than women, though of course I can think of lots of exceptions. All the women in my family like picking out presents as much as I do, but the men seem to hate Christmas shopping and leave it to the women as much as they can, or procrastinate until Christmas Eve (and who wouldn’t hate shopping then – shudder). A TV program I saw years ago did a little segment on how much men hate Christmas shopping. The crew put monitors on the men and sent them shopping and found their stress levels went up to the equivalent of fighter pilots or cops doing crowd control.

The problem for people who hate preparing gifts seems to lie in hating having to select the gifts, rather than minding merely buying things. My sister-in-law gave my brother a general list and sent him out to do the Christmas shopping a few years ago (after two decades of doing it all herself). He did just fine. A friend of mine has to tell her husband what to get her. One year she refused to tell him what to buy her for her birthday, insisting she wanted to be surprised… so he didn’t get her anything at all. A married couple I know say they never buy each other gifts anymore because they just don’t enjoy selecting things for each other and worrying that the other person might not like it.

I don’t think it’s usually the case that people who don’t enjoy selecting gifts aren’t good at it. It’s been my observation that most of them do very well at picking out stuff when they make the effort. Maybe it's more of a confidence issue?

But I'm groping in the dark here. If you don’t like this process of buying gifts, can you explain why?

post by: Orange Swan at: 13:50 | 13 comments

Ms just picks her stuff out and then I wrap it when it comes in the mail. I got her a really cool handmade purse last year at this awesome little place in Shrewsbury... and she's never used it :-(

posted by chuckdarwin 14 December | 14:01

I just wanted to pop in to say that I taught my students the words "stingy" and "a scrooge" on Thursday, in a lesson on social customs and gift-giving around the world. Heh.

posted by mdonley 14 December | 14:03

I started liking the process of getting gifts much much much more when my list of gift recipients got much shorter (at this point, pretty much just immediate family and boyfriend). I love to take the time and care to select gifts -- but only if I can be limited to 4 or 5 people. More than that, I just get overwhelmed and annoyed and stressed out.

I also have developed a pretty small tolerance for dealing with stores, no matter what time of year it is. I don't like shopping for more than about an hour, total; I start to get anxious and crabby. So the internet has helped a great deal in refinding my shopping joy. :-)

posted by occhiblu 14 December | 14:04

or procrastinate until Christmas Eve (and who wouldn’t hate shopping then – shudder)

Gah. It must be dreadful.

The idea of shopping on Christmas Eve always makes me recall the fellow who frantically knocked on my shop door as I was closing one Christmas Eve. He needed a pair of earrings for his wife. After deliberating for 20 minutes or so, he decided... sort of.

"Uh... you know, I'll think it over and come back later."

"Sir," I told him as gently as I could, "this is later."

posted by Elsa 14 December | 14:14

Orange Swan, I think it's a family tradition issue. If your family of origin did Lists past the age of Santa belief, then you get squirmy without a list. If each year you thought about what to give the other people in the house, that's the way you'll do it as an adult. You'll probably also (like me) flinch at being asked to make a list.

I'm in a mixed marriage in this regard. It can stress.

posted by rainbaby 14 December | 14:16

"... If you don’t like this process of buying gifts, can you explain why?"
post by: Orange Swan at: 13:50

I don't like shopping, in the first place.
Christmas shopping crowds, especially, make me feel like I'm another goober, about to be turned into peanut butter.
Between Black Friday "specials," Pre-Christmas "sales," "seasonal markdowns," and "Christmas close outs," all I know is I probably got taken for 50% more than anything I bought is worth.
There's a 99.999% chance that anything I buy won't fit its intended recipient, is the wrong color, or they're fatally allergic to it.
If I give 'em something nice, they're embarrassed about the $2 glass jar of stale toffee they gave me, again, this year. If I give 'em something worth $2, and smile when I open the stale toffee I get, I'm cheap.
I'm not hard to buy for, you are, damn it!
Stores never hire size 16, 18, 20 and 22 size sales girls, and girls I want to buy minks for are never size 4, so, it's impossible to see if the damned things fit, before I buy.
If I have to listen to another PeTA lecture about fur, I'm moving to Siberia.
Having to show ID to spend cash.
Involuntarily keeping an eye out for defensive positions as I move around in shopping malls.
Shopping mall parking lots.
Retail people who don't know their stock.
"X freakin' shopping days left" type date "reminders".

Bah freakin' humbug.

I'd rather go hunting.

posted by paulsc 14 December | 14:35

I really enjoy thinking about the person I care about, pondering their interests, needs and tastes

This is the heart of it. If you really know someone's interests and tastes, then gift buying is a great pleasure. But if you have people who you really don't know that well, but for whom you're still obliged to buy gifts for, it's a stressful chore.

Orange Swan, you sound like one of those nice people who are switched on to remembering their friends and family's likes and interests without really thinking about it, so gift-buying is, for you, a pleasure. But there are those of us (and this is quite likely the man/woman aspect of the equation) who can have good friends/acquaintances and still be hilariously unaware of what makes them tick in a gift-receiving capacity.

I don't know what it is, but it's similar to the way some people can remember all their conversations very vividly and other people just, well, can't.

So you end up having to buy gifts for people you do actually care about, but for some reason your emotional memory just isn't clued in to the practicalities of what they do or like. It's very frustrating. And, I imagine, hard to understand for someone who thinks of and remembers this stuff quite naturally.

Personally I find is that there are a few people who I know really deeply, and I'm constantly thinking of things that they'd like, and buying gifts for them and seeing them open them is a great pleasure. And then there are people who, for all intents and purposes, I'm practically as close to, but for whom good present ideas just don't suggest themselves automatically, for some reason.

And because you're close to them, you desperately want to get them something they'll love, and if you sit down and make an intellectual exercise of it and rack your brains to think about things they've spoken about with you, then it's possible to come up with something good. But the fact that you have to make such a conscious effort about it is hugely infuriating. It borders on upsetting, because it makes you think that you're not in tune with this person as much as you feel you should be.

That's my take on it, anyway.

posted by chrismear 14 December | 14:51

I hate getting (and providing) lists. I'm not doing your shopping for you, buddy: I'm getting you a gift.

posted by eamondaly 14 December | 15:06

I'm not at all into shopping for gifts... or shopping for myself... or shopping at all. It's pretty much always just something I have to get through.

When I do have an absolute idea of what someone might really like (this year, my nephew! He's way into dinosaurs! I can so gift him something awesome!), and a place to find what I want to give them, then it's cool. But it hardly ever happens.

Also, I'm a person who doesn't ever buy for herself very much, so I'm not really in the zone, not a good shopper, not a happy shopper. (I bought the nephew Dinosaur things online; so far it's the only shopping I've quite managed to do. :(0 )

posted by taz 14 December | 15:56

Paulsc, I would willing go and try on furs for you. ;^> If you ever need a curvy fur model, Here I Am. (tee hee)

I love to pick out things for most people, things they may like, things they mentioned in the past (a sample: my Mom mentioned this year that she loved perfume made of patchuolie (spelling?) and I found one to surprise her with). However, for some people, gift giving is a pain. One of my sisters-in-law never wants anything, so it's a shot in the dark to pick something out for her. Oh, sure, I can give her gift cards, but dammit, I like something people can open up!

As for Christmas Eve shopping..my ex-husband once went to a Jets game (or was it a Giants game?) several years ago on Christmas Eve. My Christmas gift? A tee-shirt bought from some guy in the parking lot. Wheeee.

posted by redvixen 14 December | 20:08

I like picking out gifts for people I care for. I really fucking hate christmas. I don't think the two statements are mutually exclusive.

posted by eekacat 15 December | 00:30

Fuck you and fuck your consumerist culture. I'll buy who I want what I want when I want.

I just wanted to pop in to say that I taught my students the words "stingy" and "a scrooge" on Thursday, in a lesson on social customs and gift-giving around the world.

"A scrooge" isn't a word. "Scrooge" is a name of a character in a book. Later, it was the name (first name, not surname) of a Duck. And it's racist against the Scottish.

posted by Eideteker 15 December | 13:42

"A scrooge" isn't a word.

It's in Merriam-Webster and the OED. It's not uncommon for proper nouns to become common nouns that refer to the original proper noun.

posted by grouse 15 December | 13:58

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