HOLIDAY SHOPPING

Holiday shopping and I have a love/hate relationship. I love to shop, and I love to give gifts, but I greatly dislike trying to pick out gifts for other people. I don't buy into the saying "it's the thought that counts", because if you give someone something they do not like or will not use, that is all they are going to remember. "So and so gives the worst gifts! It's as if the don't know me at all!". I hate getting horrible gifts, and even more so I hate giving horrible gifts. It's a lot of pressure.

There are many phases of receiving a gift you hate -
1. what were they thinking?
2. what the heck am I supposed to do with this?
3. feelings of guilt because you hate the gift
4. who can I give this to that may like it and the giver will never find out? (I am not a re-gifter, I think that is horribly tacky. In this instance I simply mean "hey, I am never going to use this and I thought you might be able to")
5. in the instance it is simply too horrible to pass along, how long do I need to keep this dust-collector before I don't feel bad about throwing it out?

The worst part is that someone at some point in time (I believe many horrible gifts are actually tacky re-gifting I mentioned before) actually spent hard-earned money on the gift. So sad...

Throughout the year, there are definitely signs of what to buy your loved ones - little mentions of interests or desires that you make mental notes of to be tucked away and conveniently retrieved just at the perfect moment when you finally have time to shop for them. Funny how they are nowhere to be found when you are standing in the mall with credit card in hand. Then major stress sets in, because you are starting from scratch. And the clock is ticking.

So what's the solution? Gift cards? Yeah, I hate those, too. But people love getting them, like it's a get out of jail free card. "Yay! Now I can go buy something I actually want!" OK, that's understandable. However it does not satisfy the love of shopping, nor the love of gift giving. It kind of leaves you empty and hollow inside, instead of that warm fuzzy feeling when you know you picked just the right thing.

Oh, holiday shopping - how I love and hate it!