It's Thanksgiving: a glistening turkey bedecks the table. The scent
of cinnamon hovers in the oven. Inhale deeply, and you can even
smell...the fear. That's right: less than 30 shopping days left before
Christmas! Chances are, if you're like most American consumers, you
already know that. Chances are, too, that you find it annoying. You
resent the relentless commercialism of the holidays, the nagging feeling
that you must identify and purchase the right present for each person on
your list, the endless strategizing, shopping, wrapping and
exchanging.
And then the unwrapping, when you cringe in dread, waiting to see
if your spurt of spending paid off: Will they like it? Are they just
pretending? Why can't I tell? Then it's your turn to take center stage.
You smile bravely as your unwrapping reveals...ahh...a sweater in a
putrid shade of green ("Oh, it's perfect! It will go with my favorite
skin") or... hmm... the latest power drill, though you have trouble even
screwing in a light bulb ("It's great. Now I can put up those shelves in
my den"). Such playacting, such stress, such exhaustion.
No question: if the holidays are hell, then the gift-giving ritual
is one of its red-hot centers. "For most people," says William Doherty,
Ph.D., professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota,
"giving gifts is the most nerve-wracking part of the entire
season."
Why must a ritual that we believe should be relaxed and joyful be
so tortured? The answer is that we pack a lot of psychological baggage
into those niftily wrapped packages. While a cigar is sometimes a cigar,
a gift is almost never just a gift. We romanticize the exchange of
presents as a simple, loving gesture, but in fact it's "a fundamental
form of human communication," says anthropologist Richard Handler, Ph.D.,
of the University of Virginia. Gifts come freighted with hidden meanings
and purposes. When exchanged between members of tribes, business
acquaintances or heads of state, gifts are tokens of status, respect and
appreciation. "They create and cement alliances, allegiances and
partnerships," explains Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., author of Influence: The
Psychology of Persuasion.
In more intimate relationships with family and friends, they take
on more personal---and powerful---meaning. "Gifts are symbols of our
love," says Ronald Nathan, Ph.D., clinical professor in the department of
family practice at Albany Medical College in New York. As such, they
signify what we think of each other, what we know of each other. Around
each gift swirl essential questions: How well do you understand me? How
well do you love me?
Many givers get the answers wrong. Each year Americans fork over
$40 billion for holiday presents, or an average of $75 for each person.
And up to $4 billion of that money goes for gifts that recipients don't
appreciate, according to Wharton professor Joel Waldfogel, Ph. D. Woe
betide unsuccessful givers. They hear the silent cry: If you don't
understand me, how well can you love me?
With so much at stake, gift giving becomes a high-wire act that
sends the stress meter over the top. Picking presents unleashes a fury of
calculations that could tax a Nobel economist. A proper Christmas gift
must fulfill some basic requirements, discovered social scientist
Theodore Caplow and colleagues, who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
scrutinized the gift-giving habits of 350 Muncie, Indiana, families. It
must surprise the recipient, it must show familiarity with his or her
tastes and its cost must reflect the perceived emotional value of the
relationship between the giver and "givee."
Another basic rule: reciprocity. "You want to give a gift proximate
in value to the gift you expect to receive," observes Doherty. And since
you give based on what you expect to get back, you factor in what that
person has given you in the past. Receiving a gift that seems to be far
more expensive than the one you give--or far less--is more than
embarrassing. It can stir resentment in the purest heart as well as raise
questions about motive and character. "A man who gives a woman an
unusually elaborate or expensive gift may leave her feeling that he
prefers to offer an object instead of his love," notes Dickson Diamond,
M.D., a psychiatrist in Washington, D.C.
Figured into the gift-giving equation, too, is the relationship of
the recipient to the most central people in the family: gifts given to
others must be proportionate in value to those given to the primary
figures. "So, for example," Doherty explains, "you'd never give your
nephew, even your favorite one, a gift that seems worth more than the one
you give your son."
Spouses must not slight each other's parents; they can't give their
own mother or father a gift that dwarfs that presented to their parental
in-laws. So, too, must siblings be careful not to favor their own brother
or sister at the expense of their brother's or sister's spouse: a
perceived puny present to a brother-in-law gets the tension wires
humming.
Of course, parents giving gifts to their adult children had better
be fair and equitable, because their kids are weighing and measuring the
size and value of every trinket and every flourish of ribbon presented to
each sibling--and have been since they were tots. One misstep in the gift
department can reawaken every sibling rivalry and felt inequity of
childhood. Moreover, stepchildren mustn't be overlooked for biological
offspring.
Tags:
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