I’m a little embarassed to admit this, but I am a gift giving catastrophe. No, I don’t stumble and break them before giving. Whenever it is gift-giving time, it just takes me an extremely long time to move beyond the decision stage. I don’t know why my ideas seem to me to lack any originality. My solution, as you may have guessed by this time, is the Internet.
The Internet is full of the usual and the unusual when it comes to gift suggestions. Now I realize that everyone is out to make a buck, but that doesn’t bother me in the least. I figure if someone can help me solve my gift quandry, then they deserve to make a profit from my purchase. I’m an American, and we think of that as patriotism.
Where else except the Internet could I have learned that I could get my mother a New York cheesecake instead of the same boring chocolate cake I usually sent her? Fortunately, I can stretch this one idea out for many years simply by changing the flavor of cheesecake from one birthday to the next.
My sister-in-law has my same decision making problem. She went online and discovered a jewelry idea for her aunt (on the good side of the family–not mine). It worked out beautifully for her but it raised the bar to a higher standard for me.
You can find gift ideas by searching for age groups, say teenagers (with whom I most the most trouble) and children. You can also use a search engine to find articles recommending gifts of all the gift giving occasions from Bat Mitzvahs or Easter, birthdays to graduations, or even what I lovingly refer to as the “Hallmark holidays,” such as Valentine’s Day or Sweetest Day or take your terrier to work day. You can even search by the category of the item that you want to give. For example, you might know that you want to give a video game for a Playstation, a piece of jewelry that includes diamonds (you’ve just moved out of my price range) or even a gift for a dog.
Indeed, there are entire websites dedicated to people who give gift ideas for gift klutzes like me to steal and claim them as our own. If you happen to be one of those sorts of blessed people with too many ideas to use yourself, consider sharing them with me so that I can steal them from you and take the credit. Just publish them online. You can count on my everlasting appreciation.
