Attention shoppers: A primer on gift-buying

By KAREN HELLER

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

A good gift is a beautiful thing, but a bad one is a memory forever.

Bad gifts provide an ancillary kick, the gift of laughter. The worst present can induce an indelible moment of mirth.

To wit: the fake-fur Monopoly rug. Who knows how many synthetics suffered for the thing? Debate lingers as to whether the “fur” was vile green or Cookie Monster-blue, but the object’s absurdity is not in question.

The older people get, the more intractable they tend to be in their desires. This is also true of adolescents who ask for everything by name, label and universal product code.

Babies are as enchanted with the box as with the gift inside. Parents adore every object their children make. Grandparents, too.

The basic gift-giving dilemma comes down to surprise versus the sure thing. Plenty of people hate surprises, every unknown potentially a bad clam. Surprises, the good kind, are as rare as a Christmas snowfall.

In the gift-giving world, a “surprise” is often not one at all but rather the iPod or devastatingly gorgeous earrings that were hinted at several thousand times.

A massage

If you must surprise, make sure you know the person well. Or make the surprise either a small gift or a remarkable experience, a massage, a balloon ride, a night out to see a favorite musical performer.

The more grand the gift, the stronger the reaction the giver expects. It puts pressure on the recipient to provide exceptional joy, a response that may never occur.

Bad gifts show no thought about the recipient, and reflect poorly on the giver. She gives you a bright-yellow scarf because she loves the color. Or flavored popcorn, and too much of it, because it’s his favorite food. It shows a naivete, nigh unto ignorance, and a soupcon of arrogance.

So, listen. Ask. Observe. Every gift, in a sense, is a reflection of the giver. The best gift givers take some time, some thought, to understand the taste and desires of the recipient.

Say you dislike vests. That’s an understatement. You loathe them. You believe they make everyone look like an ’80s sitcom star, without the mullet. Your friend/sweetheart/uncle loves them.

Do you buy a vest? No, you do not. Because sometimes intervention is necessary. And you shouldn’t be an accessory to such crimes.

The best gifts are the ones you might buy yourself if you were a particularly pampered and indulgent sort of person. They’re treats, a small escape from quotidian life.

Rules

When giving, here are some other rules worth following:

Never guess a woman’s fragrance. The success rate in this endeavor is slim. She’s already sniffed her way through a few hundred to find what she likes. Buy the scent she loves.

Never guess with teenagers. They know precisely what they want. Gift cards can be a crass gift from one adult to another because the dollar amount is revealed. But they were made for adolescents and save you lots of time and headaches.

Socks? No, nyet, nunca. Except as stocking-stuffers.

If you buy lingerie at the last minute, which many men do, you will falter. She knows her needs, her desires, her size, and her discomfort level better than you do. Don’t fool yourself. She doesn’t want a corset.

X Karen Heller is a columnist for Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.