resolving my anxiety over gift giving.

local – 7 nov 2017

Gift giving.

It should be fun, right? We have the means to give gifts. I love to give, whether it be time or otherwise.

But Christmas and birthdays. The gift acquisition process is an anxiety-ridden, stressful, axe over my head experience for me. My stress levels soar. I really hate buying things. For me and for others. I don’t want stuff. I don’t want to buy others stuff that they don’t want. But how do I know what they might want or like? Perhaps some people can intuit this; I can’t.

A couple years ago, I proposed to the immediate family that we each get “something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read.” I had read about this simple plan, and thought it was a near perfect solution to reduce my PANIC – let’s buy EVERYTHING – problem. It has worked fairly well for us as a family these past years. We still add in some stocking stuffers, but now don’t go overboard.

While shopping this year, I decided that I need to come up with a new plan for gift buying for the extended family (both Christmas and birthday) to make it easier and less stressful for me. First, I won’t wait until after Thanksgiving to buy Christmas gifts – that adds to my stress, it doesn’t reduce it as I had claimed. And, more importantly, unless I come across an awesome book or gadget (looking at Etee for future gift idea), I will mostly be buying from local artists. If the gift I give doesn’t catch the fancy of the recipient, I at least can be sure that my purchase has helped a local artist further their craft….