Olympic Gifter
My daughter has long been the best gift giver I know. Sometimes her presents are practical—like the Smeg toaster that I didn’t know I needed but can’t imagine being without. Or the towel I wrap my hair up in after a shower. Or the amazing vacuum that sucks up debris from every type of flooring in our home. Some of her gifts are creations—artfiully painted canvas signs, or photographs, or albums painstakingly organized to tell a story she knows I’d like to be able to get to and hold in my hands. But everything she gives—pragmatic or sentimental-- is wrapped in insightful paper that’s stuck together with I-get-you tape. Her presents say, “You are loved” and “You are celebrated,” certainly. But mostly they say to those of us lucky enough to receive them, “You are known.” That might be the greatest gift of all.
Gift-giving is an art and a science. It takes time. Creativity. And others-over-self thinking. It’s not an easy thing to do—well, anyway. Money doesn’t hurt, but it rarely makes or breaks the gesture. It’s the angle the giver comes in at that is key. Elite gifters don’t just give you what they know you want, they give you what they know you’d never go get for yourself. And sometimes they get you things you never even knew you had to have until you had them. In other words, they choose the side window in lieu of the front or back door. Our favorite Cracker Jack prizes are rarely the ones we ask for, but most often the ones we couldn’t see coming no matter how hard we look. All-Star gift givers don’t scan the pages of best-seller lists to select a trendy gift. They think long and hard about what makes you you, and follow the breadcrumbs from there.
When I was in college, one of my friends gave me a lap desk. It’s a piece of wood stuffed on the back side like a pillow covered in fabric neatly thumbtacked at the border like a hem. On the wooden side, she glued pictures, headlines, quotes, pieces of poems…a plethora of the things she knew I loved. Then she covered the collage in some sort of clear epoxy-like substance that dried smooth and tough, creating a perfect writing surface that looks as good today as it did the day she gave it to me. Thirty plus years later, I still use it. And it screams “Alli!” every time I pick it up. Alli made it. In her bedroom between cross country practice, a part-time job and a double major course load that would drown most normal humans, she made it. With her hands, her heart and the intentionality that so defines her, she gave me a gift that would endure just like our friendship. Alli knew. She knew who I was, what I enjoyed, what I dreamed I might someday do and be. I see that lap desk on the floor leaning up against the couch now, and I smile because I love the giver who saw inside of me.
It's easy to get gift-giving all jacked-up, though. I’m as guilty as anyone. Despite our purest intentions, sometimes we buy or make-- and ultimately give-- what we want somebody to have. But that’s the easy way out. Great gifts don’t have anything to do with what the giver loves or appreciates or values (or spends!). The best ones simply make the heart of the receiver sing.
And from there a boomerang flies.
It really doesn’t matter what a gift is… how much it does or doesn’t cost… whether or not we care for it ourselves…if it’s purely practical or deeply personal…. What matters is that it hits the intended’s sweet spot. When a gift sticks its landing, joy scatters in all directions. Like an edict given by Oprah, “You! And You! And YOU get a car!” The receiver’s joy becomes a gift returned to you.
On my Christmas tree amidst Santa on a surfboard, the popsicle-stick photo frame of my daughter in a Santa hat, a lemon from Positano, Italy, and hundreds of other memories suspended by thin metal hooks, hang two ornaments both given to me by a dear forever friend. Even though we don’t exchange presents at the holidays, the Christmas after my granny passed, Beth sent me a silver ornament to commemorate her life. It hangs from a red satin ribbon with a verse on the front and the years of Granny’s life on the back. Ten years later, on the Christmas following the spring when my dad received his wings, a gift arrived in the mail from Beth. It was another silver ornament. This one said, “Joe Buben,” in memory of my dad.
Engraved silver ornaments are fairly inexpensive. Anybody can buy them. But Beth’s the one who did. She knows how to fill the gaps in me that I keep under wraps.
That’s what Olympic level gifters do. They see what isn’t obvious because they know where to look. Then with disciplined intention, they act on what they find.
They get you. Could there be a greater gift?
P.S. Gift of the Magi