Is it Really a Gift...
or are you giving an obligation?
I’m in the midst of one of those weeks where deadlines converge. I’m pushing to finish projects before everything shuts down for the holidays. In an effort to conserve a bit of bandwidth, what follows is one of the first pieces I wrote for A Good Yarn, originally published November 23, 2023. I hope it will encourage you to look at your holiday gift giving (and especially gift making) with a fresh eye.
I do not knit holiday gifts and I do very little gift shopping. I opt out of much of the holiday stress. Does this mean I’m a Scrooge? Not at all. I enjoy the magical twinkle of holiday lights in the neighborhood, I watch It’s a Wonderful Life every year, and I listen to holiday music during the last two weeks of December.
I’ve eliminated much of the stress around the holidays by following these simple rules for gift giving:
Remember the definition of gift.
A gift is an item given to someone without expecting anything in return. It follows that what happens to a gift after you give it is none of your business. The recipient may treasure your gift, or they may return it, ruin it, give it away, or even throw it away. If your feelings will be hurt if your gift isn’t appreciated or cared for, then it wasn’t a gift. It was an obligation.
If you want to give a gift, ask for specific suggestions.
Try not to assume you understand all the nuances of the recipient’s taste. Most people are happy to tell you what they would like to receive. If someone asks you to knit for them, let them help you choose the pattern and the yarn. Nothing is sadder than making someone a sweater or hat they have asked for only to have them hate the color.
Sometimes the best gift is a gift card.
I once heard a woman tell a story about knitting a shawl for her college-age granddaughter, who did not live nearby. She chose an intricate lace pattern and bought expensive, hand-painted silk yarn and pearl beads. She spent many hours on this challenging project, all the while envisioning her granddaughter attending dances and fancy college events with this lace shawl gracefully draped around her shoulders.
You can probably guess what happened. On Christmas Day, the knitter asked her son about the gifts she had sent. He sent her a picture of the granddaughter with the shawl haphazardly wrapped around her neck and an expression of annoyance on her face.
There was clearly a disconnect between the knitter’s idea of her granddaughter and the young woman’s idea of herself. A gift card would have allowed the granddaughter to buy the clothes she wants or needs and would have saved the knitter from the disappointment of investing so much on a gift that missed the mark.
Anything marketed as a gift is probably just a tchotchke, and no one needs more tchotchkes.
The exception to this rule is Harry and David gift baskets. Everybody likes those.
Don’t spend money you don’t have buying people things they don’t need.
Going into debt to buy holiday gifts makes no sense at all.
I let it be known that I do not knit gifts. As a designer of hand knitting patterns, knitting is part of my job. As a freelancer, I need to spend my knitting time on work for which I’ll be paid.
Of course, there are always exceptions. My son knows I will gladly make him anything he wants. If he tells me his dog needs a winter sweater, I respond with a list of the measurements required. A new bag to hold his D&D dice? I dig in my yarn stash for cotton in his favorite colors. But I don’t send him unsolicited hand knits.
The other exception is my mother. She has a collection of socks I have knit for her over the years, and she loves to wear them. She washes her wool socks with care and darns the heels when they become thin. Seeing her feet encased in colorful socks with evidence of careful mending on the heels? That is a gift for me! I will happily continue to knit socks for Mom.
As always, I’m grateful for the time and attention you share with me each week. In these next few weeks heading into the height of the Holiday season, I hope each of us can take a few moments to refresh our well of kindness. Frenzy and crowds and endless to-do lists deplete that reservoir all too quickly.
I’ll be back next week with a new piece about knitting and fresh book recommendations. (I’ve listened to some fantastic audiobooks recently.)
Continue the conversation: How do you approach holiday gift-giving? Do you knit holiday gifts? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
I totally agree about Christmas presents. For years I ran around like a lunatic shopping for presents for family and friends. It was exhausting and expensive. One year, as all the little kids in the family arrived at college age, we decided to get together for a great Christmas meal but to skip the presents. We’ve never looked back. A few new members to the family had a hard time with it at first but love it now. Throughout the year, if someone admires something I’ve made, they know they can ask and it will be theirs. My grandson and his wife just bought a house. We moved into a house that could not easily accommodate all the things we loved so they shopped our house and rented a van, loaded it up and now those pieces have a new life with two people we dearly love. That makes me smile. My granddaughter admired some jewelry I wore regularly when I was working but don’t anymore. Now they are hers. That works so well for all of us. Happy Holidays. I really enjoy your posts. Years ago, when you had a yarn shop in Sebastopol, I took a top down knitting class from you and loved it so much that I’ve never stopped knitting. Thank you for that.
Bless the gift and let it go. For all kinds of giving, including $ to the person begging on the street. That’s very hard work; who am I to judge what that human being needs? Who am I to judge? Thank you for the reminder.