The countdown is on. Christmas is almost here. Do you have your gifts bought?
Yeah. Me neither.
It’s not that I don’t love giving gifts. I do. But when social conventions dictate a gift, I suddenly hate giving them.
There are tons of places you can find gift giving advice and ideas and they are great ideas, but it doesn’t take away my thought that we shouldn’t give gifts because the calendar says we should.
We should give gifts because we want to.
We see something that would be perfect. We purchase it or make it and give it.
Just because.
The just because gift is lost among the Christmases, birthdays, Mother’s Days, Father’s Days, bridal and bay showers, and the worst of all gift giving days – Valentine’s Day.
We should not feel obligated to give gifts to the people in our lives. We should want to give gifts that show we care on any given day. The thing is people expect to receive gifts on specific days, so it is hard to decide on your own to skip giving gifts on dates that dictate one.
The other thing is if we receive a rare just because gift, we don’t merely feel thankful that someone thought of us. We do feel appreciated, but we also feel a tiny bit of guilt that we didn’t give him or her a gift. We think we must reciprocate in some way. When will the guilt and obligation of gift giving go away?
There is little you can do about the expectation of others, but you can take away some of the guilt and obligation by giving more just because gifts. They don’t have to extravagant or expensive. In fact, it is better if they aren’t. Give a gift because if makes you think of someone or because you know it will be loved.
Just because.