Do you carefully choose just the right gift for each person on your list? Or just grab the first things you see and hope for the best? What do YOU do with gifts you receive that you don’t want or can’t use?
Certainly we don’t want our gifts to become future clutter. Every Christmas a former client and her family drove south to visit her parents, toting an empty trailer behind their car. You guessed it! The trailer was full of presents on the return trip, many of which were unneeded or unwanted things that added clutter to their beautiful home. It is better to give one or two cherished gifts than a bunch of smaller not-so-great ones.
Regifting is appropriate as long as the gift is brand new, something the person actually wants and the original gift-giver is not associated in any way with your recipient. If you received a slow-cooker last year but hate to cook, regift it to someone who will enjoy using it.
You also may want to consider if your recipients have space to store your gifts if they are on the large size.
There are lots of wonderful gifts you can tailor to each person that don’t take much, if any, space to store, won’t become clutter and can be done on your computer. No overcrowded stores or long lines to suffer through! If you need some last-minute gifts, here are 12 tips.
1. Pack of movie tickets
2. Tickets to a play
3. Flower bouquet or fruit basket (one or one-a-month plan)
4. Dinner at a favorite restaurant
5. Dance lessons
6. Weekend cruise to nowhere
7. Overnight or weekend at a bed-and-breakfast or hotel
8. Offer your time to babysit, shop or visit
9. Magazine subscription
10. Sporting event
11. Netflix subscription
12. Gift certificate to a favorite store
Keeping it simple is a gift to yourself too!
Notable Quote
Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment. ~Sydney Smith