Conscious Choice: Mindful Giving in Material Times

November 2000

Mindful Giving in Material Times

by Dina April

I have a friend who is an incredible gift giver. She always seems to find the most perfect "little something" for every occasion. And she usually pays a discounted price to boot.

Frankly, I’m a bit jealous of my friend’s gift giving talents because my life has been overtaken by "present frenzy." No longer do I have the time for leisurely shopping expeditions where I can browse for just the right gift months in advance of a holiday. No, this kind of attention to detail isn’t possible when there are family and friends’ birthdays every month; children’s birthday parties; teacher gifts; and gifts for the boss, the brownie leader, and the baseball coach.

I seem to remember finding the search for that special something a challenging hunt. Now I meet each coming holiday with an all-consuming dread. What do I buy this time?! Can I find it quickly and cheaply — and will it be liked? I become sleepless. I become overwhelmed. My checkbook balance plummets.

What about giving has brought me to the brink? Having an incredibly over-scheduled life may be the first culprit. As a working mom, I find mindful shopping a luxury that can be indulged just a few times a year. And, frankly, when an extra half hour does appear in my schedule, exercise, a warm bath, or a provocative novel seem more appealing. Second, the expectations surrounding gift giving seem to have increased. When once, a small but thoughtful trinket was well appreciated, now larger and increased quantities of presents seem to be the norm. At my son’s last birthday party, his friends brought two, even three gifts when one would have sufficed. Finally, and probably most importantly, I think many of us are using purchases to try to shore up our sense of self.

As Juliet Schor, author of The Overspent American commented recently on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, "We invest our commodities with deep meaning throughout the year. When we buy a car today, we’re not buying it — most people don’t buy it—merely to get from place to place, they buy it because it says something about themselves, because they have an identification with it, because they have an emotional attachment."

Similarly, we use gift giving to express who we are as givers. As a way of expressing one’s identity, however, the small, kind gesture feels like it’s just not good enough. Just recently, a group of my friends and I got together to celebrate our friend Alice’s birthday. We met at a coffee house, ate cake, and participated in wonderful conversation. We all pitched in for a gift for our friend. Everyone had such a great time that evening that we decided to form a birthday club and do this kind of get together for each of our birthdays. We decided to eliminate the gift part of the evening and concentrate on just being with each other. Wouldn’t you know it, at the next birthday club coffee, one woman showed up with a gift. Not only did this make the others feel uncomfortable, it was embarrassing for the recipient. Nevertheless, the gift-giver said she couldn’t possibly attend without a gift. She has continued to dun the birthday honoree with presents every month.

Psychologist Michelle Navarro, sees many aspects of this "over-gifting" phenomenon in relation to self-esteem. "People quantify how much they are worth by the number and quality of the gifts they give," she says. She suggests that many individuals don’t feel comfortable giving to themselves so they tend to give gifts in order to receive gifts in return. When one lacks self-esteem, according to Navarro, self-nurture produces guilt. In order to avoid the guilt, many people resort to manipulative means — such as gift-giving — to get their own needs met. In the end, the excessive gift giving we are experiencing as a society may be much more about internal inadequacies than external expectations.

But why is it that we are so invested in the material items we purchase for ourselves and for others? Psychologist Navarro suggests that many of us are addicted to acquisition. The difficult thing is that our entire society/economy is the pusher. But, as Schor contends, "we can’t expect holidays to make up for the problems that we’re experiencing the rest of the year."

A History of Gifts

In his book, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual and the Quest for Family Values, John Gills reveals that constant gift giving got its start in the twentieth century. Previously, families worked together. Their lives were intricately intertwined and they all understood that each one was a needed part of the family system. When the family was no longer an "economic unit," individuals had to find other ways to symbolize and relate to each other. In Webster’s dictionary, the word "gift" is said to mean "to be endowed with a special talent." So, originally, giving a gift meant to give a special part of you. And, relatedly, that is what our ancestors were doing when they used their special talent in the family business.

Nowadays anybody can walk into a store and purchase a material gift (credit cards have made this kind of transaction mindless), and the resulting gift has only a limited ability to express your uniqueness as a giver. But the tradition behind gift giving can hold; each of us has our own unique gifts and talents, and we can share them with each other in creative ways. I know one woman who bakes 2,000 cookies at Christmas time. It’s a labor of love that she usually shares with her sister. After years of establishing this tradition, her recipients cherish their gift basket and wait in anticipation for its arrival.

When my grandfather was alive, he would make really wonderful birthday posters for the people who lived in his apartment building. Using phrases clipped from magazines, photographs, and his own drawings, he would make personalized tributes to his many friends. One year my kids and I painted and laminated bookmarks for every member of our family. We’ve also painted clay pots and filled them with lovely geraniums for end of the year gifts for teachers and scout leaders. My mother-in-law has written many a poem for weddings, birthdays and bar mitzvahs. And instead of exchanging gifts with each other, for many years my neighbors and I adopted a struggling family during the holiday season and bought them the items they truly needed.

While these kinds of gifts take time, they are the kinds of projects that friends or families can do together, and they can accomplish many things simultaneously. Baking and jewelry making, for example, can become group activities that forge the bonds gifts celebrate. Poems, songs, and drawings can be done as variations on a theme, thereby uniting a group of teachers or relatives. And heartfelt gifts help to rekindle the "artist" in all of us. Whether through cooking or gardening, painting or arts and crafts, writing or volunteering time, we all feel more powerful and more valued when we are participating in something that we love and are able to share that love with others.

Soon-to-be-Popular Solutions

The solutions cited above work for the people who invented them. Yet individual solutions often fit individuals and their families so well that they don’t translate effectively. What about those whose families think of the heartfelt gift as the easy way out, the avenue reserved for grandchildren and cheapskates?

Schor recommends two general ways to handle the gift-related stress of the holidays. One is to enlist the extended family or group of friends in simplifying the yearly gift giving practice. Cliff Wagner, owner of a Florida advertising agency and father of three boys, has come up with a system for his extended family. "For Chanukah, we have a grab bag, and everyone picks a name out of a hat, and one person then gives only one other person a gift. For birthdays, we decided to give only the kids gifts, since that’s half the fun of being a kid. Adults get greeting cards to acknowledge the day." Another way to simplify is to shift to charitable giving. "I remember years ago reading about a family that gave their children monetary gifts which could be donated to the‘charity’ of their choice," says Judith Bernstein of Flower Mound, Texas. "This way the family became involved together researching and learning about groups and tzedakah (Hebrew for charity)," she added.

Schor’s second idea is to actually re-create the holidays. We can begin by choosing to live life in a more leisurely way, so we can spend more time with our families, look less to material solutions to problems, and concentrate on "doing things" rather than "buying things." Giving time — or an experience — has the advantage of creating memories that are inextricably linked to the giver. Taking people to their favorite restaurant, going on a group hike or camping trip, or planning a canoe float can all be ways of honoring someone without enduring a gift exchange.

My own family plans to combine the two ideas. We will spend a day of Chanukah at a soup kitchen this year ( and we will forego gifts to each other that night). Paula Shopiro, a lawyer and mother of two, came up with a gift that entices the receiver to do something. "A friend once gave me a jar filled with the dry ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. The top of the jar was covered with a pretty cloth and a recipe was attached. Our family made the cookies together and really enjoyed the treat. Now I give this gift to others," she said.

Give from the Heart

Over-gifting has gotten under the skin of many Americans, but the desperation of givers in search of new ideas shows that shopping is not all that entrenched. Some claim still to be free of the affliction. Says Dawn Westlake, an L.A. actress and director, "my favorite gift to give colleagues is my father’s poetry book. I think it’s really important that people give from the heart."

Dennis Gaeta, an optometrist living in Tinley Park, notes that even among the traditional gifts he receives, "the presents that mean the most are the ones that were purchased with thought, love, and expression of caring... . Money has nothing to do with it."

And even those who enjoy gift-giving immensely see the need to reduce their largess. Bobbie Morgan of Henderson, North Carolina, for example, says, "in our family, I’m the worst offender. I enjoy giving gifts for birthdays and Christmas. But I am going to pare down."

By eliminating the overwhelming sights and sounds of the local mall and introducing a mindful mode of giving we can begin to recapture the spirit of presenting someone with something very special. Now that I think of it, the wonderful gifts my family has gotten from my friend the expert gift giver, were mostly quite simple; the perfect book, a homemade toy, candy from her kitchen. What has made her gifts special over all these years is her thoughtfulness — and her ability to keep the gift-giving process both conscious and full of love.

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