When I get gifts, I feel kind of guilty picturing the money they spent unless it's something that I absolutely love or directly asked for. I don't give many gifts. I really just buy for my parents for christmas. I usually just buy my father food. And I sometimes make something for my mother. I crochet scarves, blankets, and hats.

I lover giving gifts!

(Maybe too much actually haha)

I will often buy things for friends with no real occassion in mind - just because I see something that makes me think of them c:

Although I'm terrible for remembering birthdays! So I guess that levels out with the random gift giving xP

I actually hate giving presents to the people I don't know much about. It was a real nightmare back at school.

I've always been very silent and shy, so I wasn't really invited to the birthday parties beside starting years of elementary school and back then it's pretty easy to get a nice present (and it's also a task for parents, not kids).

But there is Christmas every year and all kids at school are forced to give each other presents. It was trully awful to get a proper gift and it was still usually not well received. I'm glad I've finished school many years ago.

However, if I actually know the person well, or just well enough, I actually like picking up gifts for them. It's especially fun if someone doesn't expect it or doesn't know much about it, so he or she wouldn't be able to get it on their own, but still likes it and enjoys it.

Gift giving to everyone worries me XD I try my best to learn about them from mutual friends or learn about what a family member needs most- but it will aaaalways make me nervous.
Same for getting gifts <<; my reactions are poor and if I don't like something, you can easily read it on my face. So always worried about disappointing people.

Reht wrote:I lover giving gifts!

(Maybe too much actually haha)

I will often buy things for friends with no real occassion in mind - just because I see something that makes me think of them c:

Although I'm terrible for remembering birthdays! So I guess that levels out with the random gift giving xP

Oh, look. it me. lol

As for getting gifts... most of the time, unless it's a specific group of people who know me well, I'd rather have cash or a gift card, because unless I specifically link stuff to the others who get me gifts, they tend to get what they "think" I'd like, while claiming "You're so hard to shop for". No, I'm not. You just don't want to make the effort to actually get to know me and what I like and dislike. That, and you're too ashamed to be seen buying Transformers for me.

I'm terrible at thinking of gifts to get. We always ask each other what we want for Christmas or birthday in my family, but if it gets to one of my friends or something, my brain does not turn on. Takes me at least two weeks to think of something.

My brother is marrying soon. I wish he had a wedding list or something. I don't know what he wants.

But giving a good gift I do like. I like seeing people happy.

I enjoy getting gifts for the people that I am close to, but when it comes to someone I don't know that well I always go with cash or one of those visa gift cards that you can use anywhere.

I have an enormous chest full of random "gift" stuff that doesn't really have a recipient lined up.

I see something interesting, at a reasonable rate, I get it. Particularly during travel (I love street fairs, no matter what country). Or if I am crafting and end up with something I wasn't expecting and can't use for the original purpose, same thing.

It goes in the Gift Box (which is what I call that chest. I ended up with several hope chests from the family, and you can't call them all "the hope chest", it's confusing. So one's the linen chest and one's the hope chest and one's the gift box).

Then when I talk with someone and it comes out that actually, they're interested in this item tucked away in the chest, *boom!* Gifted. With lots of excited hand-waving and the story of how I got it/made it and it just sat there unappreciated until they revealed that, really, they were the perfect home for it.

These occasions RARELY line up with "gift-giving" occasions. For those I make people pop-up cards and serenade them and hand them baked goods. (Dignity is seriously overrated. Making people laugh at you because you're goofing around serenading them with made up lyrics *is* a gift).

It kind of works out?

Mostly it works because the people I am close enough to do this with have LONG since figured out that normal and I are not really even nodding acquaintances, so they know not to expect typical, and usually even if they don't want it they can go "Oh but she likes me and is thinking of me and wants to share something neat with me" and get pleasure out of that, even if they don't from the gift, and just sell it or set it aside or even hand it back and go, "Yes, we talked about mandalas yesterday but I was more into the geometry and not the art so you'd better keep it"
or whatever.

So... you know... it mostly works.


And if I've not found anything for someone in a long while and feel like they're overdue or need cheering up or something, I invite them over to pick something from the Gift Box themselves. Not that that's been possible lately, but whatever, I've had this thing for long enough that the habit still seems relevant.

That would be awesome, to have a friend that just has a box full of random gifts they bought/made. I'm used to giving gifts and it not being appreciated, no matter how much thought I put into it. So I go the safe route and just get them cash or a gift card. The last gift I bought was appreciated, it was a picture from Ace Ventura, the one where he's essentially being "birthed" from the robotic rhino he was sitting in. A friend of mine loves those movies, and that was his favorite scene. So I bought him a framed pic of it and he loved it.