Five Tips to Always Give the Perfect Gifts
While Still Prioritizing Sustainability
The holiday season is upon us, with Christmas rapidly approaching. The world is aglow with trees lighting up, hot cocoa and peppermint is around every corner, wrapping paper and bows are strewn about, and the warmth of holiday cheer floats through the air with the soft harmonies of Fa La La by Justin Bieber Ft. Boyz II Men.
And at the center of this holiday haze: gift shopping. For many, with Christmas just two weeks away, it’s a mad dash to check everyone off your shopping list before stores get too hectic. Aside from wrangling your budget, fighting crowds, battling expected delivery dates, and knowing who all you’re supposed to be buying for—do I need to get something for my boyfriend’s sister’s boyfriend?—it’s hard to even figure out what to get.
Between people having expensive tastes, interests that change too frequently to keep up with, interests that haven’t changed in so long you’ve already exhausted all your ideas, people who have no more room for frivolous things, and people you simply don’t know well enough, it can feel impossible to tackle holiday shopping.
Buying things for others is especially daunting when anything you could ever want to get yourself is only a click away. We are consuming faster than we have at any point in history, which has consequences far beyond Charistmas. Overconsumption has a devastating impact on our planet: in 2023 humanity was consuming resources 1.75 times faster than earth could regenerate them, and global waste generation is predicted to increase by 70% from 2020 to 2050.
Luckily, gift giving and respecting the planet don’t have to be mutually exclusive, thanks to second-hand shopping. In the past few years we’ve seen an explosion in the popularity of thrift stores and online platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, Depop, and even a resurgence of eBay use. Not only is this a more environmentally conscious option, it’s often more budget friendly and can lead to finding more one-of-a-kind gifts than what’s at a big box store.
Of course, not all people want second hand things (though you could supplementally give them disinfectant wipes/laundry detergent), or you have something so specific in mind that you have to get it custom made. Another great option is to shop locally and shop small. Going to locally owned stores in your community, finding holiday and craft markets, or even supporting artists and artisans on Etsy are all amazing alternatives to keeping money away from major corporations.
You may have heard the phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” which can feel heavy and discouraging. The most important thing to keep in mind when striving for a more sustainable lifestyle is that you cannot be perfect. To borrow phrasing from environmentalist advocate Anne-Marie Bonneau, we don’t need a handful of people being sustainable perfectly, we need millions of people being sustainable imperfectly. You don’t have to give up first hand gifts entirely, but even swapping out a few new purchases with thrifted ones can make a big difference.
But it’s already hard to get gifts when I can choose from everything online, how could I possibly do it when limited to second hand items? It’s far easier than you think. Stop paying attention to the average gift idea lists that suggest specific things to buy—which immediately become irrelevant the next year—and develop a framework that will help you shop for years to come.
Whether you are new to second hand shopping, bad at gift giving, or just want some new ideas, here are my tips on how to always give great gifts.
1. Be observant of your loved ones
This sounds like a no-brainer, but you can learn far more than you realize about what your loved ones want just by paying attention. Becoming deeply familiar with their lifestyle, needs, preferences, and aesthetics makes it easy to see that person reflected in things at the store.
Take note of what they tend to wear: In their daily life do they tend to dress casually, comfortably, trendy, or formally? What fabrics do they tend to wear? Do they wear mostly neutrals, dark colors, earth tones, or bold colors? Do they wear a lot of a certain accessory? Do they wear gold or silver jewelry? What kinds of bags do they carry?
Take note of how they decorate their house/room: How would you describe the aesthetic? What art styles do they lean towards? What are the most prominent colors? Are there notable patterns or motifs? What does this reveal about their personal style? Do they have room for more trinkets or is it best to focus on practical items?
Take note of their habits: What do they do for fun? What is their sense of humor? What do they post online? What stores do they like to go to?
Not all of these things have to directly become gifts, but it can all help form the shape of their personality and style in your mind, which lends itself to more specific and thoughtful gifts.
2. Use the 5 Things Method
I have a theory that if you know these 5 things about a person, you’ll be able to get them anything. They are:
Favorite color
Favorite animal
Favorite food/drink
Favorite media/artists
Hobbies
For example, this is mine:
Pink, bright and pastel colors
Polar bears, dachshunds
Fun coffee, butter, popcorn
Chappell Roan, fauvist artists, horror movies
Reading/writing, collaging, fashion, antiques
Just thinking about something as basic as what colors and animals a person likes can help get your wheels turning. Based on this list, here are some gifts I have received and loved: polar bear pajamas, Matisse prints, a Keurig advent calendar, a pencil pouch shaped like a stick of butter, and a collaging book.
Try making this list for all of the people you want to get gifts for, then keep adding to it and changing it over the years as their interests evolve.
3. Turn your list of 5 into hundreds* of combinations
While you can just look for gifts just related to a favorite animal or a favorite movie, try combining two interests to come up with an extremely personal idea that will take the gift to the next level.
In most cases, you can use this formula:
Base: what the gift is (interest 1) + Style: how the gift is (interest 2) = personal gift.
Where most people struggle is picking a base item. I know my sister likes Pokémon, but what can I actually get her? This is usually where being observant comes in, if your list does not already cover it.
Example: Blind box (interest in gambling/figurines) + Pokémon = Pokémon blind box
You’ve likely done this countless times without thinking of it this way. You know your mom drinks coffee every morning, so you get her a mug in favorite color.
I use this strategy most with my dad. He has very fixed interests, which makes it easy to know what he likes, but can make me run out of ideas after years of gift giving, so I have to get creative. My proudest interest combination gift is when I got him a cue ball for his pool table that was emblazoned with the logo of his favorite baseball team. Go Rangers! (And sorry to my uncle who hates it because it blends in with the rest of the balls too much.)
A major benefit of combining interests is making sure you aren’t getting something useless. My mom loves whales, but if I found a magnet with a whale on it I wouldn’t get it for her, because she has nowhere to put magnets. Make sure both the form and the function align with your gift recipient.
4. Always keep your eyes peeled when you shop
Whenever you go shopping, even if it’s not a dedicated gift finding trip, keep your eyes open to anything anyone might like. Since I am always on the lookout for gifts, and because I’m confident in my grasp on peoples’ styles, I keep everyone in mind when I go shopping.
Not all people can do this, since it requires a lot of mental multitasking, quickly processing what you’re seeing, and flicking through the rolodex of people in your mind palace. My boyfriend, for example, can only look for a single person at a time, which means he would have to look at everything in the store four times over to shop for his family.
But, if you have the time and patience, multiple passes through a store is not a bad strategy. You might end up making headway on your shopping list just from running errands or shopping with friends.
5. Do a mix of letting the gifts find you & searching for them
Mashing up someone’s interests and coming up with the perfect gift to order is great. But you know when you get a gift and it’s something you didn’t even realize you wanted until you got it? The same can happen when you’re shopping. Walking around a store (or clicking around Etsy) you might come across something you never could have thought of, but you know exactly who would love it.
Go to a store and just browse without anything specific in mind. You don’t even have to have a certain person in mind, just go and see if anything jumps out at you. This works especially well at a vintage or antique store where you wouldn’t know what they had anyway, which really forces you to take everything in. Sometimes you leave empty handed, sometimes you leave with the find of a century.
For this reason, I like to leave a couple of gift slots open for things I find out in the wild, rather than hunting for everything online. This also has the benefit of being cheaper, getting the item instantly, and avoiding the carbon footprint of shipping.
At the end of the day, though, remember that there’s no reason to kill yourself trying to find things that are good enough. I often apologize to my parents that my gifts won’t be very good, and even separated by 20+ years of divorce they both say the same thing: you’re the best gift I could ask for. And I think there’s some truth to that.
The true key to giving good gifts is to lead with your heart, not the stress of the holiday season.
Take some time to really think about why you’re giving gifts. You’re celebrating the people who make your life worth living and appreciating their place in your life with a physical demonstration of love. It’s easy to hear that the true meaning of Christmas is to spread joy and write it off as a cheesy line, but anchor into that mentality and let it guide you.
Joy is the reason for the season. And I’m not even biased at all when I say that. It’s just true.
Bonus tip: Gift shop all year long. I took this approach this year, and it’s the easiest shopping has ever been. I got my first Christmas gift in February. If you follow tip four and use it all year, you can build a decent stockpile of gifts that can go towards whatever gift giving occasion is next. By the time my brother’s birthday rolled around at the start of November, I had accumulated so many things that I already had all of his birthday and Christmas gifts ready to go.
Bonus Bonus tip: If you have trouble remembering what you got or where you put it, I have two suggestions. The first is to make a spreadsheet keeping track of what you’ve gotten, who it’s for, and how much it was. But, if you can’t remember where you put things, you probably also aren’t the kind of person to keep a spreadsheet. So my second tip is to pick a single spot in your house to stash all of your gifts. Then, write a note in your phone saying “Gift spot: [location]” so that if you forget what place you picked you can search “gift spot” in your notes and see where it is. If you really have a bad memory, let someone reliable know that you have done this so that if you have no idea how to find your gift spot they can remind you to search your notes. (This all still didn’t work for my mother, so your mileage may vary).
*Hundreds of combinations assuming you have multiple things listed for each category, otherwise you can only get 10 combinations. Which is still twice as many ideas, but certainly nowhere near 200 and up, so get to listing!
The Rangers cue ball was indeed an epic gift! 😁 I found that I already employ most of these strategies without thinking about it. Great minds think alike! Greater minds know how to quantify it. 😊
this is so epic