Many people buy others gifts, often with little care or thought, just for the sake of giving a gift,
not because they necessarily want to.
I personally hate receiving gift cards or commodity gifts. I would rather receive a thoughtful gift (even just a hand-written message) or no gift at all. I don’t want your item or your money, I want your time or your thoughts.
Not to mention that after receiving your gift, I become obligated to give you an equally thoughtless gift. They say it’s the thought that counts, but it seems like that’s exactly what is missing most of the time! I want to skip the business transaction and just get to the part where we appreciate each other.
That said, I’m still not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but that is my honest preference.
I'm mostly the same. My family doesn't really do gifts any more, showing up in one place to cook and eat together is enough.
For my wife and myself, we usually just 'gift' something like a short holiday or a nice thing we'd been meaning to get. But it's kind of abstract when the money belongs to both of us anyway - the main gift is that the giver goes to more effort in planning it, or gives up some of their own preferences in deference to what the receiver would prefer.
Obligated gift giving is pretty annoying as you say. Much nicer to see something and think of it on the spur of the moment.
Honestly, just give everybody liquor chocolates and the occasional bottle of scotch, and you will be fondly remembered long after you are gone. It's not thoughtless. It's a strategy.
Early in our marriage my wife said that we shouldn’t exchange gifts. I thought she was crazy and would changer her mind, but over the past 25 years neither of us has ever purchased a gift for the other. It has actually turned out great. Now I don’t have to spend any time thinking about what she might want. She’s happy, I’m happy, capitalism is not so happy ;-)
The one interesting thing is that I don’t like buying gifts for other people anymore. If I’m not going to buy my wife a gift, why would I buy you a gift when you are no where near as important to me as she is?
> She’s happy, I’m happy, capitalism is not so happy ;-)
Financial security is a very important factors in marriages. As long as both parties are happy with forgoing gifts, it's a far better long-term gift to each other to be fiscally responsible to the future of the family unit.
That said, there's an onslaught of marketing to convince you to change your mind.
I'm a patient at a (physical) rehab place, and my case manager is expecting. With COVID-19, any gifts like baby clothes seem too germy, and the best I can think of is a gift card that she can sanitize. Better than paper cash, and we don't know her well enough to know what she needs.
