The Gift That Stops Giving

Newsletter 2023-12-07

There’s nothing harder than buying a Christmas gift for an adult. I mean that literally. You might think it’s more difficult to finish an Ironman or raise children or complete the twelve labors of Hercules, but you’d be wrong. For kids, Christmas is critical. They lack income and autonomy. They can’t just go to the store and buy whatever they want. Scratch that. It’s 2023. They can’t just go online and order whatever they want with next day shipping, at least not without stealing your credit card and password. Adults don’t face those limitations. They have money. They’re supposed to, anyway. This is a good time of year to ghost any unemployed freeloaders in your life. Asking a proper grown-up what they want for Christmas requires them to think of something that they want a little bit but not badly enough to go out and get themselves. Then you go through the trouble of not only buying that thing that they only sort of want, but also of gift wrapping it and taking it to them so you can watch them open it and judge their reaction. Worse, you have to repeat this process in reverse, naming something you’re ambivalent about so that they can reciprocate and balance out your gesture, eliminating any net gain for either party. Christmas is the ultimate economic inefficiency, yet the economy depends on it. Without these socially compelled discretionary purchases, the retail sector would utterly collapse. I’ll do my part and grudgingly participate in every gift exchange I’m obliged to, but I won’t be happy about it. Here’s how I plan to navigate gift-giving season among my fellow adults.