So the presents are all unwrapped and begun being enjoyed and I have had time to reflect on both what I gave and received. The wife and I did not buy for each other (though we did get each other gifts but that is a subject [maybe even a series] for another blog). We bought for the kids and my cousin’s 1 year old child. The wife did buy for a friend as well mostly though our cash was spent on the kids.
The reason for my reflection is due to a podcast that the wife and I listened to this morning as we sipped our coffee before the kids woke up and the house gave up its quietness. The podcast is worth 17 minutes of your life (in my opinion) and talked about an experiment with 7th graders. Basically they gave each kid in the class a treat (passed out randomly). Some got candy bars, some more healthy choices like raisins. After all the items were passed out, the kids were asked to rank how happy they were with their gifts on a scale of 1 to 10 (they actually ranked on perceived value) and the average score was 5. After a bit of discussion, the kids were given 60 seconds to trade with anyone else (the trade agreement must be mutual). After the trade they again were asked to rank their happiness and now the average score was a little over 8. Same candy, different kids, 60% more happiness. This got me to thinking about the gifts that my wife and I received this year from my kids for Christmas and their perceived value.
First of all let me tell that (I am told that) I am impossible to buy for. I do not think I believe this but I have been told this so many times by so many people that either I am very wrong or there is a serious conspiracy going on here (I am leaning toward conspiracy still). Couple this fact (or non fact) with my wife’s less than stellar ability to buy the right present (whose genes were passed on to our kids) and you can imagine that I am not always excited when it comes to opening my gifts on Christmas Day. On the other hand, I am a pretty good gift giver (especially compared to the competition in my household). Since the kids are forced to shop with one adult when shopping for the other, they (and consequently, the wife) get the benefit of my gift giving skills. On the other hand, since the wife “helps” the (gift giving gene pool challenged) kids shop for me….nuff said. Ok, let’s look at the gifts for this year.
- Daughter to Mother: The walls in our house (actually every house we have ever lived in) are woefully bare. I had seen some cute wooden signs at Bed, Bath and Beyond that caught the wife’s eye. Since we were on a budget, we opted for some knock offs at Ross. The daughter bought a 1’ sign that says “Wake up and smell the coffee!” for the kitchen and a 2’ sign that says “Laundry today or naked tomorrow!” for the laundry room. The wife really liked these and I bought some reusable hooks (the kind that stick to the wall) to hang them on. Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 8
- Son to Mother: When we unboxed the Christmas decoration boxes that we brought with us when we moved, we did not find the wife’s Christmas village houses. One Christmas time early on in our marriage I had gone wild and bought several Christmas scene houses that lit up, some little figures and animals and some fake snow. I waited until she had gone to bed, I set them all up and then went and woke her up (slightly after midnight as I recall). I had all the lights off in the house save for the lights in the little houses. She was very happy and each year we set up those houses and retell the story of how I gave them to her. When we discovered that we left those back in Indiana, we were all a little disappointed. The son and I hit a few stores before ending up at Kohl’s. Some of the Christmas stuff was already on sale despite being several days before Christmas. Kohl’s has their own special line of these village houses but (even with the discounted price) they were a bit out of the son’s budget. With a small loan (Dad to the rescue) he was on his way to the check out line. Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 9
- Son to Dad: I had downloaded a free app on my HP TouchPad that let you play backgammon. I had never played this game in my life. I remember the Locke and Walt characters playing this game in the first season of Lost and thought I might like to learn how to play. Anyway, once I figured out the rules (and figured out that the app was not perfect [some times the computer moved its pieces backwards]) we bought a $5 chess / checkers / backgammon set at Target and began playing. The set we bought was cheaper than cheap but it was usable. I had hinted (and hinted and hinted) for months that I would like to have a real backgammon set. I held off buying one even though I really wanted one. The son got me a $20 portable set and was very proud of his purchase. I knew what was in the box the second he proudly showed me his wrapping skills (or lack thereof). Everyone wants to use this set now and I am being bugged (even as I write this blog entry) to come and play. My main point here is that this is not really a gift for me as much as it is a gift for everyone. Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 6
- Daughter to Dad: The last time we lived here in Texas we made a weekly trip to the Frisco public library. Despite being a little further away than the Allen and McKinney libraries, we chose that library as it was a little newer and they did not have any late fees (you just could not check any new items out if you had late items still out). One thing we started borrowing was old I Love Lucy DVDs. Instead of renting out the entire set by season (how they are sold), you could only get one disc at a time. The kids inherited their anal-retentiveness from me and watching (even a comedy) our of order did not sit well. As a result, we were perpetually waiting on the next disc in the series and someone had it checked out for weeks (since there were no late fees). I recall watching some from season 1 and a few discs from season 2 but have no idea how close we came to seeing all of either season. Now I have seen all of the Lucy shows in reruns 100 times over but and I knew I would get more enjoyment out of watching the kids watch these classics than I would in just watching them myself. And true to that, the wife and I would be crying due to laughter just seeing the kids crack up at Lucy’s antics. For Christmas this year the daughter got me season 1 of I Love Lucy. Now I am getting begged to finish ripping these DVDs to our home theater PC so we can watch them all. My main point (again) here is that this is not really a gift for me as much as it is a gift for everyone. Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 7
The son also bought me a small bag of Jordan Almonds since I had hinted that I liked that snack. He also kept bugging me to open them so he could try them. The kids got me good (nay great) gifts this year compared to other years but they played it safe in that even if I did not like the gift, they would at least get some enjoyment out of them. The wife got gifts that would mostly be enjoyed by her, more tailored to her taste. I can see this technique being used for giving gifts to me in the future and I guess that is OK. I mean, they are good gifts but safe gifts as well.
Now, one gift that was given to our entire family from my cousin and her husband was pretty awesome. We are invited to their house quite often and they have this cool soda making machine. Even I have fun watching my cousin use this thing to make whatever flavor of soda we are in the mood for at the time. Low and behold when the kids unwrapped our gift from them we now owned our own soda maker. The son was ecstatic as he was saving up his money to buy one for himself. Not only did we have one now (he was weeks away from having enough money) but he could reallocate his money for more important things (like this massive nerf gun). Perceived Gift Value when unwrapped: 10
Jon
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