I have never been much fond of wrapping paper. It is a dishonest sort of thing. Like society’s expectations, it hides what is real behind something frantically decorative and almost always discarded. No sooner have we torn into the crinkled armor than we are met with another trinket, another object destined for a shelf, a closet, a drawer, or the ever-growing hinterlands of forgotten possessions.
The giving of gifts has become an industry of obligation, a machinery of ribbon and receipt, humming louder each December and sputtering again with each birthday, graduation, or well-intended shower.
Yet I must confess: I am wearied by the tyranny of things.
Would it not be better to take your beloved on a walk than to hand them another plastic bauble from the aisles of the department store? Would it not be a finer birthday gesture to spread out a gingham cloth beneath a tree and share bread and grapes and some good cheese, rather than to give a mug with a clever slogan or a gadget with no clear purpose?
Gifts of experience; now there lies the wisdom of a simpler heart. Take your friend to watch the sun set from a forgotten hill. Lead them into an old bookshop, and while away an afternoon discovering obscure authors whose names have not echoed down the ages. Stroll through a local market and sample pickled things from jars. Make no purchases. Or take them nowhere at all; simply sit in the yard with lemonade and speak of the dreams you had when you were children.
The great mistake of modern giving is to believe that joy resides in possession. But joy, like truth, is not found in accumulation but in attention. A memory is not wrapped in cellophane, nor does it require batteries. And yet, it is the only true gift that increases with use.
I remember once receiving a pair of socks on Christmas morning (thick, woolen, gray things that made me itch) but I remember more fondly the time my friend and I took a rowboat onto the pond in early autumn. We said little, but the quiet spoke for us. That hour on the water has stayed with me, while the socks are likely somewhere in the underworld of lost laundry.
Gifts of experience are not only richer in spirit, but kinder to the purse. One need not bankrupt oneself to give well. A thermos of hot coffee and a shared sunrise will cost you less than a department store gift card, and leave an imprint not only on the morning but on the soul.
What is the purpose of giving, if not to say: I see you, I know you, I want to spend this sliver of time with you before we are both swept along by the greater tide?
A man may carry a pocket watch until it breaks, but he will carry a conversation in the woods with a friend for the remainder of his days.
Let us then abandon the tyranny of objects. Let us not bequeath clutter but company. Give not what can be dropped or damaged, but what might be remembered. Give presence, not presents.
For in the end, when the shelves collapse and the cupboards are bare, what remains are the sunlit moments we shared with others, unwrapped and unbought.
Join us in making the world a better place – you’ll be glad that you did. Cheers friends.