It is, once again, “the holidays.” I am aware that around this time each year we are supposed to be giving and/or receiving gifts. There are sales and discounts, guides and lists for how and when and where to get anyone everything they might want (my favorites are the New York Times’ resident angel Bonnie Wertheim’s practical, all-encompassing guide and Kelly Conaboy’s slightly less practical but very funny guide for The Outline). When we think of buying gifts for our loved ones, we tend to transport ourselves to a miraculous, hypothetical world where everyone’s needs have already been met. In this world we all have health care, fully stocked refrigerators, working transportation, heat, and enough disposable income for frivolity.

Much like public marriage proposals, winter gift-gifting makes an already complex exchange more confusing. Remember that for-some-reason viral Peloton bike advertisement from two weeks ago or whatever in which a husband gifted his wife an expensive exercise bike so she made him a weird, off-putting year-long video diary thanking him as he sat beside her watching it on their television? It flared up and burned brightly as onlookers wondered, Who would give their wife exercise equipment, isn’t that insulting? And then those onlookers were met with a chorus of, Who would have a problem with being gifted exercise equipment, good god the bike is thousands of dollars can’t you people be grateful? which led to another chorus of, Taking exercising as a rude suggestion is only problematic if you associate exercise with fatphobia, and most of all, Who cares about a poorly done ad?

But the Peloton advertisement and its backlash is a perfect example of the internal dynamics of gifting between the giver and receiver and the audience of muppets heckling from the balcony. Not only are gifts complicated because of the people involved in the exchange, there are also optics to consider. What kind of person gifts something, what kind of person wants to receive it, and what could an implied audience learn about the relationship between the giver and receiver from the exchange?

‌　　   🌟
　　 *🌿*
　　 *+🎀:*
　 *🎁*:🌿*
　*🎀**+｡🎁*
 **+🌿｡* 🌿｡**
**🎁* :🌿+｡🎀**
　　　 l l
ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴄɪᴘʀᴏᴄɪᴛʏ ᴏғ ᴇxᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡs ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏɢɪᴄ ᴏғ ʀᴇᴠᴇɴɢᴇ ⛄⛄⛄

— ♥内乱アスキーアートbot (@TwitAA_rad_bot) December 26, 2015

There is something sweet about a season earmarked for expressing care for others, even if it is through the dreaded capitalism. If someone is important enough in your life to be there, then it’s worth finding something that communicates that to them, and maybe even others.

My worst gifts have been my fault. As a thoughtless and selfish procrastinator, I have in the past given people a used bowling pin and a dusty lantern (it was 2008, everyone was whimsical), a copy of my book with all the sentences blacked out, laundry detergent, a block of moist clay, random things I found around my house but thrown in a gift bag, a hot dog roller and bun warmer machine, a showerhead in an unmarked box, a yellow Tamagotchi, a few yards of burlap, an ashtray in the shape of lips to a non-smoker, a book I had borrowed and lost and needed to replace anyway, a poorly reviewed grilled cheese sandwich toaster, a water bottle, an old telegram I found in my grandma’s closet, books I was already giving away, and a mug with a picture of a woman crying on it.

But I have figured out a cheat code that has vastly improved my gift-giving abilities. See, as much as I hate the idea of buying shit, I love the act of buying shit. So I have found an ethical loophole, which is that buying shit is good if I’m buying that shit for someone else, because receiving shit makes them feel even better than you did when you were buying it. Perhaps you have experienced the other side of this when leaving your parents’ house laden with random items they picked up while waiting in the checkout line at Target, or receiving weird free stuff from the mail, or finding things that the neighbors left outside next to a piece of paper that says, “Still good! Take me!”

Gift-giving scratches two itches: acquiring fun new stuff, and being a generous and good person. Gift-giving is a puzzle that, when solved, offers my favorite rewards: approval and affection. Giving the perfect gift means you are considerate, kind, aware, and ingenious. Rather than simply an act of material exchange, a gift should be used to convey a feeling of love, care, consideration, and/or empathy.

When my father shows up to Christmas bearing calendars of seeing-eye dogs and national monuments, I am charmed by how well the gesture encapsulates not only his personality, but his approach to family and parenting.

But a great gift that is inappropriately thrust upon someone can be an act of evil, the physical equivalent of love-bombing. One of the biggest pitfalls of gift-giving is that it can be treated like an annual friendship or family tithe, picking something up just to check a box and get it all done. This might be why Americans apparently waste $15.2 billion on unwanted gifts, and maybe  why  economists  hate  gifts. (I received an American flag pin at my 24th birthday dinner, which happened to be held around the corner from an Army surplus store, so either this was a thoughtless last-minute gift, or I am an economist.)

Some think the idea of a gift is to give the receiver something they already want. This is kind of true, but is also a cop-out. Maybe it’s because I am a cynical curmudgeon who’s also somehow deeply and embarrassingly earnest, but I believe the ideal gift should make its recipient feel seen. Giving someone something that they already want is certainly practical, but unimaginative; maybe even lazy.

Supposedly, the best gifts are luxurious and excessive, such as a nice watch, one of those Tesla trucks, or a coffee table book that comes with a meteorite. They might fix a problem that the receiver never even knew they had, such as cable holder clips to wrangle loose wires, an electronic coffee mug that prevents coffee from peskily dropping below a certain temperature, or a smart doorbell to change the fact that a porch is just sitting there, unsurveilled. But because gift-giving is so personal and strange, these tenets rarely apply to our own loved ones (this is why no one actually uses their Instant Pot). When my father shows up to Christmas bearing calendars of seeing-eye dogs and national monuments, I am charmed by how well the gesture encapsulates not only his personality, but his approach to family and parenting. While one might view such calendars as objectively terrible and perhaps insulting gifts, in this context, they are a mark of our bond. (Also, I suspect he may be giving them to me as a joke, but if I knew for sure, it would tarnish the charm, so I choose to stay ignorant). In this sense, gifting is ultimately a gesture meant to capture the meaning of a relationship, of using an object to convey to another person that they are seen. Therefore, I can think of no more poetic a gift than a calendar of seeing-eye dogs.

Perhaps the holiday season would be more meaningful if we decided, as a rule of thumb, to spend more time plotting our gifts than it would to earn the money to buy them. Then again, my dad spends zero time thinking about giving me seeing-eye dog calendars, and I love them all the same.