Gift Exchange

Although I do not show it, I dislike gift exchanges very much. No, hate is a better word. I personally think gift exchanges are devised by Christians who, when caught up in the season of giving feel obliged to to do so but then devise a way to guarantee that they do not end up without a gift in return. I am so convinced that is the case. But what is the point? Giving a gift should come from the heart without expecting one in return. Of course it will be nice if our gesture is reciprocated but the whole point of giving the gift is to appreciate the person, to show that he/she truly means something to you and the gift is a personal token of the value of that person to you, without any expectation of anything in return. All of which, I emphasize, gift exchanges dismally fail to achieve. They mean absolutely nothing because whatever you draw, big or small, valuable or not, was never given with you in mind.

Maybe, I concede, give everyone a feel good feeling, see we all got a gift in return, so everyone goes back happy.

So it was totally without any feeling at all that I brought my night-before-wrapped gift to the staff Christmas lunch today for the gift exchange we were told would take place. The organizer called for attention and explained that she would start it off by drawing from the bag of name tags to call out a name and that person would come up to pick a gift from all of our collected gifts and in turn pull out another name from the bag to pick the next gift. And so it went on, amidst much laughing and teasing about choosing the better looking ones from the whole lot. No, do not go for that big package. Too big cannot be very good either. Or too small... may be just a key chain. Not that large one that is obviously a cheap photo frame.

Nothing is more of a turn off to me than a gift exchange. Call me an idealist whatever.

Then it took a twist that made my day.

The organizer said after everyone had chosen their gifts, "Don't open them yet. It is not completed yet. We have all chosen our gifts and we have chosen the best that we think are from the batch for ourselves. Now we are going to have one more draw and whoever the name we draw, we are going to give the gifts we have picked for ourselves to him/her." And there was a collective groan from all of us.

Best gift exchange ever I went to. :)