WASHINGTON -- By the time you read this, you've probably already opened your holiday gifts. And I'm willing to bet many of you were disappointed or bitter about what you received. If so, you need to read Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay ``Gifts.'' (You can go online and find the essay easy enough). In it, Emerson writes, ``He is a good man, who can receive a gift well.''
That's a well-known quote but there's a follow-up that is often left out and is the reason for such discord during the holidays. Emerson goes on to say: ``We are either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a gift. I am sorry when ... a gift comes from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not him.''
Someone opened a present this holiday and internally (and in some cases openly) said: ``I can't believe so and so gave me this ugly sweater, soap gift basket, terrible tie, awful perfume'' or whatever it was that they thought so unsatisfactory. Or it may be the case that someone specifically wanted a visit by certain relatives during the holidays because of the gifts they came bearing. (This also happens quite a bit when it comes to deciding whom to invite to a wedding.)
Why has giving become so difficult to the point that some of us get knots in our stomachs worrying whether we will give the right thing or that our gift cost enough to reflect our true affections? Because Emerson is right when he says gifts can become ``a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of blackmail.''
The message we are telling people is: You had better give the right present if you don't want me to become upset. Give the wrong gift and you are in danger of someone ungraciously dismissing your thought as trite. Right now there is a husband or significant other who is suffering because he didn't get his honey a gift that proves his love. I used to be guilty of this holiday torture.
I remember one Christmas my husband (who was my fiance then) gave me a number of exercise outfits. He thought the items were the perfect presents because I had joined a gym and had been talking about getting some new workout clothes. However in my mind, the gifts showed he thought I was fat. I wept right there in front of him.
It pains me all these years later that I made him sad because he didn't choose what I thought was the right gift. The fact is we put too much weight on whether the gift illustrates whether someone loves us or knows us well enough to get just the right thing.
Recently I asked readers to give their thoughts on the practice of re-gifting. In the midst of griping about re-gifts they'd received, I realized how perverse are many people's expectations of what a present should be. One woman wrote: ``My mom is a re-gifter. About three years ago, my sister and I decided that we would discourage any gift-giving from her. We open the boxes in her presence, and if it's something we detest or recognize, we leave it with her and it does not come home.''
How rude. Handing a present back to someone in disgust is the act of an ingrate. It doesn't matter if you don't like the gift, you should always accept it with grace. I don't care what you get. That doesn't mean you can't return it for something else or secretly vow to tuck it away in a closet. But you should never offend the giver.
I received a note from a reader who initially complained that a member of her family and his wife gave expensive but lousy presents (they are bad re-gifters, she said).
``It's clear they did not spend the time to pick out something special for myself or my family -- as I always do for them,'' the reader wrote. ``This makes for unnecessary bitterness, especially when one considers that they can well afford to do otherwise.''
I asked if the couple displayed love and support for her and her family in other ways. ``You're right,'' she e-mailed back. ``They are wonderful people, just bad gift-givers.''
Yes, it's wonderful to receive a present that reflects your character or interests. And yes, it can be a disappointment when that doesn't happen. But I've learned over the years that it's how people treat you, not what they give you, that is the real measure of how much they value you.
As Emerson says in his essay, ``Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.''
Listen to Michelle Singletary discuss personal finance every Tuesday on NPR's ``Day to Day.'' To hear her reports online go to www.npr.org. Readers can write to her c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her e-mail address is singletarym@washpost.com. Comments and questions are welcome, but due to the volume of mail, personal responses may not be possible. Please also note comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer's name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated.
(c) 2004, Washington Post Writers Group
