I’m talking about those gifts you’re not really fond of (to put it nicely).

What do you do with them?

The holidays have passed a little while ago. I’m quite positive everyone has received some gifts they’re not really happy about. I know I have.

Now, in the case of gifts you got from people you don’t really give a damn about it’s very easy to get rid of them. There’s no guilt. You don’t really care if they come to you and ask what you’ve done with them. It’s quite easy to come up with a stupid excuse (even something like “the dog ate it”). You couldn’t care less whether they believe you or not or whether they’re hurt or not. It’s not very nice, but we all have “friends” we’re not really fond of.

What happens though in the case of family, friends who are really dear to you. They maybe couldn’t afford anything better or just had a bad day when they picked up your gift.

Before we go any further here’s what you should absolutely not do. Or at least put up in place a system that will keep you from embarassing yourseld. I have a friend of mine who had the bad habbit of passing to others gifts he didn’t want. It all went just fine until one day when he gave a gift to the person he got it from. I can’t even tell you the embarassement he went through. The guy didn’t talk to him for about a month.

What I like to do is use the gift (whatever that involves) for a while so that the person I got it from is happy. Then, after a while I phase it out, until I stop using it completely.

I know some of you might think that it’s always better to tell the truth. I am of the same opinion. However, there’s plenty of situations when telling a small lie really doesn’t hurt anybody. And I believe this is one of those situations.

I learned this on my own when I was about 10-11 years old. My parents and I were visiting my aunt. She had just been on a vacation out of the country visiting some friends. It had been quite a huge financial effort for her. However, she brought everybody little gifts. Mine was a clipboard. On previous occasions when we were there, she saw that I like to organize things. So, she thought I might really like a clipboard. And I did. I wanted to have a clipboard so badly, that I had my parents buy me one. The problem was that the one I had was more than a clipboard. It was more like a folder-clipboard. So when my aunt gave me the one she had bought, instead of appreciating her good will, I started bragging about mine and how it was much better than hers. To this day I can’t forget her face.

Of course I was just a kid and I didn’t know any better. Unfortunately though, I’ve seen grown ups do the same thing. This kind of honesty it’s not worth it. It only hurts our loved ones for no good reason.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 1:01 am and is filed under Family, Friendship, Human Nature, Morality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.