What’s wrong with plastic gifting?

Just so you know, I think that the gift card, when used to replace real Christmas gifts, is an abomination. Well, maybe not quite as bad as that, but close. I have been known to give them myself when I was pressured into it by the men in my life or by the constraints of time, but I didn’t like it.

Mainly, gift cards are boring. I don’t care if they come in a singing card holder, there is only one thing you can do with a gift card after you listen to it, and that is look at it. I am of the opinion that gifts, especially when they are given to children and just about everyone else should be able to be used, worn, played, driven, ridden, of played with the instant they are opened.

If it is new clothes, let’s put them on all at once. If it’s a new bike or four-wheeler, let’s ride it now. If it s a drum set, start drumming. What are we saving these games for? Christmas is supposed to be exciting and fun and have absolutely nothing to do with delayed gratification.

I am simply and mortally afraid that someone I am related to will be having a Christmas like this when he calls his friends on Christmas day:

“Hey James. What are you doing?”

“I just came in from riding my new bike in the snow. It is so awesome. It has front brakes and ten gears. What are you doing?

“Well, I am looking at my gift cards right now. I have taken them out of the box and put them back in a few times, but that’s about it. I think that next I will organize them from most money to least, and then I suppose I could do the opposite. After that I will arrange them by color. That should take a little while.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I could let you ride my bike if you are careful with it. Maybe we could clothespin your cards to the spokes.”

Well, at least they could be generating some instant fun.

So the whole gift-giving process has degenerated into doing the easiest possible thing—ordering a gift card online and having it drop-shipped to the recipient. Couldn’t be more efficient or more impersonal.

So true story: my son called last week and told us to watch for our Christmas gift cards. They were coming by mail from the internet clearing house. One for me and one for Mr. B., each for $50. Well, happily, all in the same phone call we were able to instruct him to watch for his gift cards, one for him and one for his wife, each in the amount of $50. Our sets of cards will be singing to each other as they pass in the mail.

Now what is the point of that? We should just have a conference call with the whole family and decide on what amount we will all want to keep in our bank accounts. Then we could all sing a couple of verses of “Jingle Bells” and call it Christmas.

There is one more reason to choose goods over gift cards. With the value of the dollar deteriorating at its present rate, your gift card will likely be worth a good deal less by the time you are able to get it spent.

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