As Christmas day approches, everyone who celebrates knows what they want, or at the very least what to expect. But oftentimes, people get lazy and the gifts aren’t meaningful. Christmas day is a day to share gifts, spend valuable time with family and loved ones, and for Christians, a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
But the thoughtfulness behind the gifts doesn’t always rise to the occasion. Some gifts people receive are given to them as a joke, or a lousy, not well thought-out gesture. And some gifts people receive don’t feel meaningful. Some low-effort, last-minute gifts include gift cards, books, socks, money and cleaning supplies. Such gifts imply the giver did a bit of last-minute shopping, and didn’t take into consideration what the gift receiver wanted.
Gift cards are something you casually get someone for their birthday, but definitely not Christmas material. Gifts cards, such as Visa or restaurant cards, suggest you want the person to buy their own things. This gift can only be seen as a good thing if it’s for a game and the person really wanted it, but besides that it just seems lazy.
Books can be a hit or miss. This truly depends on if the person is a book lover, and even then you’d be taking a gamble if you don’t know their favorite genre, or the type of books they’re interested in such as trilogies and such. Books as a gift can seem meaningful if you’re very knowledgeable on the receiver, but if not they may not appreciate your “efforts.”
Socks are kind of an odd gift; it’s almost like gifting someone undergarments for Christmas. I mean, would you be happy opening a gift and it’s socks? It’s always nice to get, but it’s strange, weird, and off-putting. Socks, unless they’re cute and fuzzy, seem like an “eh” gift. It makes it seem like you walked into a store, saw socks, and decided that was good enough to give someone as a gift.
Money as a gift is the most lazy thing you can do. Gifting money implies that the person should use the money to buy whatever they want for themselves, when really you should have used that money to buy them the gift. Of course the gift is nice if you’re giving them the money to pay something off, maybe college debt or something of that sort. Other than those exceptions, gifting money is the absolute worst thing to gift someone. It makes it seem as though you don’t really care as much.
Lastly, cleaning supplies as a gift are just perfunctory. It makes it seem as though this person needs the cleaning supplies, as if they’re dirty or unclean. It’s pretty rude, and not such a thoughtful, or kind gift. The only way this would be an acceptable gift is if the person genuinely enjoys cleaning supplies. Otherwise, cleaning supplies as a gift isn’t as kind, nor sends the right message unless you’re using these supplies to help them clean up.
