The Debate: Is it time to scrap the Christmas tradition of gift giving?
City PM’s weekly feature takes the fiercest water-cooler debates and pits two candidates head to head before delivering The Judge’s ultimate verdict. This week we tackle the joy/scourge of gift giving. Is it time to abandon presents?
Yes: Gift-giving is a cultural tax on our good will
It was the Christmas birthday boy himself who first said it was better to give than receive. Easy for him to say – he could turn water into wine and multiply as many loaves and fish as needed. The rest of us, not being omniscient, have what economists would call an acute information asymmetry.
How many memories do you recall of children throwing temper tantrums because a trinket didn’t fit with what they wanted? Market research shows 32m people have received at least one gift they did not want, which means wasted money, time and strained relationships. I can’t be the only one still angry at Alan Rickman for making Emma Thompson cry in Love, Actually, for buying that necklace for his mistress rather than her.
Snape’s infidelity aside, similar levels of asymmetry are stressful when incomplete information leads to an awkward exchange. Free trade between faceless mega corporations doesn’t operate in such a low information space – why should we subject our loved ones to such stabs in the dark? Gift giving is a cultural tax on our good will – academic Joel Waldfogel estimates holiday gift expenditure destroys 10-33 per cent of the value of said gifts, on a sliding scale between close to distant recipients.
Have you noticed Christmas starting earlier every year? This isn’t due to jolliness or festive cheer, but because retailers understand the short-run budgetary implications of holiday seasons and want you to pony up more. It is hard for the human mind to analyse the supposed preferences of dozens of relatives, coordinate which gifts they would like to receive, and condition it upon price point, satisfaction and the convenience of logistics. Put simply, gift giving is an uneconomical, information nightmare we would do better without! Bah humbug.
No: Presents are a small price for familial harmony
When our Lord took corporeal form — a gift to the world from himself — he was confronted by three wizened old boys returning the favour with expensive rare trinkets, not to mention an accoutrement of agricultural labourers with era-appropriate plush animals for the Baby Jesus to play with.
And why not? They had been warned their God was a jealous God often enough before to take any chances. What’s a bit of myrrh to stave off locust plagues from a temperamental messiah? With the tone set, gift-giving at Christmas has endured — depending on how you view it, as a way of showing people they are valued, or of buying their compliance/silence over a fraught couple of days. You can’t choose your family, and as you are compelled to see them on such occasions, this is perhaps one Danegeld worth paying.
Often, people feel pressure to source a range of presents and, being fully functioning adult humans, they leave it all to a frenzied rush at the last minute. Not me. For me buying gifts is a year-round thing, spotting items that make you stop and think of someone, picking up on hints, and setting them aside for the end of the year. Even a late gift that matters is better than a poor one on time — the very point is that time was taken. I’m confident what I’ve accrued this year for others will be appreciated.
And if not, as wonderful as the people in mind are, none of them are God, so any wrath incurred for a poorly-chosen gift will be minor. Gift giving isn’t the most important thing at Christmas, but it is a demonstration of sacrifice, obligation and memory to others. So why not partake? If it was good enough for Christ, it’s good enough for you.
The Verdict
Let’s start with the glaringly obvious: no one wants to be dumped with a crap gift. Coloured tissues, a second-hand jumper with a dog on it, an ugly puppy, “unwearable” socks, a rubbish bin with the Da Vinci Code inside it – as Marlow says, too many of us have received “presents” we simply do not want. This wastes money and time – inefficiencies economists, in general, despise.
Waldfogel has proved money spent on someone else yields 85 per cent of the benefit it would if spent on oneself: It’s “a lousy way to allocate resources,” the grinch-like economist concludes.
But what of the sentimental argument? Spence toasts the selflessness and forced empathy facilitated by gift giving. These are valuable traits too often in short supply. Gift giving can nurture them – as long as you don’t engage in panic buying (the aforementioned socks were purchased at a station retail outlet – go figure).
So: buy gifts and aim for them to be useful. One reader got in touch with the fond memory of a gift of Cushelle’s finest quilted toilet paper. A student at the time, this was practically a luxury and not a single piece of paper would be wasted. What joy for giver and receiver both. Verdict: rejected.