I’ve long been intrigued by rules and expectations around gift-giving. In my family growing up, gift-giving was uncomplicated. You bought or made something you thought the recipient would like. 

Your only expectation in giving it was that the recipient would appreciate the thought that went into it even if they didn’t appreciate the gift itself. And if there was something specific about the gift that didn’t work—it was the wrong size, or you already had one—it was not a personal sleight for the recipient to exchange it for something that worked. 

I had no idea gifts could be used to hurt people until I was an adult. Then I met my husband’s mother. I don’t recall her giving me anything for Christmas or my birthday for the first three years I was with her son; why would she? We lived together (unmarried) and I was the wrong faith (atheist). She didn’t like me. 

We got married on December 7, 1983. For Christmas that year, we flew from Vancouver, where we’d moved after my mother had a health crisis, to Kingston, where my partner had grown up and his mother still lived. It was our first Christmas with his family since he’d moved away from them two years earlier.

For Christmas, my MIL gave me a nightgown and a housecoat. The nightgown was an odd choice because she knew I slept in the nude; I ignored the obvious hint. I did need a new housecoat, and I tried to be grateful for this one (and wore it until it wore out) even though it wasn’t at all my style. 

A few days later, I saw both garments on sale at Woolworth’s, the nightgown for $9.99 and the housecoat for $19.99. This would have been a day or two after my husband’s birthday, for which she gave him a plush, Pierre Cardin housecoat with the $60 price tag still pinned into the neck. (This was 1983, when $60 was worth about a billion in today’s dollars.) I’m not sure how she could have given me a more obvious message that marrying into her family did not mean that I was on the same level as anyone else in the family, a message my husband confirmed was likely exactly what she meant. After that, she only gave me gifts if my husband pushed her to. A few years later, he told her that he’d taken to sharing his annual birthday cheque from her 50/50 with me. Shortly after that, she stopped sending him anything.

One family member on my side was an absolute genius at buying gifts. She loved flea markets and kept her eyes open year-round for gifts her loved ones, especially the young children, might enjoy. She didn’t always hit the mark, but even when she was miles off base, we all valued her gifts because we knew she put a tremendous amount of thought into them. Unfortunately, she and her partner were not always as good at receiving gifts. I think they assumed that because we always showered them with praise for the gifts they offered, knowing this meant a great deal to them, they assumed that they always hit the mark. They further assumed that if others didn’t hit the mark with them, that meant they weren’t trying very hard.

They were not easy to buy for. But on one occasion, I thought I really had gotten it right with a colourful wall hanging in a particular South American folk style. The look of disappointment on their faces when they opened it said everything. At some point, they said they didn’t want to exchange gifts anymore because they couldn’t afford it, and I’m sure that was part of it. But I think it was also that we could just never figure out what they’d appreciate, and they grew tired of that.

In the past few years, I admit I’ve begun to tire of gift giving. Our annual Christmas wish list has turned into a list of hyperlinks to exactly the gift the individual wants. I’ve never been a fan of buying gifts because I like them regardless of whether I think the recipient will like them. But neither am I a fan of people being so particular about what they want that all the mystery and surprise of gift-giving is gone. I

This brings me to the latest issue, which started with one person refusing a gift. They had a reason, which I didn’t understand, but it was a cash gift, so it was easy enough to redeposit. Months later, when I thought the reason for refusing the gift had passed—my bad for not checking my assumptions—I brought back gifts from a trip that I planned to give everyone for Christmas. I needed to give one of the gifts a good deal sooner than Christmas because it would spoil.

The intended recipient took pains to refuse my gifts in a very polite text. But I still found their refusal … confusing. I ended up giving the spoilable item to someone else. As to the other item, the would-be recipient suggested that I enjoy it myself. But I would never buy something at that price point for myself. So, I’ve decided to keep it for them. It will only improve with age. If they won’t accept it before I die, I’ll leave it to them in my will. 

I have to say again that the person who refused my gifts was not in any way rude in the way they refused them. Yet I’ve still spent a lot of time puzzling over my own hurt response to this. It’s been suggested to me that no one is obligated to accept a gift, which is certainly true. It’s been suggested that my difficulty in accepting this refusal is the opposite of showing love. It’s been suggested that I shouldn’t allow gift-giving to become a source of conflict.

I’ll be perfectly honest in saying I don’t know what’s right, but the whole situation led me to thinking about gift-giving in general. So I did a bit of research (emphasis on “a bit”).

Gift-giving goes back millennia and serves a variety of purposes: gifts to gods in exchange for a bountiful harvest or an edge in battle. Gifts to leaders of other clans or tribes or nations to establish friendship and trust. Gifts at weddings to bless the marriage with fecundity, at births to pray for long and happy life, at anniversaries and birthdays to express a wish for more of the same. 

The most famous anthropologist to study gift-giving was Marcel Mauss, who wrote an essay, appropriately called “The Gift“, that examines the ways gift exchange builds social and economic relationships. Mauss’s student, the famous Claude Lévi-Strauss, posited that structures such as kinship systems, commerce, and gift exchange are similar across cultures. Other anthropologists and psychologists have noted that in building social and economic bonds—yes, the value of the gifts exchanged is part of it, in much the same way that the food served and clothing worn at a state event are part of it—gifts form part of the glue that binds cultures, and individuals, together.

A web page called “The Psychology of Gifting” lists a half-dozen reasons why people give gifts: to build and reinforce relationships, to show love and devotion, for symbolic communication, to receive something in return, to help others, or to find a mate. It also lists four main types of gifts: those that are symbolic of the giver and receiver, those that are symbolic of the giver’s knowledge of the receiver, those that are symbolic of the occasion, and those that contain an array of significant meanings.

There’s a reason virtually every national capital in the world has an inventory of gifts received from other nations, gifts no one will ever use because they belong to no one person and that’s not their function. Such gifts are offers of friendship and trust, offers for two nations to let down their guard and establish mutually beneficial relationships.

Similarly, personal gift-giving is an act of both reaching out and welcoming in. We let down our guard, show our vulnerability. In giving a gift, we hope the recipient will receive it in the spirit in which it’s intended. The harder we work at finding the perfect gift, the greater our anticipation of the recipient’s pleasure—and the deeper our disappointment if it’s not received with the joy we’d hoped for.

When people don’t show their appreciation for a gift, much less when they simply refuse it, it hurts. And it hurts all the more because the gift-giver’s guard is already down. Rejection of the gift feels very much like personal rejection.

Sometimes in a scenario like that, people express their hurt by getting angry and looking for explanations. What happened to what they thought was a mutually trusting and caring relationship? And that hurts even more. 

What’s especially interesting to me about this situation is that I, as the person whose gift has been refused, am considered the one who’s at fault. Why am I making something out of nothing? Who am I to make the other person feel bad? If only I would have accepted the rejection without saying anything, everything would have been all right. There’s no responsibility on the person who refused the gift to recognize how that might have felt to me. There’s only a responsibility on me to accept the rejection graciously.

It left me wondering, briefly, if gift-giving is worth it, if letting down one’s guard is worth it. 

I still think it is. Although I’m still feeling hurt about the current situation, which has ballooned out of all proportion at a time of year when, in my culture, we’re supposed to be appreciating one another, I still believe gift exchange, whether it’s interpersonal or international, is valuable. Just as I think, and history demonstrates, that gift exchange serves many valuable purposes, talking through misunderstandings in gift exchange provide an equally valuable opportunity to communicate about our differences and similarities and come to new understandings.

But to do that, both parties need to agree to set aside hard feelings and listen to those they’ve hurt. That’s never easy. But another thing I’ve always believed is that the harder things are to do, the more worthwhile they’re likely to be. So I’ll wait until the other party is ready to talk, and then I’ll listen and hope they’ll do the same.