Gift Giving with Gratitude

The Whompton adults are opposed to giving gifts at traditional points in the year: Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, Christmas.  Much feels yucky about society and Hallmark and the entire capitalist system brainwashing people into giving gifts out of obligation rather than a sincere desire to give.  I’m not a fan of this, period.  We also are not religious, so doing a gift exchange at Christmas has a double-yucky factor for the family.  The environmental and financial impacts cannot be overlooked either.  As an adult, I do not need someone else to buy me something I can just purchase myself, if I want it.  Additionally, we already accumulate a large pile of stuff that regular gift giving creates, courtesy of my students and birthday party favors and other random circumstances.  (Really, what am I supposed to do with four candles a year?  And what about the entire array of children’s plastic toys!?  Don’t even get me started there.)  Having more people add to that pile is a frustrating experience.  Finally, I think the whole commercialistic gimme-gimme and “everything is quickly disposable” culture is disturbing and I don’t want to participate in it. 

I am not a Scrooge.  I just think giving or receiving gifts out of obligation is a bad practice. 

Eric and I agreed on this philosophy very early in our relationship.  We buy practical gifts for the house as opposed to gifts for each other.  Our five-year wedding anniversary gift was gutter-guards, for instance, and Eric met with the plumber and roofer for my birthday last year.  Both were awesome gifts that kept on giving, and neither was something we’d find at the local Target. 

The girls love receiving gifts, but their needs and desires are rather small.  Both girls struggled to identify two items they’d like to receive from their grandparents this year; Raina concluded her wish list with “I’d really like my grandparents to spend more time with me.”  Yes and yes.

I’d like to begin a new tradition of gift giving: giving “thankful” gifts at Thanksgiving.  It’s pretty simple.  You identify something for which you’re thankful, and then you help provide that for someone else.  You can give the gift to the world or to a specific person or both.  It could be “I’m thankful for food,” and then donating food to a pantry or making/delivering sandwiches to the needy or volunteering at the local food bank.  It could be “I’m thankful for education,“ and then donating school supplies or supporting a college fund or volunteering at a library.  It could be “I’m grateful for security,” and then writing nice notes to service men and women, donating to the USO, or writing to your Congressmen and women and emphasizing how much this matters to you. 

The Whomptons gave thankful gifts this November and it was great.  Both Raina and Lola were thankful for food, so they hand-selected and filled grocery carts with food and we donated it to the Saint Louis Area Food Bank.  I was grateful for education and opportunity and being a female born in the US, so we’re sending a Ugandan girl to boarding school for a year.  We’re grateful for the Saint Louis Zoo, and Samantha made the girls “Zoo Parents” again.  We’re thankful for financial security, and we’re hopeful that our donation to Heifer International will provide that same stability to other families.

I really love the idea of sharing our bounty and gratitude with others, rather than focusing all our money and attention at ourselves.  Each of our gifts had meaning, will have a positive impact on a community wider than our family, and helped focus our November and Thanksgiving conversations about thankfulness and gratitude. 

Please, give it a try and let us know what you think!