How can we make more meaning in our giving of presents this holiday season?

What does it mean to give presents at the holidays and why do we do it?

Has gift-giving become rote?

When we consider buying presents this holiday season, what are some things we might consider? What might we want to do differently if anything at all?

Here are some considerations I’d like to suggest when thinking about giving gifts.

Will the gift have meaning to the recipient?

Do I have them in mind, or is this more about me?

Will the gift add clutter to their home? Will it simply fill space under the tree, or in a closet?

With so much concern about our earth, what can we give people that won’t contribute to the landfill yet will show our love?

When my eldest daughter was graduating high school, a friend of mine suggested taking her on a trip. “She’ll never forget it,” he said. “Better than something she may later throw out.” I was freelancing as an Avid video editor at WNBC News Channel 4 in NYC and was able to switch my schedule and take time off.

What my daughter and I have from that trip has lasted for years. The video with our younger faces and voices brings wonderful memories back.

My pandemic project was to transfer all our family VHS tapes to digital and edit them in Final Cut Pro. I was thrilled to come across the tape my daughter took during that graduation trip. We were traveling by train from Switzerland to Milan. I was eating something, and she was interviewing me on tape. We were laughing. I saw our younger faces and heard our younger voices. I watched the excitement in our eyes and the wonder that comes with traveling.

Of course, we couldn’t videotape everything. We didn’t tape the dinner in Paris where the waiter came to our table with an enormous metal bowl of chocolate mousse and served a large helping onto our plates. We didn’t videotape the glass of wine that my 17-year-old high school graduate was allowed to have in the French restaurant around the corner from our hotel. We couldn’t possibly videotape the strong (awful) smelling cheese we bought at the cheese store where I struggled to remember the word fromage from deep in the recesses of my mind. (What happened to my high school French?)

But watching what we did videotape, brings it all back in a real-life way. I marvel at our voices, our laughter, and the excitement that we felt with each new experience.

The pandemic (and the economy) has put a huge limit on resources and travel. Who knows if we can ever get back to our favorite places? But we have our younger voices and our younger faces to take us there.

What presents will you give?

What memories will you create?

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