Tick, Tick, Tick

It's Thanksgiving: a glistening turkey bedecks the table. The scent
of cinnamon hovers in the oven. Inhale deeply, and you can even
smell...the fear. That's right: less than 30 shopping days left before
Christmas! Chances are, if you're like most American consumers, you
already know that. Chances are, too, that you find it annoying. You
resent the relentless commercialism of the holidays, the nagging feeling
that you must identify and purchase the right present for each person on
your list, the endless strategizing, shopping, wrapping and
exchanging.

And then the unwrapping, when you cringe in dread, waiting to see
if your spurt of spending paid off: Will they like it? Are they just
pretending? Why can't I tell? Then it's your turn to take center stage.
You smile bravely as your unwrapping reveals...ahh...a sweater in a
putrid shade of green ("Oh, it's perfect! It will go with my favorite
skin") or... hmm... the latest power drill, though you have trouble even
screwing in a light bulb ("It's great. Now I can put up those shelves in
my den"). Such playacting, such stress, such exhaustion.

No question: if the holidays are hell, then the gift-giving ritual
is one of its red-hot centers. "For most people," says William Doherty,
Ph.D., professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota,
"giving gifts is the most nerve-wracking part of the entire
season."

Why must a ritual that we believe should be relaxed and joyful be
so tortured? The answer is that we pack a lot of psychological baggage
into those niftily wrapped packages. While a cigar is sometimes a cigar,
a gift is almost never just a gift. We romanticize the exchange of
presents as a simple, loving gesture, but in fact it's "a fundamental
form of human communication," says anthropologist Richard Handler, Ph.D.,
of the University of Virginia. Gifts come freighted with hidden meanings
and purposes. When exchanged between members of tribes, business
acquaintances or heads of state, gifts are tokens of status, respect and
appreciation. "They create and cement alliances, allegiances and
partnerships," explains Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., author of Influence: The
Psychology of Persuasion.

In more intimate relationships with family and friends, they take
on more personal---and powerful---meaning. "Gifts are symbols of our
love," says Ronald Nathan, Ph.D., clinical professor in the department of
family practice at Albany Medical College in New York. As such, they
signify what we think of each other, what we know of each other. Around
each gift swirl essential questions: How well do you understand me? How
well do you love me?

Many givers get the answers wrong. Each year Americans fork over
$40 billion for holiday presents, or an average of $75 for each person.
And up to $4 billion of that money goes for gifts that recipients don't
appreciate, according to Wharton professor Joel Waldfogel, Ph. D. Woe
betide unsuccessful givers. They hear the silent cry: If you don't
understand me, how well can you love me?

With so much at stake, gift giving becomes a high-wire act that
sends the stress meter over the top. Picking presents unleashes a fury of
calculations that could tax a Nobel economist. A proper Christmas gift
must fulfill some basic requirements, discovered social scientist
Theodore Caplow and colleagues, who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
scrutinized the gift-giving habits of 350 Muncie, Indiana, families. It
must surprise the recipient, it must show familiarity with his or her
tastes and its cost must reflect the perceived emotional value of the
relationship between the giver and "givee."

Another basic rule: reciprocity. "You want to give a gift proximate
in value to the gift you expect to receive," observes Doherty. And since
you give based on what you expect to get back, you factor in what that
person has given you in the past. Receiving a gift that seems to be far
more expensive than the one you give--or far less--is more than
embarrassing. It can stir resentment in the purest heart as well as raise
questions about motive and character. "A man who gives a woman an
unusually elaborate or expensive gift may leave her feeling that he
prefers to offer an object instead of his love," notes Dickson Diamond,
M.D., a psychiatrist in Washington, D.C.

Figured into the gift-giving equation, too, is the relationship of
the recipient to the most central people in the family: gifts given to
others must be proportionate in value to those given to the primary
figures. "So, for example," Doherty explains, "you'd never give your
nephew, even your favorite one, a gift that seems worth more than the one
you give your son."

Spouses must not slight each other's parents; they can't give their
own mother or father a gift that dwarfs that presented to their parental
in-laws. So, too, must siblings be careful not to favor their own brother
or sister at the expense of their brother's or sister's spouse: a
perceived puny present to a brother-in-law gets the tension wires
humming.

Of course, parents giving gifts to their adult children had better
be fair and equitable, because their kids are weighing and measuring the
size and value of every trinket and every flourish of ribbon presented to
each sibling--and have been since they were tots. One misstep in the gift
department can reawaken every sibling rivalry and felt inequity of
childhood. Moreover, stepchildren mustn't be overlooked for biological
offspring.

All told, the calculus is so complex, says Doherty, that "it's like
flying a 747 where you have to concentrate on wind, fuel and airspeed all
at the same time."

If giving gifts is fraught with tension, so is getting them.
Despite all our experience, we have an expectation that others will know
exactly what we want and give it to us. The inevitable disappointment is
keen. It's not merely disappointment, of course. It's hurt: you discover
that the people who are supposed to love you most don't even know your
size. "All the frustrations of not being really known by our loved ones
are made real," notes Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman, M.D.

Yet the ritual requires that the unhappiness be disguised. We are
obliged to be gracious receivers. "Just saying 'thank you' is not
enough," Doherty says. "If you do that, you're not being gracious."
Fulsome praise for the giver's taste and thoughtfulness are de
rigueur.

Of course, such graciousness doesn't last much beyond the
unwrapping. Some recipients hesitantly approach givers, fearful of
wounding them, with explanations that the size is wrong, they already
have one of these things at home--and could they please return the
oh-so-thoughtful present? Others send emissaries--their spouse, for
example--to cautiously question the giver about the intention behind the
gift.

Still others simply clam up, tote the unwanted gifts back home--and
give them away to someone else. Fully 28% of respondents in a recent
American Express survey admitted to practicing such "gift recycling."
Passing along presents is an ethical dilemma for many, but Doherty for
one, doesn't see a problem. Yes, recycling "violates the social norm," he
acknowledges. "People would be mortified if others found out they did
this." Yet the practice isn't unethical and is even understandable. "The
gifts we recycle are usually neither valuable nor unique," he observes.
In other words, they violate one of the key rules of giving: they do not
resonate with the recipient.

Is there a way to avoid the toll that holiday gift giving takes on
our psyches and our pocketbooks? Some families, tired of the pressures of
rampant giving and getting, have devised some solutions. Among
them:

o Set limits. Cap the number of gifts one person can give to
another or the amount of money that can be spent per present.

o Give gifts only to the children in the family. Or pick family
names out of a hat: each member buys a gift only for the person on the
slip.

o Prepare a list of what each family member wants, along with their
sizes. Pool money to purchase one big gift for each person.

o Shop early. Pick up a present when something catches your eye as
right for a person and put it away in the closet till Christmas.

o Use your imagination. Arrange for theater tickets, a special
day's outing (a visit to a spa, say) or a weekend trip.

And when all else fails, simply grin and bear it. Remember
Christmas is but one day--and you've got 365 days until next year's
giving go-round.

Sweating a Sweater

One year, I happily showed my girlfriend each gift I'd received
from my family, but when I got to a white sweater that my aunt had given
me, I complained, "Who gives a boring sweater to a 17-year-old for
Christmas?" As I continued to rip into the gift, my girlfriend watched
silently, then handed me her own present. When I opened it, t was shocked
to see that it was exactly the same style of sweater. I back pedaled like
crazy, saying: "No, honey, I like yours better. It has a nicer
collar--really!" Even thinking about it now makes me want to crawl into a
corner.

--P.V.

Family Revenge

I am a great gift giver, but a rotten receiver. Over the years, no
matter how hard family members have tried to select presents I would
like, I've usually found some fault with them.

Finally, they were forced to give up. Now they send me out to
choose my own gift. I have to buy it, wrap it up and tote it to the
festivities where I open it and exclaim, in surprise and with pleasure,
that it's just what I wanted. Afterwards, they reimburse me for
it.

--O.G.

Size Does Matter

It was the first holiday that my brother-in-law was spending with
us after his marriage to my sister. I thought long and hard about what to
get him and decided on onyx cufflinks and a shirt to wear them with. He
seemed happy with the presents, but shortly after the unwrapping my
sister hesitantly approached me and said he was a little hurt because his
gift seemed to be so small compared with what I'd given others, and he
thought perhaps that I didn't feel he was a full member of the family. I
assured her that wasn't the case, that in fact, I'd commissioned someone
to make the cufflinks especially for him, and, in the coup de grace, that
his gift had actually cost more than hers.

--F.L.

Lover Knows Best

For months before Hanukkah, my friend and I would stroll down the
street, looking in store windows. I'd point out what I really liked--a
piece of jewelry, a scarf, a purse--and hoped that he would take the
hint. Invariably, though, he'd always give me not the item I'd chosen,
but a pin, scarf or bag that he insisted was "bigger," "more expensive"
or "better for me." The power plays finally got to be too much for me: I
found someone else who was "better for me."

--H.G.