THE first email I got on Boxing Day was a suggestion from e-Bay, the online buying and selling site, that I sell any unwanted Christmas presents using its services, for which it gets a small cut.
[Find and purchase perfect Christmas gifts & presents at http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/christmas-shopping-guide/]
Rising affluence, cheaper (mainly made-in-China) consumables and easier credit are combining to make the unwanted Christmas present more common.
Most desires for consumables can be gratified at any time of year, at least for adults. If you want it, buy it. Come Christmas, though, it makes it almost impossible. How does one work out what to buy even the closest relative or friend? They have already bought it.
For children, though, relatives could always have a stab at it. When I was a child I was trapped with successive unwanted Christmas presents. I was seven when my aunt in England sent me a stamp album. My siblings and I were instructed by my parents to write dutiful letters of thanks back to her. There was no e-mail then.
I described – completely falsely — a desire to take up stamp collecting. In fact, I had no interest in stamps. I thought it pointless and boring to stick stamps into pages for each country.
Year after year my spinster aunt did her best to provide her nieces and nephews with presents they would like. So my thank-you letter proved calamitous. Next year and the year after I got dumb old stamps for Christmas while my siblings wallowed in various toys of which I was deeply envious.
It was only after the third thank you letter in which I described how I had interested my younger brother in the stamp collection and handed it over to him was I freed of the seemingly endless succession of unwanted Christmas presents of stamps.
Instead, the following year my younger brother got the stamps. Ho, ho, ho. He was not pleased.
Alas, now I should imagine that such an unwanted collection might fetch quite a bit on e-Bay.
One of my sisters fared equally as badly. She was about 14 when my aunt sent her some newly invented pantyhose, not yet available in Australia. The diligent thank-you letter went back to my aunt, despite them being the wrong size. That year, the next year, and the next year.
Our cultural forces are so strong that we have to resort to white lies rather than say a Christmas present it unwanted.
Maybe the three wise men got it right. The biblical story of their bringing of gifts to Jesus sprouted this orgy of exchanging presents – of mainly consumer durables — at Christmas.
But the wise men did not have the option of consumer durables. They brought money and consumables – gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Should one give money at Christmas? Or gift vouchers with amounts stipulated on them to obviate the unwanted gift.
The beauty of money is that, even if the receiver thinks it might be of the wrong colour or size, it will still not be unwanted. Also, the grandparent, uncle or aunt who quickly stuffs a banknote into an envelope is probably better thought of than the diligent relative who seeks out what the children might want. These days they are almost bound to get it wrong.
But if everyone gave money the occasion would be lost. And because it is so measurable it can only result in vicious comparisons and jealousy.
My younger brother, for example, was fortunate enough to have a very wealthy, childless widow as his godmother. The rest of us had paupers or the indifferent as godparents.
My younger brother’s Mrs Jackson sent him five pounds every Christmas. She died before decimal currency, but my brother did well for quite a few years. It was an astonishing amount of money.
My younger brother alternated between largesse, generosity, and selfish displays of possessiveness.
It led to an astonishing amount of deadly sin: envy, greed, gluttony, wrath and pride, at least. And even sloth after especially heavy bouts of conspicuous consumption of confectionery. Six out of seven is bad. We were too young for lust.
This year Amazon, the online bookseller, attempted to solve the problem of the unwanted Christmas gift. It notifies recipients of intended gifts and invites them to convert the value of the gift to cash vouchers to be spent on other items in the Amazon store.
So when Aunt Millie who has been labouring under the misapprehension that Little Johnny wants to be an astronaut gives him “The Right Stuff”, Little Johnny, who really wants to be a ballet dancer, can convert it to cash and buy “The Nureyev Years” with some cash left over to buy “Billy Elliot”.
Aunt Millie’s receipt and electronic record continues to state “The Right Stuff”, so no-one is offended.
Moreover, Amazon gets a belated Christmas present, too. Rarely, are the prices of the unwanted and wanted books identical. Little Johnny will have to top up to buy his desired book or will have money left over which he will still have to top up to get a second book. More profit for Amazon.
You can find any number of estimates of the value of unwanted Christmas presents in Australia or other countries that celebrate Christmas, or at least join in the commercial gift-swapping spree at the end of the year.
E-Bay and Amazon’s methods are two ways of reducing it, albeit fairly self-serving and cynical ones.
Other ways are up to individuals. Give only money and consumables, though even with consumables you can get unwanteds: jars of hibiscus petals in vinegar; goat’s liver pate on pork dripping; prickly pear tea and so on. But most foods and drinks will not be unwanted.
Secondly, you can recycle unwanted gifts. Always unwrap gifts carefully – so as not to destroy original packaging a labels. Remove any hint of pre-giving, like cards saying: “To Johnny from Aunt Millie. Xmas 2010.”
Store them carefully to just before next Christmas and then give them to someone else, making sure you do not give it back to the original giver.
Or better still, give it to a charity, making sure the charity wants to receive such things. You don’t want to give yet another unwanted Christmas present.
[Find and purchase perfect Christmas gifts & presents at
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Re: Your Opinion in Forum 5th March –
Surely one of the blatant failings in the current ‘debate’ is that the so-called informed side of the argument is simply not debating.
The scientists try, but are ignored, your article explains how & why. The Greens try, but have been tar-brushed effectively by the neo-cons – so are also ignored. The Garnauts drone (dreadfully).
And the people who can command some air-play, and have the intellect and presence to take the fight up, are saying nothing. What a waste when Swan spends available minutes contradicting himself about whether it is a tax (what is that about?), and when Gillard says – – – – – “nothing (?????)”
The cynical might say the deniers are inside the tent, and this whole exercise is just a blatant attempt to slow the leakage of votes to the Greens, whilst setting up a policy designed to falter, either before it becomes LAW. or later when it is shown to be so poorly designed that it either achieves nothing, or totally collapses.