[gifts] the thought is everything

JMB [am I imagining it or is she blogging fabulously lately?] and the estimable Political Umpire have been debating not only wine but the whole ethos of giving and receiving:

I always take a nice wine to friends X, because I know Mrs X is a wine buff and appreciates it. They never open it, however, but offer either non-alcoholic drinks or, occasionally, a very cheap supermarket wine (I do not believe Mrs X, with her evident knowledge, is unaware of this).

Should I continue taking nice bottles, but unsubtly hint they open it, take an inferior one (the contrast with previous offerings would be noticed), or take a different gift the value of which would not be evident (thus enabling me to economise discretely if I so wished).

Going off at a tangent, as is my wont, the whole art of present giving has been lost to many people these days, as far as I can see.

One Christmas will forever stick in my memory. There were three families at the gathering. Now, as two of those families had children, it went against everything I stood for to give one present to cover the entire family. I didn't wish to but it involved, therefore, about 11 presents.

Now there's a certain reputation to uphold here and I do like people to think some thought has been put in. For example, I used to receive a batik calendar, hand-made by an elderly couple, replete with photos. It mattered not how many they'd produced [they had the time]. They still had to make it and that's what counted with me.

It's the Japanese approach, the Japanese seriousness accorded the process which is nice. And the Japanese are the first to say that the gift wrapping is equally, if not more, important. I felt that the wrapping paper, the ribbon and the way the colours inside and out coordinated was pretty vital.

I wouldn't say my presents were awe-inspiring but they were certainly thought out and the wrapping was as classy as I could make it. At the risk of being an ingrate, I came home that day with one bottle of cheap plonk which I knew that family would never have drunk themselves, one box of handkerchiefs and the third family had forgotten about me entirely.

So we come to what presents are - they are a statement of what you think of that other person and as two people always put the other not entirely on the same level, then imbalance results, by definition. One present will always exceed the other. I love the idea of presents but presents themselves are fraught.

So it seems to me we either go the Japanese way of keeping a log of all presents given, past and present, with meticulous attention paid to the level of the present - or else we dispense with them entirely, except within the immediate family, e.g. our kids, where no reciprocation can ever be expected.

One alternative for those who can't do that is to work out our Christmas list, make special cards over a couple of months, 2 or 3 a night perhaps and then there is no "level judging" possible. These are given close to the day. The effort put into making them shows the other you care but there is little monetary value attached.

The more extreme solution, of course, is to announce, ahead of time, that from this Christmas and onwards into the future, we are dispensing with all gifts and cards, so please don't give anything. To unexpected cards received through the post, a pleasant letter of thanks will be forthcoming in the New Year.

To assist with this, maybe we could write a little notice on a piece of card and carry it with us throughout the danger season. Every time someone wants to involve us, we could say our ultra-polite little piece and show them the card, show them that this is a blanket thing we're doing, nothing personal.

Then it's a case of people respecting that.