Are you asking yourself what you’ll buy for Christmas gifts? Does the idea of giving presents fill your heart with joy? Or are you sighing or groaning and wishing it would all go away?
If your shopping isn’t infused with Christmas spirit, this article’s for you. Even if gifting is fun, maybe the whole shopping experience has become a little overwhelming. So let’s take an insider look at holiday gifting.
Our shopping history usually begins early in our families with gifts from Santa. But somewhere along the line came the notion of giving other people presents. (It was more fun the Santa way.) We watched the way gifting happened at our house and our friends’ homes. Maybe it was mostly joyous with little stress or expectations. If so, gifting is probably pretty fun and carefree for you today.
But if you heard comments like, “If I don’t get Aunt Suzie something really nice, she’ll be mad,” or “I’ll feel bad if I don’t get each person something that costs the same,” shopping begins to feel stressful. And if we’re not careful, gifting gets linked to what kind of person we are: nice, unselfish, thoughtful people give other people presents. Something’s wrong with people who don’t!
The power of this not-so-subtle judgment can drive us to shop and gift without much choice. The underlying motives are: feeling OK about oneself, and doing what’s expected. Christmas through gifting is a national mandate. It’s pretty tough to opt out of such a big expectation.
So how to tackle two of the main issues that can creep (or blast down the chimney) into Christmas shopping: guilt and self-criticism.
If guilt drives your Christmas cart, or if you’re feeling guilty about scaling back or even stopping Christmas gifting, you don’t need to run from the feeling or try to make it go away by doing something. Go ahead, feel guilty. Then ask yourself where the feeling comes from? Who says you have to participate in drawing names for gifts? Somebody did, but maybe you don’t want to do that any more. Doing something different often brings guilty feelings, but feelings can diminish over time if we really take a look at what they’re about.
If you berate yourself for not buying just the right gift or spending too much or not enough, think about whether your gifting is tied to your self-worth. If others don’t like the presents you give or don’t give, does that make you a lesser person? Believing you have a choice in gifting and can do it your way takes guts. But what a relief from the chains of obligation! The goal is to feel happy about gifting, so what does that look like for you?
It’s important to let those you gift know about changes you’re planning in the way of giving presents. You can even invite them to experiment with some new ways to celebrate Christmas. Who knows? It might be a relief to them as well to cut a new path to the Christmas spirit.