It’s gift-giving season! What is on your holiday wish list this year? Is there a special gift you are looking forward to giving someone else?
What, in your opinion, makes a good gift? Does the price tag matter — or is the spirit of giving (and receiving) worth more than the monetary value of any gift?
In a guest essay “600 Readers Told Us About the Best Gifts They Ever Got. These Are the Top 13.,” The New York Times Opinion team compiles memorable, outside the (gift) box stories submitted by readers:
Right now, the internet is awash in click-to-buy gift guides. They promise the perfect gift (under $100!) for everyone on your list, be it the hiking husband, the cinephile niece or the beer-loving ex-girlfriend. At a time when shopping is our self-expression, it’s easy to feel that “I love you” can be said with two-day shipping. But the most memorable gifts will rarely be found in a gift guide.
Gift-giving is an art form. We can’t outsource it for convenience. It’s an act of imagination and of attention to and observation of the person you love — or at least to the person who you feel it would be observably rude to not have a present for. The truly great gift givers of this world know the secret: The best presents make the recipient feel seen. As the saying goes, it’s the thought that counts. And often, the thought doesn’t have to cost all that much.
When we asked readers to tell us about the most memorable gifts of time and care they received, we were flooded with nearly 600 responses. Amid the answers, many trends emerged. Three readers wrote in to say how much they appreciated having their car cleaned. Twenty-four readers told us about handmade cards, 23 told about photographs, 22 about lists of memories or reasons they were loved. For several people, that list took the form of a pack of playing cards transformed into “52 reasons I love you” — if you have a pack of cards and a Sharpie lying around, your unfinished holiday shopping might just have found an answer.
Here are five of the 13 favorite gifts chosen by the Times Opinion team, with illustrations by Maisie Cowell:
The Gift of Life
As a grad school graduation present to me, my father quit smoking cold turkey. He had smoked for over 40 years. It took him tremendous time and effort to quit. The beginning was especially difficult. It’s now 20 years later and he tells me he still craves cigarettes, but he remains true to his gift. He gave all of us a bright, healthy future together.
Crissy Huffard, Santa Cruz, Calif. Cost: $0; time: 20 years
His Voice, Forever
When I was in my 20s, I asked my father to record himself reading my favorite children’s books as a Christmas present. I wanted to make sure that my kids would be able to enjoy his storytelling abilities as much as I had, even if he wasn’t around anymore by the time they were born. My father is an expert storyteller: He does all the voices and sound effects. My father is still alive, and now my son is almost old enough to appreciate being read to in person. But I still have the recording, and it brings me joy to know that my father’s voice will be preserved for generations to come.
Caryn Davies, Boston Cost: $0; time: many evenings of reading into the microphone
The Spoon That Couldn’t
When my daughters were 7 and 9 years old I mentioned a couple of times as I served them spaghetti, “I’d really like a pasta spoon.” I was a teacher and a single mother, and a pasta spoon was not something we truly needed. On Christmas Day I unwrapped a homemade “pasta spoon” from my daughters. They’d broken the metal heads off two hangers and glue-gunned them to a wooden spatula. Then they’d decorated it with markers and added a few plastic beads. My first reaction was alarm at realizing they knew where I kept the glue gun. Then, I was flooded with so much love. I explained that while we couldn’t use this spoon for pasta, it was clearly a work of art and engineering. We would display it in the glass case with our fossils and treasures. It’s been 11 years and this is still the most precious gift I’ve ever gotten.
Mary Eileen Yaeger, Alexandria, Va. Cost: $0; time: 15 minutes
A HELPING HAND
Five or six years ago, my daughter Katy gifted me eight hands, cast in plaster. As I unpacked the box, pulling out more and more hands, I was flabbergasted. At first I didn’t realize whose hands they were. Then I put it together: There was one for each member of my immediate family, from my young grandchildren to my elderly father-in-law. It was so much fun for each person to tell the story of the casting: how hard it was to be still long enough, what went wrong, how excited they were when the hand finally emerged. Katy had to wrangle everyone, providing them with materials from afar, teaching them how to do it, giving tips on how to make an expressive hand gesture. And after Christmas, they taught me how to make my own plaster hand to join the others! They’re all now proudly displayed in our home, gesturing at me every time I walk by.
Elise Smith, Jackson, Miss. Estimated cost: $20; time: weeks of organizing
Patched Up
One Mother’s Day, my then-18-year-old son left me a flower and a note in the kitchen. The note read: “Your gift is upstairs.” Upstairs, I found that he had patched the hole he had punched in the wall when on a rampage about a parenting decision I’d made. His thoughtfulness felt symbolic to me: We could get angry, do or say things we regretted, and then patch things up. I think about his gift often, and about what a caring man my son has grown into. He is now 35 and he is so loving with his own young kids, who no doubt will drive him to the brink. I know they will always be able to patch things up with love.
Julie Teague, Bloomington, Ind. Estimated cost: $5; time: 1 hour
Students, read the rest of the 13 gift stories and then tell us:
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What is the best gift you have ever received? Tell us the story behind the present and what made it so special.
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Are good at giving gifts? What is the best gift you have ever given, and how did you know it was appreciated?
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What, in your opinion, makes a great gift? Conversely, what makes a terrible gift?
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What is on your holiday wish list this year? Is there a gift you are especially looking forward to giving?
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A pasta spoon made with metal hangers, a wooden spatula and plastic beads; a patched hole in the wall; audio recordings of children’s books. What is your reaction to the gift stories shared by Times readers? Which one stands out the most, and why? Did reading the guest essay give you any new gift ideas this holiday season? If so, what are your plans?
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“Gift-giving is an art form. We can’t outsource it for convenience. It’s an act of imagination and of attention to and observation of the person you love,” the Times Opinion team writes. Do you think gift-giving an art form or an expression of love? Why or why not?
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Do you agree with the adage “It’s better to give than to receive”? Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts? Why?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
Jeremy Engle is an editor of The Learning Network who worked in teaching for more than 20 years before joining The Times.
The post What’s the Best Gift You’ve Ever Received? appeared first on New York Times.
