After weeks of navigating through endless gift guides, feeling the pressure to discover that perfect present, the reality of “gift guide fatigue” truly sets in. This year, Christmas shopping was a last-minute sprint, squeezed into less than an hour just before the deadline. I’m writing this from a pub in Cork City as my husband frantically dashes around town, attempting to conquer his entire gift list before the big day arrives. Every year, this routine triggers anxiety and exhaustion – the looming Gift Exchange, the fixed time we must gather around the tree to give and receive, an event that dictates our plans and demands space in our already busy schedules.
It’s not a matter of disliking gifts themselves. I generally possess considerable patience for the awkwardness of both giving and receiving gifts that might be unwanted or impractical. In my cultural background, hosts frequently present guests with small, often unnecessary gifts or goodie bags, sometimes even urging friends and family to eat or wear things they don’t particularly need. While some might find this constant gifting from relatives overwhelming, it highlights a fundamental beauty in the act of gift-giving itself: the desire to express love, to show someone they are in your thoughts, to offer care and consideration, regardless of whether the recipient explicitly welcomes this affection. This inherent unconditionality of the gift is what makes it meaningful.
Typically, gift-giving aligns with Jacques Derrida’s definition: for a gift to be truly a gift, it must be free of “no reciprocity, return, exchange, countergift, or debt.” However, as Anastasia Berg astutely pointed out in an advice column about celebrating Christmas as a Jewish individual, this ideal is rarely further from reality than at Christmas, especially during the highly anticipated Gift Exchange event. (During my husband’s financially leaner years in New York City, he once depleted his entire bank account on Christmas gifts, relying on the generosity of a cab driver to even reach the airport for his holiday trip home.)
Although my experience with Christmas is relatively recent, it’s clear that the Christmas Gift Exchange is not typically an instance of one person spontaneously showering another with affection and beautifully wrapped presents while the other demurs and grumbles before finally, sheepishly accepting. That scenario, where a gift might be reciprocated at a later point or in a different form, is a different kind of “exchange”—it’s not the structured Christmas Gift Exchange we’re discussing. The one year I arrived empty-handed, having been overwhelmed by wedding preparations in India just before Christmas when my parents hosted my in-laws, I was forgiven, but the story of how my wedding somewhat disrupted the family’s Christmas tradition still resurfaces occasionally.
The pressure surrounding the Christmas Gift Exchange doesn’t simply arise from the unavoidable fact that some gifts will inevitably be of varying quality or received with differing levels of enthusiasm. While valid arguments exist concerning wasteful expenditure on items destined for re-gifting, disposal, or ending up as “deadweight loss” in closets, attics, or basements—especially when home space is already a premium—let’s acknowledge a certain value in this accumulation. The intention behind the gifts isn’t solely for the immediate enjoyment of the recipient; it’s also about maintaining the flow for future gift-giving occasions.
No, the real pressure of the Gift Exchange event stems from its meticulously choreographed nature. The act of unwrapping is elevated to a central performance, designed to be as elaborate as possible to amplify the festive atmosphere. Multiple gifts are packaged in numerous boxes and bags to enhance the visual abundance beneath the tree. This level of pre-planning, more profoundly than any disparity in perceived value between giver and receiver, truly diminishes the essence of gifts. During this event, the gift fails to “affect the receiver to the point of shock,” as Walter Benjamin described its true potential.
I recognize that not all meaningful activities can be entirely spontaneous, particularly religious rituals. Hindu ceremonies exemplify this: the prescribed motions and seemingly mindless repetition become a comforting, meaningful, and perhaps even sacred process in themselves. Reciting words in unfamiliar languages, performing memorized hand gestures with garlands, incense, and idols—these are all part of it. One might feign engagement or not, but participation in these sometimes tedious or seemingly pointless acts is what defines their significance. However, this sequence of rehearsed actions is likely not how anyone envisions the ideal Christmas Gift Exchange. This ritual transforms the exchange into a performance, much like a pooja, but overloaded with extra stuff.
This insistence on adhering to a script is why my husband resists giving me my gift before we travel to Ireland, even though it would simplify packing and reduce airport hassle. It’s why he’s reluctant to give gifts jointly signed if he selected them individually, and why all our carefully chosen presents must remain hidden until the designated Gift Exchange, even if we’ve been living together at his parents’ house for a week already. One year, my sister-in-law was late to the Gift Exchange because she was determined to perfect her cards and wrapping. When I suggested that being together for Christmas was more important than solitary wrapping perfection, she looked utterly bewildered.
Perhaps this is another facet of that familiar, unwanted love that must be grudgingly accepted. This interaction later reminded me of a line from Charles Comey’s 2015 essay on honeymoons: “The strange and tricky thing about a honeymoon is that even while it’s happening, it’s already lived as a story. We sit inside it saying, ‘We will have been here.’” This sentiment resonates with the performance of gift-giving. We desire to give gifts, but when the Gift Exchange arrives, we become focused on enacting the familiar ritual – we want to be giving gifts, and we seek the reassurance of completing the performance, the satisfaction of having given gifts.
For what it’s worth, my deepest Christmas wish, as cliché as it may sound, is to experience the holiday without the overwhelming presence of gifts. Perhaps the initial step is to embrace more spontaneous gift-giving throughout the year, for no reason other than encountering something that evokes thoughts of a loved one. Whatever the alternative may be, it should enable us to gather at Christmas to engage in something more profoundly—dare I say—religious. Because when I contemplate the true joy of Christmas, I don’t envision memories of frantic last-minute shopping and frustrating attempts at tying perfect ribbons. Instead, I yearn to attend midnight mass for once. I want to go caroling, or at least sing together, for each other. I want us to genuinely pray, in whatever form that takes (and when my father-in-law expresses his regret that Henry Kissinger passed away before facing earthly justice, I want to be met with understanding, not laughter, when I suggest that justice may still await). I want to spend a few hours volunteering at the local soup kitchen. I want to collectively create new, meaningful rituals, together. These new traditions might eventually become routine and familiar, perhaps even begrudgingly performed over time, but right now, they sound as light as air, almost miraculous in their potential.
