Giving or receiving a gift seems straightforward enough. Acquire - or, if you're more creative than I am (which isn't hard), make - something you think the recipient will like. Wrap it up. Hand it over. Hope for the best. If you're the unwrapper, it's even easier: Begin to remove paper. Look pleased even before you glimpse gift. Be even more thrilled once you see it.
Simple, right? Not always. Gift gaffes happen all the time, despite our best intentions. Last Christmas, I watched a friend's face go through warp-speed expression changes as she opened her prezzie from me. "Wow, thanks! Liqueur glasses, right? Amazing!" And it was amazing - amazingly blind on my part. She's a single mom with a demanding job and two - well, let's call them lively teenage boys. When I'd whipped out my credit card, I had imagined her at the end of a long day, sipping a small, sweet drink from a pretty glass while she... Then I suddenly remembered, with terrible clarity, what she always does after supper: strongly encourages (OK, yells at) her younger son to do his homework, while fretting about her older son's absence, in between catching up on her e-mails. Not what you'd call a liqueur-savouring atmosphere.
Gracious gift-getting
Next, it was my turn. I peeked inside the almost weightless cardboard box she passed to me. I was thinking a wispy, elegant scarf. I was soon staring at a veritable family of chef's whisks, from baby ("So...cute!") to great-greatgrandparent ("Whoa, big!" was all I could manage). Clearly, my friend had a vision of me whisking my way to happiness, even though I know she knows I either defrost or cook pasta-with-whatever's-around.
But the bonds of love and friendship rightly demand we receive presents graciously, however we might feel about the Yoda-shaped cookie jar that landed in my house even though I've always hated movie-related kitsch and I have no space on my kitchen countertops and I don't have time to buy cookies, let alone make them, so what were they...? Oh, sorry, right. It was charming.
We should also be equally gracious if we never observe our brother drinking from the purple pottery mugs we gave him. True, they don't "match" his kitchen and he's not keen on powerful colours, but his kitchen is way too drab and the mugs might encourage him to... Whatever. I hope the whisks found an appreciative home via Goodwill.
As for the liqueur glasses, I never ask my friend for a fancy drink any more than she'd ask me for hand-whisked mayo. Why would I? She's my best pal, and whatever she offers me is just fine.
Share your own all-time gift faux pas on our forum.
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