Some people are brilliant at presents. My sister-in-law, for example. She always seems to
come up with something ideal and unexpected. Like the fabulous cushion with a tiger design
that she found for my birthday last year – because I love tigers and lovely things. Perfect.
Gifts for Mother’s Day are not too difficult to get right really, but thinking creatively about
what to buy or make as a gift is definitely a skill. The Offspring says that she enjoys the
process of coming up with lovely gift ideas and thinking about what someone would really
like. She rather despises the practice (common in my family) of shifting the responsibility
onto the recipient by badgering them for suggestions. Of course, it’s marvellous when
inspiration strikes and you think of exactly the right thing. What a joy it is when you come
up with exactly the right gift for someone important. It’s not always that easy though, is it?
If it were, magazines and websites would not publish all those gift guides before Christmas.
And the shops would not be full of things labelled “gift item”.
Standard gift items: things that are nice but useless, marketed at us as easy ways to satisfy
the obligation to give. Often these are ready-packaged as a gift with the price raised
accordingly. The worst gift of all is a gift set – the laziest of presents. If it’s the thought that
counts, then the thought behind a gift set is “I couldn’t be Rsed to engage brain on this”.
Perfunctory. Not cool. If you are like me, you have a deep terror of giving anyone a
perfunctory gift. When you give someone a present, you want the message to be “I saw this
and thought you would love it” or “I know you love X so I found you Y” (I know you love
tigers so I found you this fabulous cushion). But that takes creative thought and imagination
which don’t always perform to deadlines.
One solution is to take the pressure off by not giving gifts at the standard, prescribed
occasions but when inspiration strikes instead. A friend and I have done this for years. We
do cards on birthdays etc and only buy things for each other when something takes our
fancy. There is never any expectation of a gift, just the occasional delightful surprise.
What got me thinking about all this was the arrival of March and the approach of Mother’s
Day on Sunday. I have been wondering what to give my mother to celebrate her
fabulousness. Somewhat inevitably, that started thinking about what I might like myself –
partly because what I like might inform the choice of gift for my mother, and partly because
I might want to drop hints to the aforementioned daughter.
There are certain “gifty” things that I really don’t want. Beautiful items that I might admire
for five minutes and then ungratefully resent for taking up space; the sort of things that I
enjoy picking up in a beautiful shop and equally enjoy putting down and walking away from
Chief among these is the scented candle. Contentious, I. know. So many people love them.
Here are some things that I think would make gorgeous Mother’s Day gifts. Perhaps it will
give you a bit of inspiration for your own gift buying or might prompt a hint-drop
conversation with your partner, husband or kids. I have included some beautiful scented
candles because, after all, lots of people do love them…
