What’s easier than a gift card, for both the gifter and the giftee? It’s never the wrong size, it’s never the wrong color, and it never goes out of style. A gift card enables people to replace their old kitchen gadgets, when it wouldn’t have occurred to them to ask for measuring spoons and a pastry brush. It’s hard to ask in December for a bathing suit for your July vacation, but a gift card enables people to buy what they want when they need it. Ultimately, these cards provide an easy way to give many people what they truly desire—the ability to pick out their own presents—but some purists feel that the cards can be highly impersonal, and that a piece of plastic (no matter how much it’s worth) couldn’t possibly be as meaningful as a gift that’s been chosen especially for the recipient. Miss Manners writes that they are “a pathetic compromise convenient to people who do not trust their judgment about selecting the right present for those whose tastes they ought to know.” Ouch. It seems that gift cards, like many of life’s greatest inventions, are best when used sparingly and wisely.
Sending the Right Message
Although some etiquette experts bemoan the rise of the cards as a death knell for thoughtful present-giving, Lizzie Post, author of How Do You Work This Life Thing? and great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post, views them as a perfectly acceptable modern convention. “I don’t look at them as taboo,” she says. “I look at them as convenient—in the right place.” She has advice for givers leaning toward gift cards: “Know who you’re giving the gift to,” she says. Depending on the recipient, the card can send one of a few different messages. It can say, “I wanted to do something for you,” it can say, “I wanted you to pick something you’d like,” or it can say, “I really didn’t know what to get you.”
If you know your wife values your tastes in hand-selected gifts, or if you’ve heard your mother describe gift cards as a cop-out, these people may not be the best candidates for receiving them. On the other hand, many people like having the opportunity to pick out their gifts themselves, so for them, these cards can be thrilling. “Know what a person values and appreciates in a gift,” Post says. “Some people really are hard to buy for, and it’s better to let them choose.”
