H is for Happy Holidays

...and the not-so-happy experience of trying to figure out what presents to get for friends and family. Obviously, you'd like to get your people things that they'll actually like, but if you actually ask what they want, they'll either tell you that there's nothing they want, that you shouldn't buy them anything, or that they just have no idea what they want in the first place. Which, you know, is all fine and dandy except that it doesn't actually deter you from wanting to buy something for said people and so there's actually a higher probability that recipients will get something and that that something will not be something they really want.

Sometimes the "nothing" cop-out really is what it is (I say "nothing", too, admittedly, mostly because everything on my list -- yes, a LIST is helpful, too -- is stuff I really could just buy for myself if I wanted to. And I still say that if people donate to charity instead of buying lowly li'l' me something, that money will be well-spent.), but sometimes it's just a platitude...*looks up "platitude"* eh, close enough. Yes, a platitude. Because people don't want to appear as though they'd really like you to buy them a present. Because that would seem self-centered, presumably, and generally it IS nice not having people constantly saying, "Hey, you know what you should buy me??"

But anyway, the point (yeah, there is one, shush) of all this is to say: know what you want, people, and don't be too politely self-conscious to tell your friends what those things are if they ask you. And also, lists are your friends, especially 'cause it makes that whole knowing-what-you-want thing much easier. Come on, don't you think that'd be helpful for you when you're trying to buy gifts for people? :)