Annual X'mas Headache

The annual headache of buying the Christmas gifts is here.

My circle of friends have stopped the practice of giving gifts for years cos we are matured enough to understand that the spirit of giving is not in material sense and giving must be from the heart.

Too frequent, we receive gifts that are completely useless or simply add on to your collection of the same junk year after year.

What some people do is to recycle them the next year but be careful not to give it back to the person who gave it to you.

Couple of years ago I donated a few garbage bags full of such gifts to the Salvation Army. They must have already tons of similar items but I believe they will give them a better meaningful life than to be kept in a box put away in my store.

Now I only give gifts that will be useful to the person. But most of us who have the earning power do not exactly lack anything that we can’t afford. If it’s an expensive item, we will contribute half each or depending how many of us is there. The person gets to own something that she truly wants or need but only pay a fraction of the price and the other party will feel happy that it’s a meaningful gift.

I was wasting time at Watson on Friday and spotted quite a number of ‘small’ gifts ideal for gift exchange activities. Majority is within $10 (the usual rate for gift xchange) and is rather presentable.

I believe body shop has already started packaging and selling varies gifts set either for your male/female bosses, male/female colleague, male/female friend etc…

Spa set.

Weighing machine.

Incense burning set.

Gift shop at Hougang Plaza.