Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What.

Here are excerpts from Shoptimism, offering insights on gift giving.

• “We give gifts ‘coded’ to express ‘positive emotions,’ depending on the occasion. For birthdays, housewarmings, at the end-of-year holidays, we give gifts coded ‘Joy.’ For graduations and retirements, we give gifts coded ‘Pride.’ For hospitalizations and going-away parties, we give gifts coded ‘Hope.’ And on Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day — also at funerals — we give gifts coded ‘Affection.’ And, yes, on all of the above as well as other occasions, we give gifts coded (you can always tell) ‘Obligation.’”
• “The reasons we bestow gifts, according to respondents: they enable us to express pleasure or show friendship (42 percent); they are means by which we obtain or bestow pleasure (27 percent); because we feel obligated to (15 percent).”
• “Money — not china or kitchen appliances — has become the wedding gift of choice, a development that the Romantic buyer in me takes as unwelcome news.”
• “Each of us, on average, spends a couple of thousand dollars a year on gifts, roughly half of it during the ‘Hard Eight,’ that is the eight-week holiday shopping season.”
• “Lisa is a friend who lives in New York City, a talented novelist, a huge-hearted wife and mom, smart, funny, sardonic, immensely kind…. Everyday shopping leaves her cold…. But there’s one kind of Buy at which Lisa excels, and that’s gifting. I ask Lisa whether she gives gift cards. Yes, turns out she does, but only as birthday presents her kids give to their friends, cards exchangeable for music and books. Otherwise, when Lisa shops for gifts she says she looks for the ‘unexpected.’ Stalking the unexpected requires a lively imagination and a grasp of the quirks of one’s circle of gift getters. It’s ‘an all-year-round, any-kind-of-weather sport,’ she reports. ‘Because the interests and tastes of my friends and family vary, the hunt for great gifts takes me from clothing boutiques to electronics stores, crafts fairs to eBay.’ But where she buys takes a backseat to what she buys. ‘I would like to think that if the presents I purchase are all laid out on a table, unwrapped, the people for whom they were intended would know instantly which presents were theirs.’”
• “Lisa uncannily reflects what experts say are the keys to gift-giving prowess. [Professor] Russell Belk… says that a quintessential gift satisfies six criteria, which together confirm that Lisa doesn’t just give good gift, she gives perfect gift…”
• “1. The perfect gift requires us to make an ‘extraordinary sacrifice.’ By ‘sacrifice,’ Belk doesn’t mean that we need to pawn our departed mother’s handmade quilts to help pay for the $7,000 doghouse with an Italian leather armchair (Neiman Marcus offered one in a recent Christmas gift catalog). ‘Sacrifice’ needn’t call for financial sacrifice. In Lisa’s case, sacrifice comes when she puts aside a challenging section of the novel she’s writing to make time to explore an antiques barn, where she once found a 1940s telephone for her daughter, a thoroughly modern adolescent who finds movies and Broadway musicals of that period irresistible.”
• “2. The giver of a perfect gift wishes ‘solely to please the recipient.’ The perfect gift isn’t one that begs for reciprocation or proclaims that you’re one hell of a big-time spender. The perfect gift, Belk says, is about the recipient, not about you. Lisa gets that. One year she came upon a mourning locket offered on eBay. There was an ‘H’ engraved on it. Lisa’s stepmother’s late beloved dog was named Harry. Lisa bought the piece, placed a picture of Harry inside, and gave it to her stepmother on Christmas morning.”
• “3. The perfect gift is a ‘luxury.’ By ‘luxury,’ Belk doesn’t mean that the perfect gift need be spattered with VLs [Louis Vuitton] or interlocking Cs [Chanel]. In this context a luxury is anything that isn’t strictly a necessity. To buy and give someone a pair of underwear or a mop and a bucket is thoughtful if the recipient’s in need of them. But gifts such as these don’t exactly communicate that the recipient is in some way extraordinary….”
• “4. The perfect gift is appropriate to the recipient. All of Lisa’s above-cited gifts qualify as appropriate and then some. As was the canvas tote she once bought for her friend Cathy. On the side were the words ‘It Is Was It Is,’ a phrase that Cathy happens to use inveterately. What can be more appropriate than letting someone know you actually listen to what they say, right down to their asides and throwaway lines?”
• “5. The perfect gift is ‘surprising.’ If surprise weren’t universally appreciated, Belk says, gift wrap would never have come into being. Surprise is why we love getting presents on days that aren’t birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Mother’s or Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Grandparents’ Day, or any of the Sell Side-manufactured giving days. Last year Lisa’s daughter Elizabeth performed in a school production of The Sound of Music. While such an occasion doesn’t require a gift, many of us buy unsurprising bouquets for our pint-sized leading ladies and would-be prima ballerinas. Lisa didn’t spring for a bunch of carnations; she bought Elizabeth a pair of glove forms. Why? ‘So I could give her a big hand.’”
• “6. The perfect gift is one that the recipient desires. Belk says that we don’t have to jump through hoops to give a perfect gift. Santa didn’t get to be Santa by ripping children’s wish lists into shreds. The words ‘It’s just what I always wanted!” are confirmation that you’ve bagged a perfect gift.”

Related Post: Gift Flow, or What Makes a Great Gift

• Build-A-Bear is more than teddy bears. Choose from dogs, cats, bunnies, leopards, tigers and other zoo favorites.
• If the kids are older than three or four, they will likely enjoy the bear building experience more. Younger kids may want the pre-built stuffed animals and might find the noise from the bear stuffing machine intimidating.
• Before you go, check online for printable coupons (such as $5 off a purchase of $25 or more).
• Prepare yourself for puns: “a beary pawsome experience you’ll always remembear!”
• Set a price limit ($30, $40 or $50 per stuffed animal) before visiting the store. For starters, the Marble Monkey cost $18 and the Jack Russell terrier was $22.
• The extras are why you’ll want a price limit. Adding a sound effect to the stuffed animal runs between $4 (for a dog bark or monkey eep) to $8 (to record a personalized message). Clothes and accessories range from $2 to $13.50. My niece picked the tie-dye two-piece outfit ($12.50) and my nephew selected the Harley-Davidson black leather jacket ($12) and denim shorts ($5). We skipped the shoes.
• When creating the birth certificate, you can skip the personal information like home address, kid’s date of birth, phone number and e-mail. On the other hand, providing a home address will allow Build-A-Bear to return lost stuffed animals.
• The stuffed animals come in great packaging called Cub Condos, a cardboard house that kids can color.
• The fun continues online. My niece and nephew received an animal ID and key code to play at Build-A-Bearville.

And you’re just not buying Facebook pixel-based presents at this new store. On foursquare, you truly must earn that digital Zoetrope badge by checking into 10 movie theaters on 10 different days. (Hey, it only took me six months.) At the foursquare Online Store, choose from tee shirts, buttons and stickers to give to your foursquare fan.

My favorite tee ($20) touts a key competitive element of the game: the foursquare mayor. Foursquare players use their smart phone to check-in to their current location. The player with the most number of days of check-ins over the last 60 days becomes the foursquare mayor of that place.

That is, until someone bests your daily visits to that store, restaurant or watering hole, dethroning you as mayor. Perhaps the foursquare Online Store should sell a consolation gift tee shirt for us previously ousted mayors. Maybe something like this…

		#1. “Pack This!” notepad Campus arrival day. Midterm break. Christmas vacation. Spring semester. Spring break. Summer vacation. That’s a lot of packing, unpacking and repacking. Make sure your student brings everything needed with a “Pack This!” notepad ($7).
		#2. USB Retro Lamp Plug in these funky lights to a laptop’s USB port to brighten your student’s keyboard. The lamp necks are flexible, and the lamp shades come in orange, purple, green and blue ($8).
		#3. Ceramic Noodle Cup In college, there are four food groups: pizza, vending machine snacks, mac and cheese, and Ramen noodles. Let your freshman enjoy hot noodles and broth in style with this ceramic noodle cup ($16). Finish the gift with two dozen packaged Ramen noodles.
		#4. Laptop Lilo Inflatable Laptop Desk Laptops get hot after writing a 30-page paper on Burgess’s use of portmanteau words in A Clockwork Orange. Laptop Lilo withstands 175 degree Fahrenheit temperatures while allowing proper ventilation ($17).
		#5. Popcorn Bowl Movies and popcorn make the ultimate study break. Pair this melamine bowl, lined in a popcorn print, with a few boxes of Orville Redenbacher Light Butter microwave popcorn, a Consumer Reports favorite ($16).
		#6. Electro Man Surge Protector Students bring a showroom floor’s worth of gadgets and small appliances to their dorm. Give an Electro Man Surge Protector to maximize the room’s limited electrical outlets — and protect electronics from voltage spikes ($25).
		#7. Pop Quiz Math Clock This wall clock is ideal for math, computer science, accounting, finance, physics, education, or engineering majors ($27).
		#8. Guitar and Amp Pillow Case Set Add rockstar style to the room with these electric guitar and amplifier pillow cases in standard size ($25).
		#9. 500XL Desktop Earbud Speakers Designer Winnif Pang took iPod earbuds and blew them up 500 times in size. Plug these speakers into a laptop, desktop, or MP3 player to rock the dorm floor ($45).
		#10. Cable Monkey Cable Organizer Sure, the university touts wireless Internet access on campus. But students still contend with lots of wires: power cords, printer cables, speaker cords, digital camera cords, and Ethernet cables (when the wifi drops). Cable Monkey neatly collects the cord jungle into a single strand ($4).
		#11. Tabletop Air Hockey Game Space is at a premium in the dorm room, so this miniature air hockey table (20 inches long) can work on a desk. The first floormate to seven points wins ($30).
		#12. Great Ideas Napkin Sketchbook If the best ideas spring from napkin doodles, why not a whole book of napkins? Help them ace that design project with the Great Ideas Napkin Sketchbook ($6).
		#13. Uncapped Pen and Pencil Holder It’s easy to lose a pen cap, unless it’s this oversized pen cap for holding pens, markers and pencils ($15).
		#14. Eco Cold Drink Cup (Reusable) No matter what the school colors are, green is in on campus. Eliminate disposable cups with this 16-ounce reusable cup, insulated to keep cold drinks cold ($10).

See also: 10 Going-to-College Gifts and 13 Going-to-College Gifts

The peak-end rule might seem counter-intuitive. If you give several presents, you would think those extra gifts add more total worth. But the milder gifts sap the vibrance of the giving experience if they are revealed at the end. In fact, researchers at Dartmouth College found that people who received two gifts — a desired gift followed by a second, mildly desirable gift — were less satisfied than others who just received one desired gift. The intensity of a single great gift dominates our memory; it’s both the peak and the end of the experience.

Keep the peak-end rule in mind when your planning that surprise travel gift too. You’re better off arranging a shorter, more eventful vacation (with a marquee concert at the end) than a longer one with less splurges and intensity.

First, I cleaned; it’s a great feeling when you come home to a freshly cleaned house. Next, I picked up a bouquet of flowers from my local florist, putting them in a pottery vase on the kitchen table.

Then I found a Tuscan-themed magnetic whiteboard from The Lang Store. This whiteboard fits the style of the dishes she bought in Italy, so I knew she would love it. I posted the whiteboard on the refrigerator and wrote in dry-erase marker “Welcome Home!”

Besides the new look, I added an index of previous posts, Gift Ideas A to Z.

Are you seeking a present for a birthday, anniversary, or another holiday? Check out Gifts by Occasion in the right column.

Need a gift for a student going to college? Click the red pennant in the right column to reach College Gift Finder.

Enjoy Gift Giving Guy, rewrapped.

I gave my dad an even more established gift: a few bags of Eight O’Clock Coffee (100% Colombian Ground). This coffee brand has been perking up fathers for more than 150 years, and I know he likes it. Taste matters most for my dad, and Eight O’Clock bested other ground coffees (like Folgers, Maxwell House, and Starbucks) in a blind taste test by Consumer Reports in March 2009.

Now I could pair the coffee with a “World’s Greatest Dad” mug. But his style is more understated. Six months ago, we had brunch at the Cheesecake Factory, which serves coffee in elegant glass mugs. He really liked the mugs, so I picked out a set of four Bodum Bistro Double-Wall Insulated 10-Ounce Glass Mugs.

However, this gift isn’t the easiest surprise to pull off. Most state agencies require a driver registered to the vehicle to apply for the personalized plate. If you are not jointly registered with your gift recipient as the car owner, you still can present your suggestions, write a check to cover fees and complete any paperwork. Maybe a few states will follow the example of Texas, which offers a vanity license plate gift card.

Select the U.S. state for your giftee to learn more about applying for a personalized plate.