On Gift Giving

My friends and I were brainstorming about possible gifts for kids this coming holiday season. Surely parents and ninongs and ninangs will be raiding the toy stores at malls in the next couple of months. I’m not really good at gifts, admittedly and quite embarassingly. If it’s for kids, I’d go for something cute, although I’d still be scared that what’s cute to me may not be appeal as well to a child. If it’s for adults, I usually go with personality quirks when deciding on potential presents. Sometimes, I fall to the trap of buying something I would like, hence my tendency to give away books or notebooks, or anything that can be bought either from the bookstore or the coffee shop.

Thinking about your recipient’s hobbies may be a very good place to start. So if anybody’s thinking about a good gift for me, you can look for The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, translation by Stephen Mitchell. I’ll be hitting the big three-O in a few weeks’ time. Well, if you’re feeling really generous, I’ll be more than happy to have an Armortec 900. Really, more than happy.

I was watching this TV show earlier where there’s a family picnic scene by the lake and it occurred to me that kids combo rods for fishing may be a good gift for outdoorsy youngsters. Family out-of-town trips can be so much fun and wouldn’t it be a cool sight to behold having your kids learn fishing rules and try to catch a fish or two? Of course it may work only for certain ages and for specific tastes. It’s a good thing my most pressing gift-giving plans are for newborns. That shouldn’t be too hard.