Gift Thoughtfully – it’s good for you!

Listening to the radio on my drive to daycare a few days ago, on a manners segment they discussed the physical impacts of gifts with sentiment.

Two experiments were done:

• in the first people were given small electric shocks and asked to describe their experience of the pain – the group who thought they were being shocked to enter into a 50$ draw felt less pain than the group who didn’t have motivation,
• in the second people were given a small gift of chocolates – same gift, two different cards – the ones who got the card reading ‘I choose this specially for you’ enjoyed their much sweeter tasting chocolates more than the one’s whose card read ‘I just picked this up off the shelf’.

So intention behind gift giving makes the gift better when expressed AND we FEEL better about well intentioned gifts!

I’m someone who has always loved to give gifts – I have fun with the whole process aside from the occasional agonizing over what to give.

I always like the gift to look great too – it’s like with food how you’re eating with your eyes first. You know those people who hate to wrap presents and just throw everything in a gift bag and use the card that came with the bag – I’m the opposite of them.  I think people appreciate a beautifully wrapped present. And now I know that they do (research shows it) – that wrapping is the same as the card that says I choose this just for you – and the gift simply can’t have any more or better personalized intentions than if you make it yourself!

Here’s a little preview of a gifty I just completed for a friend’s soon to arrive baby… welcome little one

And here are a few tips for nice wrapping:

1. wrap both halves of a box with a lid separately – this way the shoe box featured above becomes a nice looking wrapped box that the gift-ee just may use to store odds and ends on a shelf – it’s also just plain pretty,
2. fold every seam and edge for a crisp finish,
3. use real ribbon – it gives a nice touch AND is re-usable (sensing a theme here),
4. line your boxes with tissue,
5. COLOUR-COORDINATE! this doesn’t have to mean everything is the same shade of a colour – in fact I think you should have fun with colours – just try not to make the combinations too jarring,
6. check out your local dollar stores for wrapping supplies – good intentions don’t have to break the bank!

And if you do just want to throw it in a bag and use the card on the bag and that’s about it – no worries – just write something personal on that little card to sweeten the gifting.