10 Things: Unwrap Your Curiosity Gift Guide
An artist's perspective on how presents can make our loved ones feel seen without leaving us drained.
Hello, my stars.
What makes a good gift? I think there is a lot of confusion about that question in our society. Even when we have the best intentions, too often the giver ends up financially and/or emotionally drained while the recipient is left feeling guilty or disappointed. Scared of making the “wrong” choice, we default to explicit lists. We scroll through gift guides, frantically looking for the hottest latest trendiest thing. We stress about shopping for the “difficult” people on our lists, the ones who “have everything.”
What is one of the best gifts you’ve ever received? Who was it from and what made it so special?
As someone whose love language is receiving gifts, I consider myself a bit of an expert on this topic. Contrary to popular belief, that doesn't mean I want piles and piles of presents. Rather, it means that I see gifts as physical manifestations of my relationships, reminders of the love and appreciation and connection between us.
Letting Curiosity Lead the Way
To move towards more intentional gift-giving, we need to shift our conversations away from blunt questions like “What’s on your list?” and towards more creative and expansive questions like, “What has brought you joy this year?” or “What feeling do you want to invite more of into your life?” or “What are you most looking forward to in the new year?” Yes, it might feel a little cringey to be this earnest. But I promise it will leave you in a much more abundant, inspired place when selecting their gifts — and you will also get to know your loved one better in the process.
I recommend using these questions to redirect folks seeking gift ideas for you, a kind of Jedi mind trick. For example, when asked for my “list,” I try to respond with answers to these questions rather than explicit items. That’s because, for people like me whose love language is receiving gifts, a present is much more than just an opportunity to get a product I’ve been eyeing. It is a chance for me to feel seen and loved by my friends and family. On the flip side, a gift that misses the mark can make me feel unseen and unloved. Ouch.
Sounds like a lot of pressure, right? The answer is yes and no. Yes, there is some pressure, but it isn’t about the rarity or expense of the gift. Rather, it is about how genuine the effort is, how much the giver was thinking about the specific recipient, how much emotional significance it holds. There is pressure to be intentional because, for us Gift-Love-Languagers, a thoughtless gift can be more hurtful than no gift.
By approaching these conversations with curiosity, I can invite the type of intentional gift exchange my heart longs for and take some of the pressure off my loved ones by providing a roadmap. I can give people several routes to a meaningful gift, rather than expecting them to navigate those roads alone. As I see it, it’s my responsibility to invite people to love me the way I want to be loved.
If you are wondering what this woo-woo approach looks like in practice, I’ve pulled together ten examples of ways to apply this methodology. You’ll notice many of them ask you to consider things that have inspired you or brightened your year. Follow that lead, and I promise gifts can be a pathway to connection, something we could all use more of.
My UNWRAPPED Guide to Gifting
1. Your Favorite (Little) Things
This can be seriously tiny. Think that dark red lipgloss you wear every weekend or the funky Japanese potato chips you can’t stop crunching or your favorite pencil with the replaceable erasers. It just might become their favorite too! Nothing is too small as long as it is something you genuinely enjoy and want to share.
2. A Curated Book Recommendation
For the last twelve years, I have exclusively given books to my in-laws for Christmas. Limiting my options in this way provides just the right amount of restriction to unlock my creative brain. I hand-pick a book for each person and write a note about why I chose it for them — like a shelf-talker at a bookstore, but custom-tailored to our overlapping interests. Even if it takes them a few years to read the books, it always starts a rich conversation. If you aren’t much of a reader, apply this same method to recommending other forms of media! Movies, musical albums, etc. are all great things to share.
3. Hand-Selected Fruit
Obviously, I had to include fruit. But beyond my personal bias, fruit really does make a great gift. Whether you go the Harry & David route or pick up an exotic assortment from a street vendor, what matters is choosing something ripe and pretty. Preferably something that can be displayed on a table and admired before it is eaten. Think of the scene with the pineapple in Cabaret, that’s what we are aiming for here.
“If you bought me diamonds
If you bought me pearls
If you bought me roses
Like some other gents
Might bring to other girls
It couldn't please me more
Than the gift I see
A pineapple for me”
4. A Poem, $5, and a Treat
This brilliant idea is taken directly from one of my artist-writer-life heroes (and fellow gift-love-language person!), Sophie Lucido Johnson. You can read her whole gorgeous blog post about it, but the gist is as follows:
This gift has it all, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a person who wouldn’t love its basic formula (snack, poem, $5).
The food is the instant gratification — something that won’t clutter a room and is amply share-able…
A poem has the remarkable power of making the reader believe that the person who sent it was thinking about them in some kind of specifically deep way…
Even if you have all the money in the world, a $5 bill comes in handy when you stumble upon an unexpected garage sale, or when a particularly talented street musician moves you.
(If anyone reading this list is stumped on what to get me for a gift, now or in the future, this is a great fall-back plan. I promise I will love it!!!!)
5. A Game
Any kind of game! A video game. A board game. Tickets to an escape room. A tabletop roleplay game that you run or hire someone to run. The trick here is to push people a little outside of their comfort zones and nudge them into a different state of mind. Ideally, this will be a game you’ve played and enjoyed so you can pass along tips and/or teach them how to play. Bonus points if you can get other loved ones to join in.
6. A Piece of Original Art
What do I mean by original? I mean a physical piece of art made with a physical medium. A one of a kind work. Art that a human made with their hands on the material plane not on a drawing tablet. You can make it yourself or make another artist’s day by giving their work a home. It doesn’t have to be expensive! You can find original art (including a handful of paintings from yours truly) for under $40. Living with a work of art is massively different from owning a reproduction. You get to see how it changes throughout the day and season and years, how the context of your life and your home and the people in it shift the way the art makes you feel.
7. A Printed Photo
In the age of technology, many of our photos never make it off screens and onto our walls or into our wallets. Change that! Pick a favorite photo of you and your loved one, or of your cat doing something adorable, or of a beautiful landscape you saw on vacation. Something that would make you smile. Get it printed on paper or metal or, hell, even a mug. Pick up a frame from a thrift store or buy nothing group, pop it in there, and voila. Bringing a Polaroid or Instax camera to a holiday gathering and giving out those photos as gifts is also a great idea in this same vein.
8. A Handwritten Letter
This is the most minimal gift on the list. Just a slender paper capturing the pleasure of your company. Writing a letter is a vulnerable act, made even more so because we are all so darn out of practice. Pick up a piece of paper (or a card if you’re feeling fancy), and start talking to your loved one with your pen. Let your voice ramble a bit and take up space. Fill up all of the blank paper. Keep writing. Tell them specific things you are proud of that they’ve done, specific hopes you have for them in the new year, and the joys their presence adds to your life. Doodle in the margins. Invite them to reply at their leisure. If writing by hand is difficult for you, a voice memo is a great alternative. Aim for at least three minutes of audio or a full page front and back of writing.
9. A “Keeper” Recipe (and Maybe Some Ingredients)
Feeding ourselves every day can be both a joy and a chore. Having someone share a vetted recipe is one of the greatest presents you can give. This could be an heirloom recipe, handed down from your grandma (might I suggest popping it into a frame?), the four-ingredient tomato sauce you make every Sunday, or the ratio for their favorite cocktail. If it requires a special ingredient or cooking tool, throw that into the gift bag too! The goal is to make it approachable and fun for them to cook something delicious. If one recipe doesn’t feel like enough, consider curating a few into a zine-style cookbook!
10. A Future Gift
Sometimes, the best gifts are ones that arrive after the big day. Gifts that land in their mailbox or inbox in the future, that makes an artist’s future work possible. This includes things like backing a Kickstarter campaign on their behalf, gifting a membership to an artist on Patreon, or sponsoring a paid Substack subscription (Shameless plug for the Column of Creation if you think they would enjoy our monthly creative meetups!). Funky quarterly magazines like The Believer also fall into this category.
Whew, okay, that’s it! How are we feeling folks? Inspired? Confused? Curious? Remember that there are a million right ways to pick a gift. If you are feeling lost, return to the compass of your curiosity — let it guide you back to the person you love, and you’ll be just fine.
I hope you leave this newsletter feeling just a smidgen lighter as we head into the hectic holiday season. Looking for more traditional gift guides? May I suggest this playful gift guide from Piera Gelardi, this sweet and simple gift guide from Sophie Lucido Johnson, or this gift guide for artists from Austin Kleon.
See you next week.
XOXO,
✨Sam