Christmas Gift Giving Etiquette

“A point of Christmas etiquette is bothering one of my letter friends, and she wants me to help her settle it. It seems that a friend with whom she has hitherto exchanged Christmas gifts…is obliged to curtail her Christmas giving on account of illness, and asking that her friend will help her out by omitting her gift this time.”
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The Evening Chit-Chat: A Christmas Quandary

A point of Christmas etiquette is bothering one of my letter friends, and she wants me to help her settle it. It seems that a friend with whom she has hitherto exchanged Christmas gifts has written her a little note, telling her that she is obliged to curtail her Christmas giving on account of illness, and asking that her friend will help her out by omitting her gift this time. My letter friend’s quandary is this: 

“I don’t like the idea that Christmas gifts are just an exchange. If I assent to her plan and do not give her any thing this year, that will look as if it had always been a kind of barter to me. I would rather give her something this year without letting her know beforehand that I am going to do it and drop the thing next year. It seems less calculating to me. Don't you think this is the best way out?”

Frankly, my friend, I don't. 

Put yourself in her place. She wants you to relieve her from the embarrassment of having nothing to give you by not giving her anything. If you give her something, you force that embarrassment upon her. Will the pleasure of receiving what you have to give, cancel the pain she will feel at being empty-handed? Probably not. Then, is it generous, is it worthy of the spirit of Christmas to put your dislike of the thought of barter above her sense of humiliation at receiving without giving? Perhaps it might show a finer spirit in her to be above that, sense of humiliation, but few of us have reached the happy height where we can give or receive according to the position in which we happen to be placed, and ; be equally dignified and gracious and content in either position. 

And if you really dislike that sense of barter and not merely the appearance of barter, and really want to give your friend some material symbol of your affection, why not give it just the same, even if you do not give it at Christmas, which has become so emphatically the day of reciprocal gift giving? Why not send your gift Easter or St. Valentine’s Day? Or why wait for any special day? There are three hundred and sixty-five days every year when the spontaneously offered gifts of a friend are welcome. Indeed, I think the gifts that come unexpectedly are rather more delightful than the formal kind. To have the postman bring some totally unexpected little package lights up a whole day with the pleasure of the surprise and the warm sense of kindly feeling behind it. – By Ruth Cameron, 1914

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia