Edwardian Etiquette of Gift Giving

Do not try to make your gift look as though it cost more than you paid for it. Aside from the paltry spirit of such giving, it is a delusion and a snare, for next year your offering must seem to be as fine as the one of this season, or you may appear to have been less anxious to please your friend. 

Suggestions on Bestowing and Receiving Christmas Presents

There is an etiquette governing the giving and receiving of presents, as there is about most things, because there is always a best way to do everything, says the Ladies’ Home Journal. If we penetrate below the surface of the little courteous conventions, we shall find that consideration for the feelings of others underlies all. 

Do not try to make your gift look as though it cost more than you paid for it. Aside from the paltry spirit of such giving, it is a delusion and a snare, for next year your offering must seem to be as fine as the one of this season, or you may appear to have been less anxious to please your friend. 

Take the time to write a few words of loving or cordial greeting on the cards that accompany your gifts. Without that evidence of individual personal thought, the offering of even the finest present appears somewhat graceless and perfunctory. A message on a card is better than a note because it is more informal, and one should not seem to make much of a gift. 

Having your presents daintily wrapped is not less a matter of courtesy. Let their outward appearance commend them. Leave them or send them to their destination the day before Christmas, unless you can insure their reception early in the day. A tardy gift appears like an afterthought.– Hanford Journal, 1910

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Etiquette, Engagement Traditions

We usually find that a young lady's spinster friends are partial to the custom; they seem to find particular enjoyment in presenting her with dainty tea-cups, either separately or in sets.

There is an old tradition regarding the giving of tea-cups as an engagement present. A lover, who was obliged to go away on an extended sea journey, gave to his betrothed a delicate china cup, asking her to drink tea from it every afternoon. He said, "If I am unfaithful, the cup will fill to overbrimming and the tea pouring over the sides will crack the thin china. Then you will know I have broken faith."

The custom has been brought down to us, and now we find that the giving of a tea-cup or a tea-set as an engagement present signifies faithfulness—and it may mean faithfulness to friendship or love as the case may be. We usually find that a young lady's spinster friends are partial to the custom; they seem to find particular enjoyment in presenting her with dainty tea-cups, either separately or in sets. — Lillian Eichler, 1921

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Etiquette and Gifts

“So it happens every year — Always has as yet — Such a lot of things we want. And so few we get. Always happens, always will; Don't know who’s to blame. Wish you all a very Merry Christmas, just the same.”

I'LL change that to "Hope you all have had a very merry Christmas just the same" and make it my day after Christmas wish for you people. I also have a few days' after Christmas thoughts for you. Trust you didn't work so hard and get so tired and fussed over the holiday and that all you want to do is to forget the whole thing. If you did you'd better stop here. I've given you fair warning.

In the first place, why isn't it a crackerjack idea to notice what people say they wished they'd have given them and jot it down for next year's use? Just now it doesn't seem possible that there is another Christmas coming, but truly there is, and one when you will be quite as glad to know just the right thing to give folks as you would have been this year.

Another thing —if it doesn't seem to you now as if you would ever forget what you gave each friend, but unless you jot down a list, just as sure as next Christmas comes 'round, you will be wondering whether it was to Louise or Mary you gave the hatpin, and whether it was Eleanor or Katherine you presented with a lace jabot. Why, it won't take you 10 minutes to jot down a memorandum of your Christmas giving. Do it on the train or trolley car— do it in the time you wait for the potatoes to boil, but anyhow you do it — do it now.

Wonder if there are many people who dislike as vigorously as I do the expressions "I think I fared well." "I think you did finely," as applied to Christmas giving. I know there must be a good many people who don't, by the frequency with which I hear these or similar expressions used. Seems to me it is a terrible testimony to the commercial spirit we are allowing to infest our Christmas. Try not to think things like these. Try not to say them, and above all be sure not to say them before children.

Speaking of this matter, what do you suppose I heard yesterday afternoon? Two children boasting to each other about the sum total of the value of the gifts they had received. One reckoned the love of her friends and relatives at $25. The other boasted of $32 worth of affection. Wasn't that unpleasant? What were their mothers thinking of?

Just one thing more — I have been asked if it is necessary to acknowledge Christmas cards. That, like so many similar etiquette questions, can be answered in just four words — "Not necessary but courteous." – Ruth Cameron, 1910

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