Why we obsess over giving “the perfect gift” — and how to stop

There’s a beloved tale you might be familiar with about selflessness, and how it embodies the spirit of the holiday season: from the 1999 Disney direct-to-video film Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, a vignette titled “Mickey and Minnie’s Gift of the Magi.” (Reportedly, there are other versions too.)
In the film, Mickey and Minnie are broke, but still want to get each other a special gift. So Mickey sells his prized possession, a harmonica, to get Minnie a chain for her prized possession, a pocket watch. Unbeknownst to him, Minnie has sold her watch to get him a harmonica case. They both come away with the heartwarming knowledge that each sacrificed something so meaningful for the other.
Pare back the sentiment of it all though, and a truth remains — both parties are left with truly useless gifts. All that toil of wooing the gift recipient added up to wasted time and money, and the giver still got the wrong thing. In that way, “Mickey and Minnie’s Gift of the Magi” is, to me, a horror story.
If you’ve ever found yourself frozen with indecision come Black Friday, racking your brain over what to get all the people in your life, you’re not alone. If you get a bit of a high from logistics or find yourself devoting way too much time to your online shopping cart, I am with you. If you subscribe to the sadly false idea that you can actually win the holidays with the exact correct present, you may be yet another victim of gifting perfectionism.
In a highly consumerist culture that begs us to buy more and more during the holiday season, overwhelm is to be expected — but it doesn’t have to be this way. There are some ground rules that can help you break free of your own gift perfectionism.
Kelly Williams Brown, the author of Gracious: A Practical Primer on Charm, Tact, and Unsinkable Strength and Easy Crafts for the Insane, finds it helpful to get out ahead of gifting anxiety before the holiday barrage even begins.
“I tell people that I’m not a huge gift-giver. From there, they’re welcome to think whatever they want,” she said. You might be anticipating gifts from acquaintances, coworkers, or distant relatives, but it’s not necessarily a requirement that you have to give them one back. Cross a few people off your nice list, and focus on who you really want to shop for.
Setting personal boundaries about budget and how many people to buy for can help gift-givers avoid stretching themselves too thin. It can be easy to dive headfirst into online shopping in the name of making your loved ones happy — but you’re also getting a hit of dopamine that may lead you to fill your checkout cart beyond necessity. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other holiday shopping deals rely on scarcity marketing and other psychological triggers to motivate consumers to overspend. Don’t get sucked in by deals, and instead go into holiday shopping with a strict cap on how much you’ll spend on each person.
Gift perfectionists can get caught up in the opulence of their presents, but one study showed that recipients often don’t correlate the price of a gift with it being “better.” Givers are biased by their own experience of shopping and shelling out for a present. Basically, there’s a somewhat self-involved element to the behaviors of a lot of gift perfectionists.
Tamar Chansky, a licensed psychologist, author, and anxiety expert, says this is at the core of much of our collective overthinking about gift-giving. “We can easily fall into the trance of ‘more equals more,’ but as with any anxiety, challenge that feeling! Ask yourself why you feel the need to spend a lot of money. Is that insecurity about the relationship?”
She also says these insecurities tend to make us feel like there’s something wrong with us if we don’t come up with the perfect gift. Release yourself from an “all or nothing” mindset, and find something that works in the middle.
“With gift perfectionism, we have a belief that if we don’t hit it perfectly, we aren’t a good friend, or that it’s somehow a personal failure,” Chansky said. If a certain exchange feels like an obligation or a major point of stress, it’s worth taking a step back and examining why. “Wait a minute. Is this about us and our ego, or about a gift for the other person?” she said.
The perfect gift is the one the recipient really wants, so try to create a culture of openness about holiday wish lists among friends and family — which is to say, just ask. Over the last few years, my sisters and I have started to send each other detailed Christmas and birthday lists with direct website links. The first few times we did this, it felt odd, but now it’s become routine in a way that is a welcome reprieve in the midst of other holiday stressors. Brown says this has been a helpful strategy in her life as well.
“I make a wishlist for my boyfriend. I can’t expect him to know my specific taste in vintage brooches!” she said. Sharing wishlists is also a good way to get inspiration for other people in your life. Brown says her sister has impeccable taste. Looking through her wishlist helps her discover items that she didn’t know were out there.
Instead of worrying about finding the perfect gift for every individual, one solution would be to consider one really good batch gift that can work for all of your holiday needs. Brown says some of her favorite gifts to receive are batch gifts. “My friend gave everyone little bottles of limoncello and I loved it,” she said. “You can buy your supplies and do it all in bulk.” This can be an opportunity to get creative or play to your natural strengths: homemade crafts, seasonal ornaments, or all the dry ingredients of a baking recipe can be a hit across the board for all kinds of recipients.
While many studies show that giving makes us happy, there are other ways to fulfill that desire without getting hung up on what specific material object to get someone. Chanksy says making a charitable donation is a nice option that could reach further than just the giftee.
“Be brave to suggest — this year, can we do something different? Ask for ideas or offer your own — [it could just be] ‘let’s donate what we would spend to a charitable organization — and have a nice meal together to celebrate!’” she says. You can also suggest to your loved ones that you cap out gift exchanges within a certain range, so nobody spends exorbitantly.
It’s a valiant endeavor to try and measure up to the best gift-givers in your life. To be gifted well is to be seen, and of course, we all want our loved ones to feel special. But it’s nearly impossible for one single item to wrap up all of our feelings about someone, let alone on a yearly basis.
“Gift perfectionism is a sign that we care about the people in our lives,” Brown said. “I do love giving people gifts, but if that’s not your most comfortable way of expressing yourself, just let yourself off the hook.”
As for me, time after time, I find myself chasing the high of my best past presents — the really big scores that left a friend or a family member surprised or even overcome with emotion. But as Chansky points out, if anxiety is consuming our holiday shopping, we’re likely forgetting about the attempt at connection behind our actions.
“If we are in fight or flight feeling like everything is on the line with this one thing, we won’t be able to tap into what matters most,” she said. “Coming from a place of love and caring — how badly can we really fail? We’ll either strike a resonant chord with the recipient, or we’ll have a funny story to tell.”
A special note letting someone know you’re grateful for their presence in your life is always better than no gift at all. “We are all looking to be seen and understood — to feel someone’s personal caring for us,” Chanksy says. “Sometimes that comes through more in a card than in the gift. Try to tune in to the purer emotions, untainted by capitalism.”