THE GOODS : Missed Fits : When you throw in the generation gap, choosing the right gift gets complicated. But think fun and a little frivolous, and you’ll give as good as you get.
Have you ever played the White Elephant game? Here’s how it goes: The day after Christmas, gather that coffee mug warmer you got from your grandma, the turquoise sweater your mom sent you and those country music CDs from your Uncle Joe, wrap them all up again, and get together with a few friends. Roll a pair of dice to see who gets what. Certain gifts, depending on how beautifully they’ve been rewrapped or how big they are, become highly desirable and can even be fought over, though what’s inside will inevitably end up unwanted and unused.
Of course, it’s not only parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who get it wrong. How do you think grandma feels about that colorful scarf you sent her? She must have over a hundred by now, right?
The generation gap seems to stretch into a chasm when we have to buy a gift for someone on the other side. It may have been simple 30 years ago to zero in on popular styles or coveted objects, but in today’s byte-sized culture, trends, mini-trends and micro-mini-trends zap by us at dizzying speeds. To further complicate matters, just as our society has become increasingly fast-paced and random, so have we become less uniform and more catholic in our tastes. This makes it difficult enough to buy a gift for a best friend, let alone someone of another generation or two.
Sian Oliver, 52, says her children are always buying her the latest non-stick frying pan or state-of-the-art food processor for Christmas. “It’s eerie,” says the Pasadena high school teacher. “They must want to keep me in the kitchen, like I was when they were little. It’s funny, because their dad and I eat out almost every night now that they’ve all left home.”
Tina Yamada, a 34-year hair stylist, describes a similar conundrum. “When I was in high school, I wore only black. My parents routinely bought me floral dresses. When they found out I was using them to wash my car, they started buying me black stuff--black socks, tiny black underwear, a black leather mini-skirt, even a black beret with sequins on it. They did try. The problem is, they still do it. They haven’t noticed that I haven’t been wearing much black for years now.”
On the flip side, Yamada says, “I quake in my boots when I have to buy presents for my teen-age nieces and nephews. They’re more conservative than I was at their age, so I always end up getting them something they think is weird. I can’t get a handle on what they like--music, clothes, books, nothing.”
Navigating the mind-boggling tangle of trends and changing tastes can be an ordeal, and trends can be misleading.
“My mom used to buy me flannel shirts when the grunge thing was in. But I was never into grunge. Now she buys me whatever the cool rap CD of the moment is when she knows I’m into funk and jazz,” says Jared Williams, 23, a student at USC. “It’s like she knows what’s going on but doesn’t know what’s going on with me.”
But how do you tell people you love dearly that they’re just not getting it? “Alice,” a grandmother of five who wishes to remain anonymous lest she offend her well-meaning but misguided family, says, “For decades, my children have been buying me horrendous costume jewelry for Christmas. I keep it in a box in my underwear drawer and try to wear a piece when they come over for dinner. My grandchildren have recently started a new reign of terror with perfumes. They choose them by how pretty the name sounds.”
In spite of the mountain of unwanted gifts she has collected over the years, she says she never tells her children or grandchildren what she would really like. “I don’t even know myself,” she explains. “I figure one day they’ll get me something I truly adore, something I would never have bought for myself.”
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Erica Gavin, a personal shopper for Barneys New York in Beverly Hills, uses this concept as her rule of thumb when choosing gifts for clients.
“Think about what is important to the person you’re buying for,” she says, “what takes priority in their lives and what they spend their money on. Then go the opposite direction.” Gavin, 49, finds it amusing when clients ask her to choose a gift for “an older person in their 50s.” When she finishes chuckling, she advises that a way to circumvent the generation gap is by choosing only items that will be perceived as luxuries. As she puts it: “Who wouldn’t want a cashmere blanket?”
Luxury seems to be tied inextricably to big bucks in our society, but Gavin says that even if you’re on a tight budget--and who isn’t?--you can find small extravagances that will make special gifts. For instance, she has noticed that people rarely spend money on things to wear around the house. So why not buy Dad a nice pair of silk boxer shorts instead of the usual Filofax refill? At least he’ll get a kick out of it.
And isn’t that the reaction we all want when we give a gift? We love to see someone’s lips curl into a delighted grin when they unwrap something we’ve chosen for them. Sure, it’s nice to receive something you need, but, as Paul Tournier notes in his book “The Meaning of Gifts” (John Knox Press, 1963), “We would rather have our desires divined than carried out by our ordering.”
Deciphering Aunt Martha’s deepest desires may sound risky, and even somewhat unsavory, but there are plenty of places around where you can put your imagination to work and come up with tantalizing options for everyone on your list, no matter what their age. Then again, maybe the perfect gift is lying around your house.
USC student Julie Schneider, 19, says the best gift she ever received was from her grandfather. “It was a photo album that went back to when he was a little boy up to when my mom was in high school. I can still take it out and spend hours staring at the pictures.”
By all means, get out there and shop--especially if your family is short on heirlooms. But keep in mind that, beyond trends, there are certain things we all want whether we’re 9 or 90--a little luxury, a little mirth, a little mystery to unravel, a little piece of information about ourselves that helps us see the oblique angles at which we all intersect.
