Christmas, a time for family, a time for joy and a time for buying!
Say what you want about Christmas, whether you think it’s the greatest/disgusting marketing scheme or you actually believe in the magic, there’s something to be said about a holiday you can challenge yourself creatively.
Growing up in a religious catholic family Christmas revolved around religion (specifically the birth of you know who) and a little about gifts. However as I grew older I had less attachment to the holiday. Honestly there were many Christmases I’ve told my parents not to even bother putting up a single decoration. This is a contrast to how my family, especially my “Mommy” aka my grandmother would describe me when I was young. Apparently I would be the one who pesters everyone to put up a Christmas tree as early as September (which is not uncommon in the Philippines by the way).
It wasn’t until my late teens when I started earning my own money and I was able to buy presents for others. From that point the art of gift giving is something I continuously tried to develop. As absurd as it sounds there actually so many thinks you can learn and skills you can develop with gift giving, for instance:
- knowing a person (yes there are items that you can give to anyone, even people you barely know, like a bottle of alcohol or a box of chocolates, but if you want to truly make someone happy with a gift, then you really need to know a lot about the person – knowing what someone needs or will enjoy or will find surprising doesn’t come easy to everyone, so it’s a quite a good skill to have to get to know someone and really get to know what they’re interested in or what they’ll love to receive)
- price analysis (having worked in retail during my teens I’ve learned so much about the industry and when you can expect markdowns and for prices to get discounted so you can get more for your bucks)
- gift wrapping (this is an aspect of gift giving I get really excited a bout because you can really be as creative as you can be, over the years I’ve learned so many ways of presenting a gift to someone besides putting it in a box or just simply wrapping it, I always love it when I get to have fun when wrapping someone’s present).
Of course in the grand scheme of things the holidays it doesn’t really matter whether you can give the most extravagant present to someone but it really is the thought that counts. And for me anyways I genuinely feel like the best way I can show how much I care about a person is showing them through the gift I’m giving how much work, consideration and creativity I’ve put into that present. This applies the most when it comes to my boyfriend really.
So I normally start thinking about the main present, it’s normally either a trip, tickets to see a show or a concert or a think I’ve made, like an Oddish/Pokemon plant pot. Then I can start thinking of a theme.
Anyone who knows me well, knows how much I love a good THEME! I’m more than happy to compromise other things so long as it’s cohesive and in theme. Haha.
This year I decided to get him tickets to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Then I started thinking of a theme from the books/films I can apply to the presentation. It normally takes me weeks to brainstorm a good theme because I have to think about logistic, price and whether it’s actually doable in the time I have. So I started thinking about quidditch, wands, robes and broomsticks. I genuinely thought about making a replica of a nimbus 2000 and hanging the gifts of the broom stick. But I finally thought of making a postbox and actually making a Hogwarts letter addressed to him saying that he’s going to see the show and it would allow me to wrap his other gifts as if they were packages.
Thankfully I found a paper-mâché post box online which I’ve painted red. I used leftover brown paper and rope to wrap his other presents. I printed the stamps using a thick paper and tea stained it. I then wrote his address in some of the letters and packages to make it more authentic. Luckily you can actually buy the Hogwarts wax seal online and Viola! Here’s the end result.
Overall, gift giving isn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things. As I said, you don’t need to give someone such extravagant gifts to be thoughtful and make someone happy during the holidays. However if you’re in the fortunate position where you can have fun and be creative with your gift giving then go for it! For me anyways doing this every year gives me a sense of excitement during Christmas which I’ve kinda lost years ago, even this year my family didn’t put up a Christmas tree again but making these things made me feel the spirit of Christmas and a holiday I can truly celebrate (corny I know).
P.S. my boyfriend actually got me Harry Potter tickets as well, so no we have four tickets. Haha. Also, he actually got really creative to and made an owl’s nest and put the letter inside the Hedwig mug saying I’m going to see the play.
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