Giving gifts (idea)

The part I hate most about holidays. It just has always seemed awkward for me. So, I was thinking today in English class (I never actually learn, anyway) about why it's so awkward. Seeing as I had it long period, I came up with a huge rant that explains every detail of giving gifts, as follows.

The first part that I hate is the actual deciding whether or not to get a gift for somebody. I always thought it'd be especially awkward if I bought somebody a gift and they had nothing for me, or the other way around. So do I get one and only give it if they bring the topic up? I can never figure it out. Most of the time, I simply get a small gift or two, put them in my cargo pants, and give them to anybody who gives me a gift. But that's not much of a defense.

The second thing I hate about giving gifts is that I never know what to get a person. Do I want to get a really expensive thing for a person? No, because then they might feel bad for getting me something less expensive. Do I even know what the person wants? Most times I don't. Well, luckily, I came up with an answer that makes sense for this problem:
Giving gifts should focus on the heart of the giver. They should be a part of your soul. The poet can write a poem and give it to a person, and the recipient will know that it came from the heart of the poet. But if you just go out and buy jewelry from somebody, you're stealing the talent, essencially, from the person who made it. The goldsmith won't be able to give that gift, and nobody will ever see the ring and be reminded of him. It's not unique anymore. But, if you made that ring and gave it to somebody, then every time they look at their hand and see it, they'll think of you. So, the only gift worth really giving is the gift that you identified as coming from you--the one that's special, and can't simply be copied or replaced.

However, there's one last, huge problem that I've found. What are you supposed to do when you recieve a gift? I don't want to seem displeased with it, but, by the same token, I don't want to seem overly joyful. If I show displeasure, then the giver won't be happy because they will think their gift wasn't good enough for me. But, if I seem too happy they might think that I like the gift more than I like them. The only happy medium is to simply exchange items that were custom made. That way, if a person writes a poem, there's no value placed on it, unlike the material gifts we usually associate with gift-giving. You won't be able to contrast the worth because they both mean the same to the person who gave them away--they were a piece of that person's soul, and now they have been offered up to another person to show friendship, or love.

So, if you have any talents (and most people) do, use them to give gifts, not your wallet this Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever the hell you celebrate and give gifts for. If all else fails, creativity counts as a talent--use that to think up a gift that would mark it as uniquely coming from you. Don't simply fall victim to the machine that wants you to steal somebody else's gift, and give it as if it came from you.