Gifting - part 2
It’s a special occasion! The time for you to give and receive gifts. When you are on cloud nine, wondering what presents you might receive and even worried about the presents you are supposed to provide. Whether they would like your present or not is constantly troubling you. What if someone has given them the same gift as you? Maybe they find your present useless and pass it on to someone else. Or what if they just put it with other unused junk they have in store? These thoughts slither around your mind like a venomous snake disrupting your peace and calm. How much ever you try, you fail to put these thoughts away.
These thoughts sometimes make the gift-giving a horrendous process- losing its essence of spreading joy to the giver and receiver simultaneously. Was this the case earlier as well? Is this how gift-giving was viewed in history? We don’t know, but now the competition, availability of unique yet similar products, and the lack of time have transformed gift-giving into a tedious task. Be it any festival, someone’s birthday, or someone’s wedding, we can’t help but carry these thoughts with us until the last moment. Why so? The reason is simple and straightforward gift-giving has more profound implications than just giving gifts. The gift we choose represents our relationship with the person, our thoughts and our emotions. Simply put, a gift means the giver’s emotions and memories are associated with the receiver.
Weddings are one of the most common occasions for gift-giving. Gifts from the guests, from the families to the guests, a beautiful wedding invitation, gifts both the families give each other. This occasion is full of gift-giving, but still, at times, this happy and joyous process seems formal and forceful. It appears as if neither the guests are interested nor the families. A hard truth, but this is the case mostly. Everyone fails to put forward their honest feelings and thoughts.
Wedding invitations have only the name of the head of the family mentioned, setting the impression that only that person is invited and not everyone, though this is not true. Furthermore, the gifts given to the bride and groom only fulfil formality and have no emotions attached. So, what is the solution to this? How do we put forward our honest and genuine feelings of joy and happiness? The key is simple and, right there, personalisation. It is time to personalise each gift given and make it a memory.
Imagine a wedding invitation not as ‘name of the family head and family’, but rather writing the names of all the six to eight members of the family. Does this not feel personal? Does it not feel like you are genuinely invited? Further, accelerate your imagination a bit: a beautiful box as a wedding invitation with sweets or dry fruits neatly packed in delicate, luxurious, beautifully designed dessert bowls. Does this invitation not seem perfect? The white and golden dessert bowls are filled with your favourite sweet in the form of a wedding invitation that has your name mentioned on the invite. Gives you the feeling that yes, you are also invited, and you should go to the wedding with a perfect gift.
Now it’s your time to give the wedding gift. Maybe the perfect gift would be a gift box of fine, luxurious, royal dinner wares that are intricately designed and a personal note with it. A letter that mentions some memory that only you and the bride or groom know will remind them of you every time they take a look at the luxurious dinnerware and put it in use. This can even be given as a return gift to the guests with a thank you note, expressing gratitude perfectly. The beautifully decorated grey gift box holding inside intricately designed dinner wares that represent Indian culture and art in the utmost manner beautified with 24 karat gold, narrating a tale of your relationship with it through the personal note attached.
Isn’t it simple to express emotions through formality out of our way? Isn’t gift-giving once again a joyous and happy task? A task that is no longer followed by vicious thoughts and something that we all would wait for.