Holidays

December 10, 2014December 10, 2014

Give the (Digital) Gift of Gratitude with Tribute

Imagine being honored and recognized by your family, closest friends and colleagues, each outpouring their appreciation and love for who you’ve been for them. While this kinda thing occasionally happens at various celebratory events, the main event that tends to spur people to get clear about their feelings for you is a memorial service–an event that for many of us is hard to fully appreciate (depending on your perspective on life-after-death). A new service called Tribute is trying to make pre-mortem expressions of love and appreciation a little easier to organize and give.

Tribute starts when an organizer sends invites to various “tribe” members of someone they want to honor. Invitees are asked to create short videos about that someone. These videos are then put into a pool, which are then available to edit and create one master video montage. Invitees can make their videos on their desktops, smartphones or any other video devices. Invitees are given regular reminders to make sure they do their videos in a timely manner.

For an extra $100, you can have a Tribute concierge handle the whole process aside from providing email addresses and some basic info. When all the videos are received, compiled and edited, Tribute makes a HD mp4 file that can be given as-is or uploaded to Youtube, Vimeo or any other video service.

I watched a few Tribute videos given for various reasons: birthdays, sickness/injury recovery, wedding, etc. And while some people were clearly better at expressing themselves than others, the overall effect was moving. I would be very pleased if I received one as a gift.

Tribute is currently raising money through Kickstarter to get their website and mobile app refined and launched. When live, a standard Tribute will cost $49 and a concierge-assisted one $149 (you can still buy a $29 “Cyber Monday” promo pledge that will get you the standard Tribute).

What’s great about Tribute is that it really puts technology to good use. Whereas e-cards can sometimes feel like a lazy version of a handwritten note, Tribute does something analog tech can’t. It’s a sharable, visual, no-clutter distillation of gratitude–something that has actually been clinically proven to make people happy, something that can’t be said of most of the stuff we buy as gifts.

December 9, 2013May 23, 2014

The Myth of the Perfect Gift

Are you looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? Look no further. It doesn’t exist. As we reported the other day, Americans spend between 3-4% of their annual income on Christmas season gifts. The objective of this considerable allocation of funds, we might assume, is to give things to the people we love and like that will enrich their lives–things they will appreciate, use and enjoy.

The reality is something quite different. A Psychology Today article reports sobering information about the psychology of gift giving and receiving. Author Ben C Fletcher cites Professor Karen Pine’s research about festive gifts, which found that:

89% of women and 79% of men pretended to like a gift they hated.
Half of all people had received at least one gift they hated the previous Christmas.
Half of all people have lied to a loved one about a gift, pretending to like it.
Gift receivers reported avoiding eye contact with the giver for fear of revealing how they really felt.
Gift receivers reported producing fake smiles using only the mouth (not the eye) muscles when pretending to like a gift.
Only 12% said they would tell the gift giver directly they didn’t like their gifts (“men were significantly more likely to do this than women”).
1 in 5 people said receiving a gift made them feel anxious.

The reason for these pretenses and anxiety, Fletcher contends, is the maintenance of social bonds. The objective of a gift is to strengthen those bonds. If the receiver rejects the gift, it might weaken the bond–something he or she does not want to do. So people lie. They say they like things they don’t in order to maintain the relationship.

It’s not much easier for the gift giver, who is unsure whether his gift will strengthen of weaken the social bond he’s trying to maintain (not to mention possibly leveraging his finances). Pine found that a quarter of people surveyed reported that giving a gift made them anxious.

So what do we do? How do we strengthen social bonds without forking over a ton of money? How do we avoid putting our loved ones in positions where they feel like they must pretend to like something in order to maintain a relationship? Here are a few ideas:

Give experiences. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, people are far more likely to be satisfied with an experience than an object. Treat them to a play, take them out to dinner or cook dinner for them, go for a sleigh ride…whatever. Keep the focus on doing and experiencing, not having and accumulating. If you need to hand something over, give them a “One Less Gift Certificate.”
Give a gift certificate or money. It might lack the romance, but these gifts are sure to get used (unless the gift certificate is for an extremely inappropriate store, i.e. don’t get a Tiffany’s gift certificate to your ultra-minimalist pal.).
Give thoughtfully. Gift giving is an art. It often takes time, consideration and some knowledge of the gift receiver’s life. If we don’t have those things, we might want to give something with more universal appeal. If we do have those things, choose something carefully…and feel free to throw in a gift receipt and give license to use it ;-).

Upset man image via Shutterstock

December 3, 2013December 4, 2013

Minimalist Gift Idea: Personalized Thumb-Drives

We’ve said it before, but the holidays can be a vexing time for the minimalist. We want to perpetuate the spirit of giving, but don’t want to give a bunch of stuff that will likely go unused or straight to the closet, donation center or landfill. If you’re looking for a simple gift that is thoughtful, thrifty and useful, consider thumb-drives.

We’re not just suggesting that you give blank thumb-drives that, while useful, lack any personal touch. When giving out the drives, load them with pics, music mixes, letters, artwork, videos, etc; we suggest that these things be as personal as possible (and on universally recognized digital formats). The gift might lack some of the initial jolt of excitement of some gifts, but if you’re digital content is made with care, people will love your gifts. It’s amazing how far a little time and thought–e.g. a heartfelt letter–goes toward creating a memorable and appreciated gift.

After the gift has been given and (hopefully) appreciated, your recipient has a useful thumb-drive. We found a ten pack of 8 gig thumb-drives for $54. You can get cheaper ones, but spending a few extra bucks for more memory will increase the probability of the drives being used in the future by the gift recipient.

If you have gift ideas that are minimalist-friendly, please email us or let us know in our comments section.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

The Stuff-Free Gift Registry

Let’s say you’re getting married or having a baby shower (not necessarily in that order). The present-day American tradition is to set up a gift registry, ostensibly to prepare for these events. You populate said registry with stuff: Penne pasta makers, gilded napkin rings, baby wipe warmers, etc. But what if you err on the minimal side? What if you don’t want any new stuff, yet you want to be gracious (and smart) by receiving gifts? In fact, what if you love receiving gifts, just not the ones that max out your closets and landfills? How to you communicate these things to people who want to give you gifts? A website called SoKind has a solution, enabling would be giftees to receive gracefully, sans the stuff.

The site, started by the The Center for a New American Dream, allows people to put non-stuff-stuff on their registry. A sample list on their website includes cooking lessons for newlyweds, a YMCA membership for a recent graduate and homemade dinners right after pregnancy.

The SoKind website explains their motivation this way:

Today’s gift-giving culture has become ever more commercialized, fueled by ads, fads, and glitz. Here at SoKind, we know that your favorite gifts don’t always fit in a box. SoKind allows you to create a registry focused less on stuff and more on family, fun, and friends.

SoKind not only makes sense in terms of stemming the flow of stuff that might not get used, it also makes sense in terms of what actually make people happy. As we saw a while back, people are typically more satisfied when given experiences over stuff. It also reminds us of the brilliant One Less Gift Certificate, albeit a bit more comprehensive and technologically advanced.

Gift giving decorum can be an anxiety-producing subject for those of us who are looking to edit our lives. We might love the act of giving and receiving and don’t want to rebuke any gift given in kindness and generosity. But we also don’t want to have our friends, families and colleagues get us stuff we don’t want or will use; stuff that costs them money and will likely end up in a landfill or donation box sooner than later.

Tools like SoKind and the One Less Gift Certificate provide tactics for receiving gracefully and in a way that promotes the desire to simplify our lives.

Empty gift box image via Shutterstock

Via Treehugger

November 15, 2012November 6, 2013

Get Everyone in Your Life a ‘One Less Gift’ Certificate

Gift giving/receiving season got you stressed? Not sure what to get people when you’re trying to promote simpler living? Not sure what to do about unwanted gifts that don’t fit with your less is more lifestyle? Francine Jay, aka Miss Minimalist, has a solution: It’s the “One Less Gift” Certificate.

Jay’s certificate (available to download as full-page PDF), promotes a “stuff-free holiday.” The certificate expresses appreciation for the receiver’s generous spirit, but says that the giver has everything she “could possibly want” and would prefer that both parties have one less thing to worry about, along with more time, money, stress and environmental responsibility.

The certificate is a two way proposition, saying both what the giver wants (no stuff) and what the receiver will get (no stuff). It then proposes to find other ways to enjoy this enjoy the wonderful season together. Jay gives examples of what that looks like: Volunteering, exchanging good deeds, protecting the environment and more.

Gift giving is a very touchy subject. For many, being told that they cannot give a gift is a grave offense. Who is anyone to say you can’t give what you want? Yet many of the gifts that are given–especially to people trying to simplify their lives–end up being immediately discarded. The gift is basically wasted time, money and resources. And yes, you can always donate, but that that seems like a quick fix, rather than a real behavioral shift.

How are you handling the upcoming gift season? And what do you think about Jay’s certificate? Would you give it to someone? What would you do if you received it? Let us know.

via Huffington Post