What do you need to know about burnout and buying gifts?
That if the idea of buying gifts is contributing to your burnout, you don’t have to.
We know that sounds weird, and counterintuitive, and perhaps even wrong, but you don’t have to. The holiday you are celebrating will still happen if you don’t search endlessly for the perfect gift. Gifts are a way to let someone know they matter to us – but they really shouldn’t be something that causes us to chew an entire bottle of Tums.
Instead, here’s a few alternatives that reduce the anxiety of perfection and still lets the person you were buying for know that you honor their presence in your life.
- A letter telling them how much they do mean to you. Perhaps recount memories you’ve made with them or your hopes for them for the coming year.
- A donation made in their name to a charity that means something to them. And if you don’t know charities they specifically support, then think of an area they’re passionate about – education, environmental issues, reproductive autonomy, etc – and find an organization in their area that is involved in that work.
- Pick an item from a charity’s Christmas catalogue. This one, from Heifer International, allows you to pick a tangible thing needed by the organization in question and “gift” it. So, you could buy a cow for your best friend and they know that cow is making sure a family in Nepal gets milk. Pretty rad.
If you’ve ever done something like this – come up with another way to indicate relationship than with something you wrap – let us know!
