So she bought an Amazon gift card. And then she created a wishlist of items she thought the mother might need, doing the research to find reputable brands, unique solutions to problems, "best mom gadgets", etc (such as the pacifier that you can put liquids into; it lets you get liquid medicines into the baby, like cough syrup, without stress). She sent the gift card, and the link to the wishlist with an explanation.

It was both a pragmatic and thoughtful approach, without the risk of buying something she already had, or didn't need or want.

It is a great idea, but it makes more sense when the recipient does the registering IMO.

If you are unlucky enough to have to get medicine into a baby, something has happened and you are hopefully under the supervision of a doctor or a nurse who can aid with the practicalities.

Small babies are delicate machines and gifting any sort of medical aid "just in case" might give the recipient ideas. Feeding a baby cough syrup may have been just an example but sounds downright dangerous. Please be careful.

I realize this was just a casual example, but kids under two generally shouldn't be given any cough or cold meds (there are no over-the-counter cough meds for kids <2 sold in the US).

Definitely still useful for other meds though.

I didn't m to sound facetious but now I'm thinking about the ways of making a SaaS out of this : the incentive for the giver is easy enough ; the card maker gets a cut ; AWS should give you a great deal on hosting..

They aren't fancy or anything, but they scale up well and folks will look forward to it.

Even if the recipient doesn't care for truffles (vegan, weight-loss dieter) they like the packaging, and they have something to share. And truffles are easy to make.

For a few years now we've bought a bunch of peaches sometime in the summer and made a bunch of peach jam, put it in pretty little jars, and brought them to holiday gatherings with my family around Philadelphia. It's always a hit.

The thing is, they actually have good peaches up there too! I know this because I ate so many of them when I lived near a good farmer's market there!

Philly peaches: I believe that Robert E. Lee's troops got through a lot of "foraged" (stolen) peaches on the march to Gettysburg. Presumably squits was a big problem in the confederate army.

https://www.jetpens.com/Kurochiku-Mejirushi-Sticky-Notes/ct/...

If Christmas weren't a thing, I'd've bought some new cycling gloves a month or two ago, but as it is, I'll keep riding with my very-torn-up pair until Christmas so my family can continue to partake in the gift giving ritual we enjoy without having to resort to finding random stuff the recipient probably doesn't actually want.

The curse of having enough money and not wanting a lot of things. :-)

Gift cards are the worst of both worlds - just as impersonal as cash, but even more limiting.

I have rather a small kitchen, and I like cooking. In the same way that a carpenter prefers to choose his own tools, I prefer to choose my own kitchen implements. I'd prefer to receive consumable ingredients that can last a year or two on the shelf (no, not stem ginger in brandy, thanks all the same).

I hate buying birthday and christmas gifts, and I don't expect to receive them either. I don't have space in my small flat for stuff that doesn't earn the space it occupies, and I assume my relatives don't either.

My policy is to buy presents for people when I find something that I think they'd want. I usually check with them first, so that I'm getting the correct style or model. This process isn't synchronised with any anniversaries, except that if it's near an anniversary, a date-adjustment might occur. For an occasion for which some kind of gift would be expected (e.g. 21st, birth, retirement), if I don't find the right thing, they get cash.

I prefer not to give cash ("it's the thought that counts", and giving cash doesn't involve a lot of thought), and in practice I only give cash to my grown-up kids, who understand how I operate. The hardest target is small kids, who enjoy unwrapping things and enjoying them immediately. I've given cash to my toddler granddaughters too, though (via the investment fund their parents operate); but not on their birthdays.

My late father didn't want people to give him "hard" gifts - stuff that he had to keep somewhere, or worse: put on display to prove he appreciated it. He preferred gifts of food, or other stuff that could be consumed fairly quickly. I'm the same, and I treat others as I would like to be treated myself. I have enough stuff (but I'm running low on caviar).

I think a random, well-targeted, gift on a non-anniversary, coming out of blue sky, is much more exciting than yet another plastic birthday present, arriving on the same day as all the other anniversary presents, that will last a couple of weeks before going to landfill.

I often forget my own birthday. I'm fine with a Happy Birthday phone-call - or none. If someone needs an anniversary gift, for whatever reason, I visit a few card shops, and choose a really snazzy, expensive one. Some of my rels are still displaying fancy commercial cards I sent them ten years ago; I'm still displaying a hand-made card drawn by my 2-year-old granddaughter.

My christmas-card list is zero lines long.