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It’s likely that gift-giving exists as long as humans do. For instance, cavemen used to give each other unusually shaped rocks, animal teeth, and things like that. Nowadays, you probably would consider it rather weird if you gave someone stuff like that, but luckily there are plenty of other things you can gift.
This list is full of such ideas. All of them were suggested by people in various corners of the internet, and so we decided to make one comprehensive list for your convenience. Hopefully, this list will be a good gift guide for you, especially when it comes to buying presents for those people, who seemingly have everything they could want.
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But why do we as humans feel this need to give gifts at all? Well, when we mentioned cavemen gifting things to each other, they did it to strengthen their bonds. The same accounts for the modern day too – by giving someone a present you acknowledge them as a part of your life, as a bond worth strengthening.
Gifts also help people build lasting memories, demonstrate thoughtfulness, express feelings of appreciation, and benefit their social lives in many other ways.
But there’s more than just social bonds when it comes to giving presents. There’s also inner satisfaction. Several studies have shown that a person spending money on someone other than themselves promotes inner happiness.
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I’ve gotten many people thermapen cooking thermometers. I love mine and everyone that I’ve gotten them for all seemed to love them as well.
Basically, being generous creates interaction between the parts of the brain associated with processing social information and feeling pleasure, something that’s called a “warm glow.” With this interaction, the brain receives oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone.”
The “warm glow” sometimes can be described as an “impurely altruistic” feeling, as it encompasses both altruistic and egoistic motivations. A person might simply want to do a good deed, which is the former side, but at the same time, they might not be opposed to being recognized for said deed. Yet, some people are just truly altruistic and do good things for the sake of it.
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Guy has everything. I found a k****r discount to get it in the $60 range.
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I give my parents this every year. My siblings and I collaborate to compile photos throughout the year, so we can put those photos for each month. For every sibling’s birthday, we have photos of us with our parents AND a custom message for them. It’s something we all get to see in our home daily :)
*Not BIFL, but shoot the concept can be xD.
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Some might argue that feeling good about doing a good thing makes the action selfish, a debate that happened in one of the Friends episodes. Yet, one of the TV show’s fans kind of debunked this whole debate by pointing out that feeling good about a charitable act isn’t an inherently bad thing; it only becomes so when the good feeling is the sole motivation for it.
This whole feeling-good thing leads to some people preferring giving gifts over receiving them, or at least feeling similarly about these two actions. Research shows that both of them have similar levels of oxytocin reward response.
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1. you really really know me well and get me something that I actually didn't know I wanted. but it's super easy to miss on this and end up gifting something that's redundant. for example, I like keyboards and photography - so an artisan keycap is a good gift but a camera bag or camera strap is terrible (since I probably already did a ton of research and got my own already)
2. consumables. coffee/tea is pretty reliable, as is fancy soaps/lotions. my favorite gift to receive is homemade cookies though.
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For those dad's that are always helping you around your house, look at their fire extinguisher! It's often overlooked when they expire. Maybe they splurged on an EV and need a special one for that. Maybe they have one for the kitchen but not the workshop.
Got one for my impossible to buy for dad last year. It's something you don't think about often but will be grateful to have.
https://elementfire.com/ is what I'm getting for him this year, something to keep in his car.
So, as you can see, gift-giving is way more than a simple social bonding activity. It’s also a complex inner matter that can lead to, let’s say, interesting life situations – whether it’s unexpected reactions from receivers, the efforts you have to put in to find that gift, or anything else. Well, we can only hope that our list will help you with the latter.
Do you have any other ingenious gift ideas you want to share? Do so in the comment section!
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