Gift Baskets are Better Than Gift Certificates
Christmas gift giving can cause turmoil for some people. I often struggle to choose the perfect gifts for others but have been giving gift certificates as a default. It seems futile when both parties of a gift exchange give gift certificates. Both people might as well have kept their money and shopped at any store they preferred with their Federal Reserve notes. Over the past couple of years there has been a shift towards customized gifts such as personalized teddy bears (www.StuffedTeddy.com) and photo albums. These teddy bears can be particularly exciting for children due to the presence of her name on the bear. This visual helps to solidify an even greater bond between the bear and the child.
There are new and exciting personalized gifts such as sports artistry (www.sportsdecoy.com) where artists draw a sports scenario with the name and number on the jersey of the person receiving the gift. This is an excellent gift idea even for people who don’t play sports but did at one point. I believe that the market has been a little behind in adapting to the wants of the market when it comes to the biggest shopping season of the year. The personalization of gifts has just recently been brought to the marketplace. The technology hasn’t been advanced enough or cheap enough for most people to have access to these gifts.
Everyone loves instant gratification and variety, which is why gift baskets (www.allstargifts.com) are the most fun gifts to receive. Most gift baskets revolve around food and candy but there are other themes available as well. Gift certificates are great because you can get exactly what you want but there isn’t the joy of receiving something that can be instantly consumed. In addition, gift certificates are often used to buy things that aren’t fun and we choose to purchase boring items. Gift baskets, on the other hand, can satisfy instantly.
Another new trend in gift giving is in the realm of ancestry-related materials including family timeline charts and family history books. Personalization of Christmas gifts are becoming more common and gift baskets can be composed to conform to the personal likes of the gift receiver. Future trends will become even more personalized.
A few possible examples of this super customization of gifts might be a Monopoly game with the spaces reflecting things in the person’s life. Another example might be a video game with the gift receiver as the main character. Another example might be a style of chip or type of cereal with the name of the gift receiver on the box or the shape of the food in the letters of the person’s name.
Customization of this magnitude may not occur in the immediate future but personalizing Christmas gifts will be popular for a long time to come. It seems like you can get anything personalized—candy, e-greeting cards, iPod play lists, computer cases, etc. This year I will be buying gift baskets for the first time and I think the majority of my gifts will reflect this change.
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