ALT-3 The value of Presents its the Thought that Counts
I think the art of giving gifts is the most personal and thoughtful thing a person can do to lift someone's spirits and let that person know how very special they are to you. It is also one of the most difficult things to do. You don't want the person to take the gift too personally, nor do you want it to be a gift that the person will turn around and give to someone else, sell on eBay, or worse yet, ridicule the next time they are with their family or with another group of friends.
I try to make mental notes of everything about a person and their family from the first moment I meet someone. I listen to them talk about their hobbies, their birthdays, their favorite colors, where they have traveled, their favorite foods and drinks, so that if I am in a position where I should need to pick up a special gift for that person or their family, I will have a slight advantage of knowing that I might please them a little more, by picking them up something that is more special, more appealing to them than something that might have been more of a quick 5 minute gift search on my way home from work.
Gift giving can also be the best ways to remember the most precious times spent with special people.Here is an example of an idea I gave my daughter a few days ago. My daughter was on vacation with her father during father's day. She wanted to write him a poem, but she also wanted to buy him a gift to go with it. Being a college student, and on a tight budget, I suggested she do something else, and something a bit more personal.
I suggested that since they were on vacation with her grandparents, and her grandparents and father being wine connoisseurs, I suggested to my daughter that she take one of the empty bottles of wine, clean it well and use it as a container for her poem. I suggested that she also write the poem about her vacation together with her father, her two bothers, and grandparents. I told her that if her brothers and she signed it, and used some candle wax to thumbprint it with their signatures maybe with a small vine, or a flowering collage at the bottom of the poem, with the date and the location of where they had stayed, that it would be a nice memento for him. She could then roll up the poem, tie it with some string, and cork it in the wine bottle.
I know this idea was a spin off an old "note in a bottle" idea. Sometimes the corniest and silliest, most sentimental gift ideas are the best. It may be a bit corny, and sentimental, but my daughter loved the idea. I am still waiting to hear from them, to see how well their father liked his Father's Day gift.
This is just one example, one way to give a very special give to someone very close without spending a lot of money, and I know it will have made their father feel very, very special.
