The Sunday Soother Gift Guide
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And steps to make your gift-giving more thoughtful.
This article is cross-posted from my weekly newsletter, The Sunday Soother, a newsletter about clarity, intention, and useful tips for creating more meaning in your life that goes out every Sunday morning. Subscribe here. I am also a personal development strategist and coach working to help people with self-acceptance, self-trust, and self-compassion. You can learn more about working with me here.
Happy Sunday, friends. It’s that time of year:
This time of year can be fraught for many a reason, one of which is the rampant consumerism that people tell us signify emotional love. That said… I frigging love gifts. I love buying them. I love getting them. I love when I can see a person and add something meaningful to their life and I love when they can do the same for me too.
I also get wanting to be thoughtful around consumerism, capitalism, finances, and all that’s wrapped up in that. I really do.
However. I just plain like to buy all the things.
Ann Friedman had a beautiful newsletter last week on gift-giving and ideas for gifts that I encourage you to read that really aligned with why I like gift giving so much. As she wrote: The best gifts are rooted in careful observation, because they make the recipient feel seen and known. True story: A few years ago, my partner gave me a heated mattress pad. When I opened it, I was mildly horrified. “The magic is gone!” I wailed. “I feel so old!” And then I climbed into my oh-so-toasty bed, and I understood: This was a perfect gift for a woman whose toes are perpetually icy (yes, even in California) and who cannot get to sleep until they warm up. An ideal gift for me. Actually quite magical after all.
So it is with that duality in mind — mindful around consumerism, but also truly believing in the magic of a well-observed gift and the impact it can have on a person — that I present to you the Sunday Soother Gift Guide.
Today’s newsletter will be a reprint below of my guide to how to give gifts thoughtfully from last year, as well as my guide…
