Taking the Low Road

Buy NO gifts.

What?! No gifts for Sis . . . Mom . . . the kids. . . the grandkids?? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Again, this is a lesson hard-learned. During our first two trips, we agonized over what to get various family members. In fact, I’d be embarrassed to tell you how much effort, time, thought, and money we put into this activity. Were those carefully bought gifts appreciated? They were not.

Why? Here’s our best guess: our family members didn’t go to Scotland (nor, apparently, do they particularly care to). When we buy souvenirs on holiday, we have sights, sounds, tastes, and smells that are part and parcel of those souvenirs. A glance at my pewter and copper brooch transports me back to a Canterbury museum gift shop on a cool fall day – and all the other sites we saw that day. If I were to give that brooch to any family member, she’d have no memories of anything so pleasurable tied to it. And that’s true for just about any souvenir you’d care to name. A souvenir’s value-add (and sometimes its only value) is the buying event itself – in a unfamiliar place – and the memories that event can trigger.

Don’t believe me? Okay, what did you do with the little gewgaw Aunt Laura brought you from Germany? Or the hand-carved knick-knack your friend hauled back from India? I’ll bet you graciously thanked them and promptly relegated these items to the back of the odd-sock drawer – after displaying them for a few days or weeks. Or, gasp, re-gifted them. You ungrateful wretch!

No, I take that back. It isn’t that you’re ungrateful or that our recipients were ungrateful. It’s simply that other people’s trip souvenirs can’t mean much to you because you weren’t there. You didn’t haggle with the shop-keeper. You didn’t watch the carver finishing up the details. You don’t remember the whiff of curry in the air while you paid your rupees for the silver bracelet.

If you need to thank someone for walking the dog, watering the plants, etc., back home while you were traveling, that’s handled easily enough; buy something you know they really like after you’re back in the States. Save your money and your time while on your trip. Remember other people didn’t take your trip and souvenirs you collected on your trip will mean very little to them.

Here’s my one exception to this tip: when someone has out-and-out asked for a very specific item, by all means, buy it for them if you can find it.