We’ve all been in the situation where a close friend or a relative’s anniversary, wedding, graduation or some other special occasion is closing in and you have absolutely no idea what to get him as a gift. And it’s not like they’re going to help you with a hint or gift idea either, you’ll rarely hear that friend or relative say “I want this or that” making your job easy. Most of them will say something in the whereabouts of “Surprise me!” or “Get me something symbolic!” at best, which, again, is not very helpful. So since no one is willing to help you out on your gift shopping, we’ve thought of compiling some gift ideas that could be of general help to the thousands of clueless gift shoppers out there :).
First of all, gifts can be sliced up into 4 different categories: symbolic gift ideas, occupational gift ideas, consumable gift ideas and accessory gift ideas. Symbolic gifts include anniversary-specific items and stuff that’s not necessarily valuable, but holds a strong symbolic value. They also include regional gifts, such as country (or area) specific items. If you go to Paris and bring your friend an Eiffel Tower Tealight Holder, than that’s a symbolic regional gift idea that’s bound to be more successful than if you simply bring him or her something of greater value, but something that he can easily find in the nearest store.
Occupational gifts also hold a solid symbolic value, but they can also be useful at times. For example, getting your friend, who just graduated from med school, a new stethoscope has both a strong symbolic value but it may also prove to actually be useful in his practice. Getting your uncle, who’s in the law forces, a personalized police throw like the ones seen in movies is also a great occupational gift idea, as it is both useful and fashionable. But occupational gifts don’t always simply include profession-related items, since some might also be hobby-related ones. So if you know your cousin loves soccer for example, getting him a new pair of protective pads or a pair of the latest studs and blades soccer shoes could be a great gift idea.
Consumable gifts are less original but they could definitely be considered “more useful” than symbolic ones, although they don’t last the test of time like the latter do. Consumable gifts may include a cake for your friend’s anniversary, a bottle of his favorite wine or cognac, a set of lemon-scented candles and so forth. Virtually, anything that will most likely get eaten, drank, smoked or burnt in the next couple of days.
Last but not least, accessory gifts may also resemble symbolic gift ideas, but they usually have a higher value. Jewelry would fit in perfectly under this category and so would clothing accessories. By having something printed or engraved on the clothing, respectively on the jewelry, you can further increase their symbolic value but this can drop the item’s usability (especially with clothes), since it might be a cute gift idea getting an “I love pink bunnies” T-shirt from your friends as a symbolic accessory, but it might not be that cool for him to walk around town with it.
