Material-less Gifting - Perfect for Last Minute Gifters, and a Gift for Our Planet
Still not too late to prepare the perfect gifts! So don’t get stressed if you are still finding ideas.
The good news is, there are gift ideas that not only are great and fast to do, but also, you will at the same time, without extra costs, be giving a gift to our planet Earth too!
I am talking about not just one kind of gift idea, but a range of them, that I call Material-less gifting: Experience gifting, time gifting, attention gifting, shared ritual gifting, etc.
Ever tried any of these ideas?
These often do not require shopping around way ahead of time, therefore fast; they also involve less, or no material consumption, therefor a gift to our planet!
They are not all new ideas, but together, these ideas emerges as not only a last minute gifting savior (and a planet savior too) but also just as or more meaningful.
This is because they share the same spirit of gifting with traditional material gifts, and can carry even deeper meanings.
After all, the essence of gifting is a gesture showing that “I think of you”, “I care about you”, “I want you to be happy”; it’s a wish of nurturing and enhancing a connection.
These heart-warming sentiments do not have to be sent with material gifts; they can be carried just as well, or many times much better, by “Material-less” gifts.
If we think about how many material gifts each year get shelved or little used ever (at the expense of our planet), we might see that maybe Material-less gifts are a good alternative.
And they could actually be better alternatives.
Experience Gifting
Among Material-less gifts, experience gifts are probably most familiar or adopted.
As shown in the name, experience gifting is giving the reciepient access to an experience, instead of giving something to keep (as in material gifts). Examples include activity tickets, bobby lessens, travel packages, etc.
These are a better alternative because, compared to material gifts, experience gifts foster stronger relationships, greater gratitude, and longer-lasting happiness than material gifts, as many studies have found.
The short video below explores this gifting idea, and how it enhances the “three Ss” of gifting effects - Surprise, Suspense, and Sharing.
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And this one provides a list of 10 categories of experience gifts:
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Some experience gifts still involve material consumption, such as traveling to exotic places which might incur high costs and heavy carbon footprints.
But if we have our planet’s health in mind, we can make choices that are less harmful to earth but beneficial to our gift receivers’ well-being.
The beauty of experience gifting is that its value is much less defined by its cost than material gifting - A $100 gifted family day-trip to a well-preserved national forest could be more enriching than travel tickets to a tourist hot-spot that cost $thousands.
Time Gifting
Sometimes, an offer of your time to do something for someone is just what they need, thus makes a great gift.
Some examples:
To a neighbor -
“During your holiday travel, I would be happy to watch your house and do pet sitting for you, for free of course.”
To your elderly Mom -
“Although I couldn’t help you much setting up your lavish holiday decorations due to my work traveling, the taking down and boxing them away will be all mine, so after the busy holiday season entertaining guests, you could just relax.”
To a friend -
“I would like to offer to pick up your kids from school 2 times a week in January, your busiest month, and to keep them until you are home from work, so you could be less stressed during the month”.
These very short videos present more ideas in this category of gifting.
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“Hmmm, these are great but don’t sound like gifts”, you might be thinking.
Part of the reason could be that we are not so used to time gifting as a gift idea yet.
But the values of these offers could be more significant to the receivers than material gifts, with the full essence of gifting: thoughtfulness, caring, and well wishing.
They could be just the perfect gifts the receivers most happy to receive!
The other part of the reason might be the “packaging” - We are so used to gifts being well “wrapped-up”.
But these kind offers could be nicely “packaged” too.
How about putting them into “Gift Certificates”? - Nicely designed, well-articulated Gift Certificates.
Here are some templates, just to offer some ideas for you to generate your own, or if you like these enough, feel free to use them and fill in your poetic words.
To make it sweeter, you don’t even have to sign your real name - How about signing it off with something like: “Another Kind of Holiday Spirit”, “The Mind You Are Often In”, “My Best Wishes for Your Happy Holidays”….
The format may work for experience gifts (National park tickets, etc.) which could go with Gift Certificates, singing off by, say, “Joy”, “Exploring Spirit”, “Waiting for the Enriched You Back”….
Attention Gifting
Sometimes, the most your gift receiver needs is a pair of ears, or some companionship that falls short during other times of the year.
Consider seeing these on Gift Certificates:
“I want to set aside x hours around Christmas just to talk to you, because I thought of you so much and want to know all your main concerns, to see if I can do anything to help.”
“During my holiday visiting week with the family, let me take you to the park each day for an hour, just the two of us, just like when I was little and you took me to the park everyday after school.”
“We have not been in touch as much as before mainly due to my schedule. Now I would like to commit to get in touch at least x times a month for the coming year, like we had before.”
Again, these offers could be expressed in poetic words and/or packaged into “Gift Certificates”, where the signature lines may be filled with “Care”, “Hope”, “Presence”….
Shared Ritual Gifting
Another unconventional way of gifting is an invitation to co-create a ritual or experience, such as shared reflection , letter exchange, joint artwork.
The uniqueness of this mode of gifting is that it accomplishes reciprocity (a characteristic of holiday gifting) in one act, on top of creating shared memories and enhancing mutual bonding.
This can even involve more than two people. A poem circle, for example, can be done with a group of people, in which participants contribute lines alternately to a poem cocreation, then read the finished poem out loud together.
You might be thinking, this sounds even less like gifting.
But if you look at gifting as more for creating shared memories and enhancing mutual bonds, this certainly serves the purposes well.
We just need some reframing of our gifting concept and thinking outside the box of gifts being something you shop to get and give to someone; while the recipient does the same.
If you would say to the someone (or a group), “Hey, this year before we go out to buy gifts for one another like we always do, why don’t we use the money (or just the effort, might not even need money) to do something different, to co-create an ritual/experience together?”
Now, does that sound more like a good framing of a gift giving idea?
Marcel Mauss’ classic, The Gift (1925), framed gifts as social obligations and bonds, not just material objects. Later research builds on this, showing that ritualized non-material gifts (blessings, ceremonies, shared silence) reinforce personal or community ties.
There are more kinds of Material-less gifting. But the above might have given you the idea.
No, most of the above doesn’t cost much or any money, and some people might be shy about them being “cheap”.
But Material-less gifts can be much more valuable than material gifts to the recipients - they can be priceless!
We can learn to set aside the idea we are so used to about gifts: that they are mostly material things, or that they have to cost high dollars to be valuable.
We can get back to the original meanings of gifting, and get used to the material-less ideas that are truer to these meanings: caring, loving, and well-wishing.
What do you think?
I would encourage you to:
Give one or more of these ideas a try this holiday season!
Or
Give all of them some thoughts, if not for this season, for the future.
A short recap of some gift ideas
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Some simple, finished Gift Certificate examples:
Happy Material-less Gift Giving!
With Love,
Jane