homepage/papers/gifts.mdwn

Title: The Incredible Burden of Gifts

We have this weekly ritual in the house where we go through and find old stuff we aren't using,
and put it in a pile by the door.
It's become a permanent pile,
not because we aren't getting rid of the things,
but because we're constantly putting stuff there.
It's become part of weekly house cleaning.

Since last Christmas,
we've agreed as a family that a lot of the stuff will be more valuable if we never even take it out of the box.
So now there are regularly one or two unopened boxes of stuff in the pile.
Right now there is an unopened electronic puzzle Ginnie won at a science conference.
This means I can finally write this essay,
because there's nothing in the pile any of our relatives sent us,
so I don't have to worry about somebody stumbling across this and getting upset that we're not even opening their gift.

I don't know when,
but at some point in my lifetime we went from not having enough,
to having too much.
It got to where it was easy to fulfill your needs,
and then easy to fulfill your desires,
and at that point, gifts became a management problem.
If there was something you wanted,
you just went out and bought it.
But twice a year (at least),
a couple dozen people wanted to know what *they* could go buy and mail to you.
So you have to try and dream up some stuff that you didn't want enough to go get yourself,
and put it on a list,
so that people who care about you can go buy it,
put it in a box,
but that box in a bigger box,
then ship it to you.

In an effort to show that you really care about a person,
you might decide you'll make them something.
That's really sweet,
but it's still a problem.

![My Coats](coats.jpg)

Here's a photo of my 13 coats.
I gathered them all up as I was going through trying to make room in my closet for more gifts,
because I knew I was going to have to get rid of some of them.
I can even tell you the story behind each one:

1. The University of Washington gave me this to thank me for flying up to run a 2-day computer security exercise.
1. Amy sewed this for me for our first Christmas together.
1. My company gave this to me for our annual Christmas gift.
1. Amy bought me this at Glacier National Monument.
1. Ginnie bought me this with her own money when she went to Canada on her own at the age of 10.
1. Hollie sewed this for me for a Christmas present
1. I bought this for myself because I wanted a classy-looking wool winter coat.
1. My dad gave me this
1. I used a ton this when Amy and I got our first apartment together.
1. Got this for doing a 200-mile ride from Seattle to Portland with Kellie.
1. Company holiday gift
1. Wore this every day bike commuting in Seattle
1. Bicycled 209 miles in one day on my 30th birthday, got this jacket

I only ever wear two of these.
I don't need 13 fucking coats.
Which ones do I get rid of?
With one exception, they all mean something to me.
Some of them are even hand-made,
or represent a real sacrifice in some way.
Getting rid of them dishonors the intentions of the person who gave them to me.

After three hours wringing my hands about it,
I wound up deciding that I could get rid of all but four of them.
I kept the one Amy made,
the one Ginnie bought,
and the two that I actually wear.
I feel really, horribly bad about getting rid of some of the rest,
even though I know the people who gave them to me would think that was silly.

But I wish people would understand this causes serious stress.
Ginnie has been known to cry for hours about having run out of space to store gifts.
You can say all you want to that you don't care what we do with them,
but *we* care what we do with them,
and when you burden us with these things it makes us mad.

I don't think you want to make us mad, but that's what happens.

Please stop giving us gifts.