Shop...Give...Get...Return and the Cycle Continues

For Christmas this year I, like anyone celebrating a holiday this winter season, received a couple gifts that I didn't particularly like and wanted to exchange.  Different color this, wrong size that, the usual suspects.  When I took a trip over to the mall to try and make such an exchange, it was easily apparent that many and I mean many people wanted to make such an exchange as well.  I went to the mall the day after Christmas, and the parking lot was sprawling with cars driven by frustrated, impatient patrons.  You would be practically ousted from society if you decided to not subscribe to the regular holiday traditions by not getting someone a gift, yet those people receiving the gift are not bound liking it despite the amount of time and thought you may have put in.  At Target stores there are whole segmented desk areas for the sole purpose of making returns and exchanges.

The thing is, however, it is never this simple.  According to an article from a story done by CBS's Augusta, Georgia affiliate, people have lots of different and valid reasons for making returns the day after.  "I bought some games for my nephew.  I decided I had bought too many.  So I needed to return something," said a shopper in the news story.

Whatever the reason may be for taking a gift back, the article said that during this holiday season almost 40 percent of us are expected to return one of our presents.  I suppose it's easy to do with all of the advantageous post-holiday sales that stores advertise nowadays.  My only fear, however, is that people will just give up and just give a gift card or money for the holidays.  Then the magic of receiving a big, colorfully wrapped box with a neat bow tie on top and wondering what's inside until you tear the wrapping paper off in a whirlwind of fervor to find what you now have will be lost, though.  We can't lost this emotional part of the holidays in lieu of the logical choice of not giving something to someone because of the risk that they may not like it though.  In my opinion, people do not remember specific things as well as the feeling they had at the time that the specific thing was in their life.  What's more significant: 1) remembering getting a scooter and learning to go off a jump or 2) remembering the excitement and happiness of receiving a scooter and recalling the thrill/pride of learning to jump?

It seems that Americans, or perhaps Westerners in general, often care more about option one from above: just getting something.  Gift giving can sometimes be looked upon as a formality, and if one doesn't conform, it's automatically a faux pas.  In other cultures besides Western ones, gift giving is popular, but there is a little more that goes into the process.  One article about Japanese culture says, "In Japan, it's customary to give gifts periodically to certain people, such as co-workers, bosses, parents, relatives, teachers, and so on.  These gifts are given to express gratitude."  This time is somewhat like the holiday gift giving custom in the U.S., but the average price is about three to five thousand yen in Japan, which equals about forty to sixty dollars per gift.  These gifts are called "o-seibo" and "o-chugen".  The fact that these gifts are given to people other than family and close friends differentiates it from American culture and shows the amount of thought the Japanese put into the idea of gift giving.  If Americans receive gifts from family only to return them the next day, what would we think about buying expensive. ornately wrapped gifts for mere co-workers?