Comment by tokioyoyo

2 months ago

Everything mentioned in the first paragraph as arguments still takes some personal time and effort. The amount of time that’s involved to receive and acknowledge the gift is smaller than the amount of time to prepare the gift. So it feels “right”.

Not sure if I’m making sense, but that’s how I’d feel about it.

6 comments

tokioyoyo

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Yoric  2 months ago

Except for the white elephants, which were designed specifically as anti-gifts.

  • godelski  2 months ago

    Depends how you do white elephant...

    But still, a good gag gift takes effort. It's not like you walk into a random store and pick the first thing you see.

    The whole aspect of stealing gifts demonstrates this. It'd be pointless if the gifts were all low grade garbage. They'd be effectively fungible. Yet the theft part it is critical to making white elephant fun. Regardless if you're doing gag gifts or good gifts.

    • Yoric  2 months ago

      Er... white elephants were not gag gifts.

      A white elephant is a gift that you cannot refuse, cannot regift, and is so expensive/complicated to take care of that it will become your primary concern for the rest of your life.

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