What do you get the folks who don’t need anything?

Last week, Wave asked me if I wanted to post something and since we’re all staring down the barrel of the holidays and I’ll wager about half of you haven’t finished acquiring gifts for your various people, I figured this was an opportune moment to share a piece of wisdom someone gave me when I first got to New York City. The biggest problem each year is the gifts for the people you care about but don’t know well. Americans feel honor-bound to exchange presents, but we often don’t have enough information to identify a present that doesn’t…well…suck.

I’m not talking about gifts for kids, who are relatively easy to shop for because their dreams need to be limitless. I’m not talking about family, because anyone you don’t know well enough to choose wisely shouldn’t be getting a random meaningless gift to apprise them of your disinterest. It’s important to remember that the average New York apartment is the size of a postage stamp, so useless crap is not a source of joy and gratitude, consequently gifts and their giving are an annual source of agita and despair ’round these parts. For my money, a present should always be something distinctive which the recipient didn’t know they needed or would never splurge on for themselves.

I’m going to let y’all in on a little known secret in Manhattan gift-giving for hipsters:  Dildos and charity…

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