It’s easy to slip into familiar patterns when buying gifts. Socks or hats for Christmas, jewellery or birthdays for birthdays, while there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these gifts, sometimes it’s nice to go in a slightly different direction. There are plenty of unordinary presents that can be absolutely perfect for a wide range of occasions – let’s brainstorm quickly and see what we come up with.
A symbolic gift
While we often think of gifts as physical things that can be handed over, wrapped up neatly in a box, you can also give more symbolic gifts. For example, there are services that let you buy a star, allowing you to name it after a person or event.
These kinds of gifts can be just as meaningful to the recipient, especially if there aren’t many ‘practical’ items that they need. It shows that you’ve thought a little outside of the box about what they might like, and will likely be something that they remember for some time to come.
A gift of togetherness
In the modern world, life can often get so busy that we can struggle to make time to spend with the people we care about the most. If this sounds applicable to the person you’re buying a gift for, then why not think about buying them a present that allows you to do something together?
That could be a wine-tasting course on a vineyard in the south of England, a holiday somewhere beautiful in the Balkans, or a pasta-making course at your local Italian restaurant. Think about what the recipient really enjoys doing, and then work backwards from there. Ideally, it will consist of something that they might not have thought about doing themselves, but that they would likely really enjoy and embrace given the opportunity.
A gift of assistance
Many of us have hundreds of projects that we would absolutely love to get going with. That could be repainting the kitchen, sewing a new set of curtains for our bedroom, or making a new bike from special parts for an upcoming cycling holiday.
Finding the time and energy to complete these projects, however, can be a little daunting. If you know that the person you’re buying a present for has an important project that they’ve struggled to get going with, why not offer to help them out with it?
That help could look like buying the necessary items for the project – a sewing machine, paint, a bike frame – or it could include providing practical and emotional support. It’ll often be a lot more meaningful than some random gift that you find in a local shop, and will show that you’ve really thought about what matters to them.
Thinking outside the box when it comes to gift buying can make the process feel a lot more rewarding, for both the buyer and the recipient. It forces you to think about what the person actually needs in their life, and then allows you to come up with ideas that hopefully match those requirements.
