[00:00:00] nina: Welcome to a mini episode of Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. I haven’t done a mini episode in so long and I miss doing them. They’re a nice way to have , a shorter thought about friendship that I wanna share. Past ones have been about whether to unfollow, unfriend. Or mute or hide someone on social media.

I recorded one of me reading the Friendship Forgiveness Prayer I wrote for Yum Kippur last year. I did a short follow up about friends who ask nosy questions, like more of a positive view. Since the main episode, which I was following up on, that was episode eight with my mom, had a bit more of a negative view of friends who would like push for inform.

And then in the follow up on my own, I just did a quick, flipping it to a more positive view. I did a mini one called Friends Make Mistakes, reminding us to be forgiving of small things friends do if we wanna be forgiven for the stuff that we do wrong here and there. I like doing the mini episodes And sometimes there’s just, a topic that doesn’t merit a full 25 minutes or it doesn’t make sense to have a guest. Today’s topic is giving thoughtful gifts to friends, and it started as a thread in my Facebook group. Dear Nina, the group, anyone is welcome to join us there. You just go into Facebook and the search.

Box and type in Dear Nina, the group, and you’ll ask to join and you’ll have to answer a question about how you found the group. That’s how I know people aren’t there by accident, and I will let you in. We have discussions before and after episodes. We talk about all the stuff we’re reading and watching, I always welcome people to post their own friendship dilemmas and get advice from all the smart, helpful people.

I’m going to share some of the gift ideas that came up from that group, and a few people left voicemails too, which I love. I’d love to be able to share things in your own voices. Before I share the ideas for thoughtful gifts that came up in the group, I wanted to mention an article that just came out in the Atlantic by Anna Goldfarb, who was my guest in episode 35.

Anna has written a ton about friendship in major publications. If you have shared articles in the New York Times and Vox and other places about Friendship, odds are Anna wrote them and she has a book coming out in about a year, I believe, called Modern Friendship. Her Atlantic piece is called Gift Giving, is about the buyer, not the receiver.

I’ll link it in the show notes. Of course. . She talked about the psychology behind gift giving. For example, giving a gift during a gift exchange with the whole group in attendance will affect the kind of gift you choose versus one-on-one giving. And that’s totally natural, like when you’re giving the gift to the one person, but it’s in front of a group.

Obviously you wanna appear thoughtful and creative. Maybe creativity is like more important in that scenario. Let’s say you’re buying a wedding gift. These are Anna’s examples. Let’s say you’re buying a wedding gift and you choose something off the registry, like a piece of custom artwork, you. Be saying without saying it, I want you to feel like I know you better than you know yourself.

So these are things to think about when you’re giving a gift. What kind of message are you giving off? Anna discusses how acknowledging that we do have our own motives when we give a gift isn’t a bad thing. She says gift giving is a nuanced psychological transaction in which the givers also bring their own desires to the table.

And I think that’s true, and I think it’s totally okay, like she says, to acknowledge it and just be. . I think the point behind all the gift ideas I’m sharing today that Dear Nina listener shared with me is this, they wanna be seen as thoughtful friends, and I think that’s a great motive because all the examples here are so personal and they really show that you know your friend.

So let’s listen to the first voicemail. From Kristen Nielsen who was a guest in episode 26. She’s one of the trio in the Pop Culture Preservation Society, and their episode was about making close friends, , at 50 and beyond. It was a great episode number 26, and she left a voicemail that was really interesting and different.

Let’s listen to.

[00:04:15] kristin: Hi Nina. This is Kristen. And I have a lot of opinions about gift giving with my friends. I think gift giving can become cumbersome for some people, especially if you belong to a friend group that tends to get together for every birthday in the group. Or if these are the occasions that you tend to see people.

And I have an understanding with some of my friends that we only buy a gift when we come across something. Perfect for someone else, like so-and-so would love that. I have to get it for her. It’s something that drops in your lap. It’s very organic. It’s not something that you go out to get. What that means is that when we get together on gift giving occasions, some people have gifts to give and some do not, and no one interprets it as a failure to be a good friend.

All it means is, oh, look what so-and-so found for you. And we all take joy in it together because gift giving should be a joy, not. An obligation, and this restores that spirit and also keeps us from accumulating stuff, which we all know we do, and we’re always trying to get rid of it. It also means that the gifts that I have received are intensely personal or meaningful, often having to do with my identity or reflecting that someone really and truly understands me.

When I turned 50, my friend Colleen, gifted me a collection of Tiger Beat magazines all from the year I was born. And my friend Paula had borrowed so many books from me that she made me a collection of personalized book plates with her own art.

Both of these gifts were honoring me as a person, as an individual, as if they really knew and understood me instead of just providing me with a thing. And now I look at gift giving in a completely different way.

[00:05:48] nina: So I think Kristen’s group of friends is very evolved, aren’t they? I love this idea that they have their eyes out for things that a friend might love as they’re going through their day-to-day lives, and they’re not necessarily timing it to a birthday or a holiday. And the two examples of gifts she got were so personal and thoughtful.

I just love it. Another listener told me this. I recently gave my friends a friendship quiz in which I asked them basic things like favorite color, favorite sonic drink, coffee versus tea calls, versus texts, et cetera.

It has helped me to know how to best relate to them. For example, I learned that one friend likes to do something active together instead of just sitting and chatting, but it’s also going to help me get them little gifts for their birthdays or Christmas. Last year for one friend, I did a bag of some of their favorite.

Journal, favorite pens, lip gloss, and a puzzle. Nothing was super expensive, but it was all tailored to her and she really loved it. And this same friend gifted me our favorite dry shampoo for my birthday, which I love because I don’t usually splurge and buy it for myself since it’s pricey. Thoughtful gifts are things that, you know, the person wouldn’t normally buy themselves are my favorites to give and receive.

So I thought that was a great point. Another listener said, I bought one friend a monogrammed canvas bag for her knitting. She loved it. She’s always so generous with a variety of door surprises and I’ve worked hard to nail who she is too. Very fun. That, , brought up a good point that when you have a friend who’s like a really good gift giver and I have friends like that, sometimes it is a little more pressure to come up with something.

equally shows like to Anna’s point, you are really thinking about who they are and you are trying to be as thoughtful. It’s like a way of showing that you are making as much effort as they are and it could be fun to really challenge yourself to find something as thoughtful, Anna herself shared in our Facebook group that she made personalized mugs for a handful of friends, and they were a huge hit. she said, if possible I added their pet in the image area as their hobby component. That’s so cute, don’t you think? I love that. Another past guest, Alyssa from episode 12, she’s a huge reader and she has a really fun Facebook page called Alyssa’s Book List.

She said a friend found a list I had posted with my favorite books, and then she had a piece of custom art made with the book spines, and she shared a picture in the Facebook page is really beautiful and framed what a thoughtful gift. I mean, I’m just loving these. Let’s hear another voicemail from a listener so you can get a break from my.

[00:08:15] Carla: Every year, two of my girlfriends and I do a gift exchange. We each get the other two, the same thing, and we don’t live super close to one another and kind of makes us feel closer that we’re enjoying the same things. Last year, one of my friends got each of us a necklace with a compass charm to remind us that even though we may not be right there, we’re always there guiding each other and are a North star for one.

tears all around, and I wear it often, especially when I’m feeling a little lost.

[00:08:47] nina: See, I think that is a really fun idea for long distance friends, especially friends in a group where you all can enjoy the same gift, so you can picture each other, you know, in this case wearing the same gift, or it could be something that each person can use. Really clever. And here’s another one from the Facebook page.

, she said, I have given cuttings of a plant as a gift. I attach a QR code that links to a blog post I wrote telling the story of the plant. I found nice spaces from the Dollar Tree and put it in a gift bag that matches the occasion. I’ve done this for birthdays and housewarmings, or in one case a Starbucks employee, who admired a plant I had in my front seat. That is really original. I love that. . Another Facebook page member who is a published author said this, she said, one of my friends Mamie a Necklace.

Each time a book of mine came out and inscribed the back of the pendant, which was related to the book with the name of the book and the date. She’s a metalsmith and they’re quite be. I mean, that is thoughtful. Wow. And then we got another voicemail from a listener also about jewelry.

[00:09:50] dawn: I brought two of my closest friends, a charm bracelet, and on their birthdays I add a charm to the bracelet. , and I just love picking out a charm that, , kinda identifies with them what’s going on in their life. and I just added to their bracelet, , we going on our sixth year doing this and it’s so enjoyable.

[00:10:10] nina: , that’s a really clever idea to have a gift that you can just keep adding to every year. So maybe you come up with that original idea the one time, and then you can keep adding to it. . So bottom line, it seems like people really love giving and receiving very personal gifts. And even the product one, like the pricier dry shampoo, that’s a splurge, but a product you know, your friend really loves.

That’s so thoughtful too. Not everything has to be, you know, custom created or monogrammed for it to be thoughtful. Whatever holiday you’re celebrating for me, it’s Hanukkah coming up. I wish you a happy and a merry one filled with light and good friends, good family time, and great thoughtful gifts to give.

Ann receive. Thank you for listening. When I do a mini episode. The next full episode just comes one week later. You don’t have to wait two weeks. When our friendships are going well, as I always say, we are happier all around and I really think that is true. The more I do this podcast, the more certain I am.

Have a great week. Bye.