These days, it seems that every magazine, newspaper, and online publication is in some kind of "CHEAP! HOLIDAY! GIFTS!" pissing contest. And, in my opinion, none of them are winning. Every venue, no matter the prestige or genre, continues to proceed as if all we need for a merry Christmas is some slightly duller version of the shiny bauble we desired in years' past. None is hitting on the things we all require right now.
I just had a great, quintessentially New York dinner with one of my favorite friends. We went to a pizza stand, picked up some slices, brought them back to his apartment and proceeded to talk about life over the cheesy goodness we'd just procured and a bottle of two-buck chuck he'd purchased from Trader Joe's. Our consensus? We don't want what we wanted before, we just want the small things we used to have.
For example: we used to be able to leave work for a much-needed break and, requiring a tangible reason for our absence, we would journey to Starbucks for coffee. But now that the economy is in the toilet, it doesn't seem sensible to spend money on outside caffeine when gratis coffee is as close as the office pantry. The fact that we lose that once-indispensable gulp of freedom during the workday becomes secondary to financial prudence.
Another example: we used to hear a song that made us tap our feet (or, really, shake our butts), and then head straight to i-Tunes to download it. Now, we are slow to click the purchase button. "I might not like it next year," we reason, as though buying a 99-cent song was the same thing as signing a deed on a condo. "Who is this Rihanna person, anyway?" we say, feigning ignorance and old-age.
One more: We used to relish going to liquor stores every now and then to pick up a few low-priced wines. Now, with money in short supply, we're slowly turning into teetotalers. The ritual of opening a bottle with a weeknight dinner seems extravagant and arcane. Drinking hasn't yet become something that's done on a Saturday to forget the misery of the week, but recent nights out indicate that it could come to that.
So here's my suggestion for cheap gifts: give your loved ones the small luxuries they didn't even know they had a year or two ago. Give them the gift of not worrying over spilled coffee, Rihanna, or two-buck chuck. Give them the things they wouldn't buy for themselves now, but would have purchased without hesitation in the not-so-distant past. In short: Give them the gift of sanity. In most cases, it can cost as little as $4.
