How to Reciprocate a Gift With a Gift?

Gift reciprocation or giving return gifts is a common custom followed by many. Whether it’s a festival, or a special occasion, you can reciprocate a gift received with another gift that you have planned in advance. People often ask what they should do when they get a gift from someone but haven’t got anything for that person, and if they should run out to buy a present. The answer is that if you haven’t got a return gift, it’s ok just to offer the gift giver your sincere thanks, and leave it at that. But it’s best if you plan to handle such emergencies by ordering some gifts in advance from a gift shop. 

If you want to establish a gift-giving tradition with your loved ones where you reciprocate their gifts with a gift of your own, here are some ideas that can help:

• Get gourmet delights packed in unique gift baskets: Many online gift shops offer a bouquet of delectable items – starting from munchies and nuts to chocolates, chips and much more. Depending on what appeals to your recipients’ taste buds, you can get such gifts pre-ordered and delivered at your doorsteps, which you can keep ready to use for gift reciprocation.
• Go for healthy options: Just like most people these days, if your intended recipient is health conscious and raves about his/her diet, gym routine etc, it’s best to order some health gift baskets packed with fresh fruits that would go on to show how you care for their good health.
• Wine and beer baskets: The liveliness of any occasion can be taken a few notches above with the right choice of wine and beer baskets. You too can opt for the same to spread the cheer with your return gifts.
• For coffee connoisseurs: If your intended recipients can’t do without their cup of coffee, selecting some coffee baskets that pack a punch with a rich variety of cocoa and coffee, along with some popcorn or delicious cookies would be the ideal gift to pick. You may even go a step further with your gift reciprocation by choosing customized gift baskets that come with additional items like a coffee cup, or a rustic container embossed with a metal scroll to hold all the items to make it more special, albeit with a personal touch.
• Sports goods gift baskets: For all those sports enthusiasts, sports goods gift baskets make the ideal choice. So, if your recipients include a golf lover, a rugby or football enthusiast, you can pick sports-themed gift baskets that pack delicious munchies cheese, crackers, cheese sticks, pretzels, nuts, chocolate truffle cookies, smoked almonds etc to replenish the energy levels, irrespective of whether your gift receiver plays the game or just cheers from the sidelines.
• Flowers: They are great for gift reciprocation though you can’t order them too much in advance as you need them to be fresh and smell great when you hand them over to your recipients. Still, flowers can suit almost any occasion, and you can take your pick from the classic rose and lilies, to the colorful bouquets of purple and pink campanula, tree fern, blue limonium, and leather leaf; cushion pompoms and yellow alstromeria, accented with bear grass, eucalyptus, and assorted greens; lilies, gerbera daisies, pompons, assorted asters, bupleurum, and ruscus; and much more.
• Gift note jars: If you want your return gifts to bring back the sentiment of an old-fashioned letter, you can opt for gift note jars, which stock personalized notes to showcase the thoughtfulness and effort that you have invested in the gift.

So, there’s no need to panic when you have to select return gifts. Just use the ideas mentioned above and tweak them to suit the tastes and preferences of your recipients.

5 Common Mistakes People Make in Gift Giving

Many of us dread the moment we get an invite to a party or event because the entire gift giving process gives us nightmares. If you too have some occasion or an event to attend, and are a loss about what gifts would be ideal for your recipients, don’t worry because you are not alone in such a situation. Most of us go through this phase and need help to buy the ideal gifts for our recipients. It should be remembered that whatever you finalize to buy, at the end of the day, you would love to see your gift being appreciated and used, rather than being the center of whispers across the hall for its wackiness or non-relevance. What is even worse, it might be gifted back to you in a wrapper the next year! So, before going to the market or browsing an online gift shop, check out the most common mistakes people tend to make while purchasing a gift –

• The 'self-improvement' gifts: Your friend has certain areas to improve on and you think you need to help her out. So, you decide to buy something that will help her improve that particular limitation! Well, bury the idea right away as gifts targeted to a specific shortcoming are generally not accepted well. Gifting a ‘relationship rescue’ book to someone who just had a break up can’t be appreciated. The first improvement your recipient is likely to show might be dumping you as a friend!
• The thoughtless gifts: You may spend a whole lot of dollars to buy an awesome perfume but gifting it to someone allergic to perfume doesn’t quite make sense. All the recipients can do in such cases is to keep it at the bottom of their dresser and wait to pass it on to someone else. Thoughts that you put in to decide a gift are what matter the most. Therefore, buying such useless or thoughtless gifts only go on to show that you hardly had any time or energy to think of what you recipient might have really liked or needed.
• The politically incorrect gifts: While the thoughtless gifts may showcase a careless image of you, choosing politically incorrect gifts will definitely make them angry. It may seem mere fun for you, but giving a CD to a child with explicit languages or scenes may not go well with his/her parents. Again, if you give a die-heart Real Madrid fan a collection of Barcelona wins; be prepared to bear harsh and mocking words in return.
• Gifts with a message: If the impulse gets to you and you want to buy your studious school topper friend a t-shirt with a huge spectacle painted on it and with a message saying, "talk nerdy to me", think twice. Unless the guy, for whom you are buying, is under 16, the probability of your wordy gift to end up in a dust rug is huge. Though gifts with customized messages do well, as they give a personal touch to your gifts, make sure that your message is relevant to the occasion and your recipient’s preference, failing which your gift might be dumped in the darkest corner of the cupboard or closet.
• Re-gifts: Your aunt has given you a hideous sweater that’s of no worth to you and you have kept it carefully so that you can gift it back to someone else. Sounds familiar? If yes, don’t think of just passing it on to your cousin or a friend when you know that s/he won’t like it either. The most common complain about gift giving is when you find that it has been re-gifted. Even worse is when you forget to remove the original to-and-from cards from it!

So, steer clear of these tell-tale common mistakes while choosing your gifts, and experience how your recipients cherish your gifts for a long time to come.