How to ease the headache of Christmas gift giving

Grab a ribbon and regift, then offer a glass of shiraz. You’ve tried your best but it’s been a trying year.

After a year like that, it seems a stretch to get our minds around Christmas presents. Do we still do this, is it affordable, is it even allowed? It’s probably wise to do something about it, if only to avoid a Dickensian reputation. But we can make it easier to figure out what to get for which relatives. We just have to match demography with ingenuity.

The Prepper family. You can’t make fun of them this year because it’s getting close to midnight for a lot of us. So tickets to New Zealand with a list of real estate agents in the Waikato wilderness (keep an eye out for Tom Phillips and his kids). An outdoor solar heated shower. A stash of antibiotics or bicycles with side cars for babies, firewood and garden produce (not all together), The Original Road Kill Cookbook or Hillbilly Elegy by our new VP of USA.

The Green relatives. Once you might have given a goat in their name to an African village but there’s too much carbon in that. Ditto a village well because you wouldn’t want to deplete the water tables of poor countries so concentrate on the Middle East problem. It’s been a thing for 70 years but I’m sure it can be solved with a few demonstrations in Melbourne. A copy of Das Kapital might well be in their library already but tuck in an Adam Smith tome now that they’re entertaining economic solutions to housing problems.

Conservative friends. They’re confused. They thought of themselves as descendants of Menzies, who know the moderating influence of home ownership and the benefit of working hard for your community. Now they’re getting mixed up with gun-toting, immigrant-hating, self-serving revolutionaries. How about a copy of Peter Pan? I don’t know why I thought of that but J.M. Barrie was a baronet and a cricketer and a jolly fellow. Better would be a copy of Judith Brett’s Relaxed and Comfortable: The Liberal Party’s Australia accompanied by a few bottles of Australian shiraz. An old silver coin with a storied history might take their fancy.

Dog owners. There are so many of them. Indeed, there are 3.6 million households with canine companions with a total of 6.4 million dogs and that doesn’t include the ones that eat lambs (live ones, not gourmet treats). I could suggest giving them a voucher for a kennel over Christmas or an anti-anxiety dog bed but that might not be in the spirit. How about a Furbo dog camera because we can’t miss a moment of their cuteness.

Grandchildren. While we’re on the subject of fur babies, let’s not forget the two-legged babies. There aren’t many of them around, especially if you live in a capital city so why not splash out. Get them toys but nothing plastic, get them whirring things but no button batteries thanks, get them furniture bumpers, no, not for their house, for yours. Or take a leaf from the Chinese playbook and buy enhancement toys, a school scholarship and reading glasses.

Gen Y, Z and the latest one. There’s nothing they need that costs less than $1m. And even that might not buy a two-bedder. Show them your signed will and say it won’t take long? No, why not let them live in your holiday house for a while? I’m using question marks because I know this is going to hurt. Offer to babysit for the first two years.

Unexpected guests. You have a regifting cupboard, don’t you? I’m sure some of the above suggestions have ended up in that cupboard, so grab a ribbon and offer a glass of shiraz. I’ve tried my best but it’s been a trying year.

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