- So you want to be a better gift giver.
I've made a mistake.
- [Taha] Okay, now open it.
- [Sabrina] Ohhh!
- You should watch this video.
Thank you to Shopify for sponsoring a portion of this video.
- So, you know it's that time of year
when gift giving is probably on your mind right now.
This videos coming out a week away from Christmas.
And if you haven't already started your Christmas shopping,
You should get on that because Christmas is a week away
and I'm a little stressed for you.
And hopefully if you haven't already,
this video will help you out.
I actually like giving gifts to people and surprising them
and seeing their faces light up, and give them something
that they really like.
But sometimes it's hard to figure out what do you get them?
That's the big question.
Cause I for one, do not want to give something to someone
that they don't like, I don't want to do that to somebody,
I don't want to just give them something that's useless,
'cause then you get it and then they're like,
"Well, what do I do with this?"
What do you get them?
That is the question.
In this video let's figure out how to be a better gift giver
and maybe also come up with a gift guide along the way to
help you find the perfect gift for anyone in your life.
Research montage time.
So to figure out how to give good gifts,
I started to look into why we give gifts in the first place.
And to my surprise,
I learned that there's an entire body of research
dedicated to gift giving.
So while I was reading through all of these articles,
this one work in particular kept coming up
and it's called 'The Gift' by Marcel Mauss.
Who's a sociologist and anthropologist
whose research was concerned with the function
of gift exchange and society and specifically
the relationship between the giver and the receiver.
(Door knocking)
Hello. So I'm back and I've done a little digging.
If we want to learn how to be better gift givers,
we should first understand our motivations
behind gift giving, because that ultimately decides
what we give.
So here's why we give gifts.
A gift is a message.
And it can take the form of anything that requires an
investment of time or money, and sometimes both.
Those messages can be something specific,
full of in-jokes commemorating an anniversary,
relatively vague, like a secret Santa exchange.
So Western research suggests that all the messages
we can convey through gifts serve four purposes.
One to mark important life events,
like birthdays or weddings.
Two, to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships.
Three, to invite someone to be part of a culture,
like giving a toy to a child.
And four, to get something in return.
Okay. So we know why we give gifts.
Gifts are a form of communication in a way that we can
strengthen and build relationships with other people.
And alongside researching why we give gifts,
I was also trying to put together a framework for how to
you know, logically think about
the steps involved in getting someone a gift.
So to put it to the test, let's try to give these nerds.
Hopefully can put their heads here, or I'm just doing this.
Let's try to get a gift for Sabrina and Taha.
I'm going to put together a guide
on steps to figure out how to get the perfect gift
for anyone regardless of who they are in your life.
So we're going to follow these steps
specifically for them too.
All right, let's get gift-giving, shall we?
So step one, who are you giving a gift to?
Are you close friends?, coworkers?, family?
This is completely normal. This step seems a little obvious,
but it is important because one,
you don't want to forget people.
And two, some people don't need gifts.
Examine your relationships and
see if they really need a gift.
But anyways, I'm getting these two nerds gifts.
Honestly, I don't really know what our relationship is.
Mentor, friend, nerds, blood oath?
Step two. Why are you giving them a gift?
What message are you trying to send?
Is it romantic, sentimental, obligatory or something else?
Why am I getting these to a gift?
Well, we've been working together for
a little over two years now and I want to get them something
just to show how much I appreciate them.
They don't know that I'm getting them gifts.
They think that I'm getting gifts for other people.
So I want to get them something that highlights a
unique moment of us working together
or just things that I'm grateful for
for them being in my life.
I did not expect to get so sentimental
in this part of the video,
you know, sometimes you just have to be
a little sentimental with your friends. Okay?
Even though sometimes that's gross, feelings,
(Puking sounds) (Laughs)
this is a fake plant. Okay.
So from Sabrina, we've got her getting me into plants,
bigger than plants.
She kinda got me into this whole YouTube thing,
and I honestly did not imagine my life
to be what it is right now.
I'll tell you that for sure when I graduated university,
but I have Sabrina to thank for that.
Nice.
And for Taha, I only met this man once,
but I appreciate him, for one impeccable music taste.
So we got a little earbud situation here for him.
Answer in progress would not be what it is
without all three of us,
but the organization that this man has brought
to answer in progress, you know,
I'm still new to this whole thing, and Sabrina is um
well chaotic, love you, but a little chaotic.
That's enough, just wanna say.
I just want to tell them how much I appreciate them
for being great humans to work with.
Step three.
What can you afford to give them?
Now it's not just money, but also time, or time and money.
Okay. So let's look at my resources.
I have 48 hours to do this,
because I procrastinated. Whoops!
And I have $200 to spend.
Taha lives in the UK.
I live in Canada.
To make the most of my time,
I'm going to get him something digital.
But I just don't just want to get him a gift card
because that doesn't seem very thoughtful or sentimental.
So, I'm going to spend a little bit more time.
(Marker on paper sound)
spend a little bit more time on him.
I've realized I've messed up where these bars go.
But that's fine.
Now for Sabrina, also spend some time and, you know,
maybe write a mushy card, gross feelings
(Puking sound)
gross!
So we know I have limited time
and speaking of procrastinating,
I still need to wrap a birthday present for somebody.
So let's do that while thanking Shopify for sponsoring
this portion of today's video.
So Shopify is really easy to use
all one commerce platform for anyone looking to start,
grow, or manage a business.
They let you sell online, in person
and on all major social platforms,
whether you're a small fledgling business
or looking to go global or really large scale.
(Paper wrapping sounds)
You know, this whole video is about gift giving.
And sometimes I find the best gifts are
the really thoughtful personal ones.
Boom!
So you know, maybe you were thinking about
opening up an online shop to sell some custom prints
or something that would make a really great
personalized gift for somebody.
Shopify will help you do that.
There you go.
Or if you just get tired, Shopify will handle
all of the logistics and shipping so that you
couldn't focus on doing what matters to you.
And that's creating.
Almost there.
You know, helping people make their entrepreneurial
dreams and freedoms come true.
I'm really lucky to be able to work full time on
answer in progress.
And we're always looking for new ways to grow
and serve y'all more fun stuff.
Nice.
And you know, if we were to say,
think about releasing a limited (censoring) or something,
we'll do it with Shopify, but anyways,
you can find out more by going to
shopify.com/answerinprogress2
All right. Now, back to the video.
Step four,
What do they actually want?
What things would they appreciate
that line up with your goal and the budget?
Now, it can sound a little bit of creeping,
otherwise known as listening to and
knowing the people in your life
Taha is a minimalist.
So I'm going to get him something that's
more of an experience, but I don't wanna intrude
on his personal life.
On the other hand, Sabrina likes things.
The problem is if she needs something,
she will buy it almost immediately. Like no sale,
no coupons, nothing. She'll just buy it.
Sabrina, you are a wild one.
Okay? And I don't condone this purchase behavior.
So you think of something that she needs or wants,
but won't actually buy herself.
Sleuthing time.
(Soft music)
I thought this was going to be easier.
There's a whole guide to do this,
but the thing is how in the world
do you get a minimalist, a present? They don't like things
and I don't want to give them clutter.
So what things do I get them?
This is what I got so far.
Nothing. It's not like it's a birthday or anything.
It's just kind of like a little surprise,
a little token of like, thank you.
Thank you for being awesome humans in my life.
How do I say that in a gift?
This is proven to be more difficult than I thought.
Okay. I figured it out.
And now we're gonna go deliver the presents.
(Punching noises)
Step five, buying and delivering.
Now this step seems pretty simple.
You just get the thing and then you give the thing.
However, it can sometimes require a little more thought
and planning than that. For example,
I tried to deliver Sabrina's gift by hand
and that didn't work.
She's not home!
I think I've made a mistake.
(Melissa laughs)
Okay. I'm just going to leave a note.
I have been magically led into the building.
There's no one around some take my mask down,
but the package has been dropped off.
And then sometimes you send an email containing your gift at
a perfectly reasonable local time.
And then it's actually 3:00 AM in the UK.
Nailed it. Now they just need to open it.
- [Sabrina] All right. So Melissa has given me
a little gift bag.
- [Taha] Hello, so Melissa has asked me to open
this email on camera, so we're gonna do a live reaction.
She told me to open it
at a specific time, because I think she's sending Taha
an email, which doesn't bode well for what is a good gift
- [Taha] Hello Taha, a mysterious email at 2:00 AM
with a surprise for you.
Hmmm, instructions: please follow this link.
- [Sabrina] There's a letter in here.
It says sup nerd on it. A bit violent
- [Sabrina] (laughing) She says, hi, please
don't read this card out loud to the camera,
'cause it's too mushy and gross.
- [Taha] Okay, enough of the sappy stuff, right?
Let's get into it. What's my gift?
- [Sabrina] That's really sweet.
Okay. Gonna open this.
- [Taha] It's a Tik Tok.
This is going to be a bad video if I don't like the gift.
- [Taha] Um. Oh, it's a troll. Okay, good.
Because that was the wackest gift ever.
I was about to roast you. Now open it, okay.
(Package opening)
- [Sabrina] Oh!
- [Taha] Okay. Now open me. There's more.
(Taha laughs)
- [Sabrina] Ohhh! How did she remember?
- [Taha] Um, that's a good gift, that's a good gift!
- [Melissa] Hello friends.
- [Taha] Hello.
- [Sabrina] Hello.
- [Melissa] Okay.
You already know why you're here. I think.
- [Taha] Yeah.
- [Melissa] So that means you got it?
That means I sent it? You, you got it?.
- [Taha] I got the gift.
- [Sabrina] I got the gift too.
- [Taha] Did we get different gifts?
- [Sabrina] I have to assume we got different gifts,
or else she was able to ship things quickly!
(Sabrina laughs)
- [Sabrina] I'll start. I got, I got a little gift bag
and it's for a specific smell that I have been obsessed
and rationing in the form of this little
hotel lotion bottle that I got years ago.
So she got me the full sized Eau de Toilette!
- [Taha] This is a smell?
- [Sabrina] Yes.
- [Taha] That you rationed?
- [Sabrina] It's a lotion, but it has a very specific smell
that I've always liked,
but I thought I would only have this one tiny bottle,
but now I have this bigger bottle.
- [Taha] And is that a lotion as well?
- [Sabrina] No, this is just liquid smell.
What did you get?
- [Taha] I got a lovely little note.
And then I got a Doja Cat Tik Tok I've already seen,
(Melissa laughs)
- [Taha] And I was like "Yeah!",
Yeah. I got a Valorant gift card.
A couple of things, when I saw it firstly,
you could see it in the footage.
I like stopped talking for like a minute.
I'm like, what's, this is a good gift. This is sick.
What do you think makes a good gift?
- [Sabrina] Kind of exactly what you got me,
which is something that somebody really, really wants,
but for whatever reason, will not actually buy.
And for me, that was smell and you got me smell.
- [Taha] Yeah. I, I'm the same.
Like I would never, ever in my life
spend money on a video game,
but now I have the money, I'm definitely gonna spend it.
- [Taha] Yeah I think that's the perfect gift is like
buying things for people who should probably
just do it themselves, but won't for whatever reason.
- [Melissa] So I started this video because
I wanted to be a better gift giver.
And as I started making this video and
putting together the gift guide,
I realized that I don't really care about that anymore.
Cause you know, all gifts are fun.
A gift is just one way to communicate with people,
to show them that you care about them.
It doesn't need to be expensive and it doesn't need
to take an entire year to put together.
It just needs a little bit of thought.
You know, that's why the gift guide,
isn't a list of products with affiliate links.
The gift guide is a way to prompt your thoughts,
a little bit more structure.
So I guess what I'm trying to say here is
don't put all this pressure on yourself
to try to find someone the perfect gift.
Give what you can and be as generous as you can,
but know that your worth and your relationship with someone
shouldn't depend on whether or not
you can give them presents.
There's so many other ways that we can show people
that we love and appreciate them.
Guess that's a good place to end this video.
Thank you for watching. And bye.