More on Gift Giving--Some Suggestions

Tis the season and the wedding invitations are pouring in. With those invitations comes the decision of what to give as a gift.

As I have mentioned in another post, gift giving to a choson and kallah has gotten out of hand. The sheer number of "must give" presents is a serious budget breaker for many parents. Now I believe I am human, and yes, I wanted the engagement ring I got when I became a kallah. I don't think that ring has been off my finger more than a half dozen times since I have been married. And I certainly wanted a wedding band. But I have been giving some thought to the other gifts that are de rigeur today, and believe we can do better.

If you must give jewelry...

First this. It is sometimes so nice to be surprised with a gift of jewelry--and sometimes, despite what you may say to the giver, the piece is not what you would have chosen for yourself. It's too big, too small, too long,too short to look right on you. The stones are not a color you wear or like. The shape of the piece does not appeal to you. You don't wear the kinds of clothes the piece would go with etc. (Buying cuff links for a man who doesn't wear french cuff shirts is a waste.) The piece is too "formal" or too specialized for the life you lead. In short, you don't like it. Yet there it sits. If we can't get Klal to cut down the gift giving, we can at least change the methodology.

If the gift to be given is a piece of jewelry, take the recipient with you to pick out the piece. Tell the jeweler beforehand the price you want to pay and have him/her have a selection available in that price range. The recipient is the one that is going to have to wear the piece--they should at least like it. In this way both giver and receiver can be sure that the gift will be appreciated and will be appropriate for the recipient.

Ask the recipient if there is a piece of jewelry that they "need" or want, and then get them what they want, which may not necessarily be what you want. Don't get stuck in the "they have to get this type of jewelry" rut. And see the advice about taking the recipient with you.

When jewelry is not someone's "thing"...

But what if the person to receive the gift is not "into" jewelry? Or "into" the particular type of jewelry you want to give? Why force them to smile about a gift that is not pleasing to them? Again, asking first can avoid this situation. There are certainly other gifts that can be purchased. Figure out what the recipient would value and then buy that. It may not be your idea of an "appropriate, required" gift for a choson or kallah, but it is what the receiver thinks that should be important. If the choson or kallah wants/needs a computer, a desk, or whathaveyou why is that less appropriate than another piece of jewelry that will live in the bank vault?

And why not think about other items besides jewelry, even if the couple can't think of anything specific they want? Why not think of something that can become a family "heirloom"? For example, the "kos" that was used under my chupah was purchased by a beloved aunt and uncle and has for years served as the "Kos she Eliyahu" at our sedorim. There is no reason why parents cannot do the same. And then there is the practical. One young couple was going to be living in upstate New York after the wedding, real snow country. Their parents skipped the "traditional" gifts and bought them a heavy duty snow blower.

Making showers count...

Years back we gave a shower for a kallah that we called a "calendar" shower. Since we were all young marrieds we would be "achiv" for a shower gift and a wedding present. We combined the two "required" gifts into one. We looked at the Jewish calendar and made sure that choson and kallah would have something beautiful and useful for each and every yom tov and for Shabbos as well. There were over 20 of us involved, about average for today's showers. We weren't "made out of money" but we were creative. A silver and crystal honey dish. A tablecloth embroidered with "l'kovod Shabbos v'yomtov" on it. Crystal and silver salt shakers. A rosewood and silver tzedaka box to put by a lachter. A beautifully embroidered challah cover. An interesting besomim holder. A crystal box to hold the matches for using in bentching lecht. A crystal covered dish for putting "chrain" in. A china platter that said Shabbos Kodesh on it. An embroidered Matza cover for when they would be making Pesach in their own home. And a beautiful vase to hold the flowers the young husband would be bringing home for Shabbos. And yes, we were also practical. We bought a "blech," and a Shabbos urn and a bunch of those labels that are marked "meat," "dairy" and "parve." We bought a pretty container for the bathroom to hold tissue used on Shabbos and Yom Tov. In short, we bought gifts that would "keep on giving," that would be enjoyed by both members of the couple and that didn't require an insurance rider for peace of mind. And yes, both mothers were asked to be "partners" with the rest of us--the mothers were not required to kick in an outrageously priced "extra" gift.

I am the "practical" aunt in the family, but I can tell you in all truth that my nieces and the kallahs of my nephews cannot wait for my shower gift to them--I buy the "junk" drawer. I buy a small, three -drawer rolling cart they can put anywhere they find room in their new apartment. In it are the "gifts" we all need and which no one seems to have remembered to buy us, ourselves included, because they don't qualify for "gifts." A couple of shabbos clocks for lamps. A surge protector for a computer. A hammer, screwdriver, assorted nails and screws, thumbtacks, various tapes, strings, twine and twist ties. Extention cords, regular and heavy duty. A calendar with the times of lecht bentching included on it. A stapler, staples, paper clips, a steel contractor's measuring tape. Envelopes and stamps. Scissors. A night light. A couple of small flashlights and assorted batteries to fit all the "doodads" we now own. Labels that say "meat, dairy, parve." Adhesive hooks and clips to hold all the things that you suddenly need holders for in a new apartment. A rubberized "jar top remover." A wine cork remover. Small wooden matches to use by a lachter. WD 40. I wander the aisles of a hardware store and housewares store rather than a jewelry store or silver store. And yes, I have heard other young wives at the shower say "Why didn't anyone get me that instead of yet another_______?"

I also know of a set of parents who simply did not have the funds to gift the kallah with all the requirements. They managed to pay for a small engagement ring and that was the end of the money. The girl's friends, some thirty odd of them, pooled all the shower and wedding gift money and bought the new kallah her lachter. Why not?


It is not just shower holders who need to learn to think "out of the box." Parents should as well. Another "tchotchke" for the kallah to wear or something she will use for the rest of her life? The choice shouldn't be hard to make.

Sentimentality is not a dirty word...

Strangely enough I remember everyone who was at my wedding, everyone who gave a gift instead of money that is. I polish and clean those gifts regularly, I use them regularly as well. And every time I do, I remember the giver with pleasure. My uncle is no longer living, but the menorah he and my aunt gave us is used every Chanukah, and I stop to remember this much beloved uncle. And I mention to my kids some stories about my uncle. The honey dish I use for yom tov? From long ago friends in Seattle who are not forgotten and who live on in the gift they gave us. [In the "truth is stranger than fiction" department, one of my children was recently in Seattle and in a kosher restaurant bumped into these people, and knew who they were because she had heard the story of who gave the honey dish many times.] Even the "lowliest" little bowl has its story to tell. I admit freely that I am a sentimentalist and that I prefer gifts to money. They are memory makers.


Yes, there are some pieces of jewelry that I also feel sentimental about. Years ago my mother gifted me with her mother's engagement ring. I wear it every day and it has nothing to do with its being a piece of jewelry; it has to do with the ring's being a connection to a grandmother who I never was privileged to meet. For the past few years my mother has been giving my sister and me pieces of jewelry in her possession, and always for an occasion in our lives that we are celebrating. Every single piece has a story behind it, and we receive the pieces with a great deal of joy because of what stories they represent. There is the necklace and medallion that my zaide gave to my babi and that she wore every Shabbos while she was alive. And that arrived with stories about this babi and zaide to put into our memories. And yes, I am sentimental about my engagement ring.

Parents might want to think about sharing some of the "family treasures" in their possession as a way of connecting their "old" family with the "new" family being formed. For their twenty-fifth anniversary my father bought my mother a beautiful new lachter. And as the oldest daughter and first to get married I got my mother's first lachter. I loved the continuity, the idea that women in my family had been bentching lecht in the same lachter for decades. And when I received a beautiful new lachter for my twenty-fifth anniversary I repeated the pattern set by my mother--my mother's first lachter now "belongs" to my oldest daughter. And wouldn't it be nice if decades from now, some not yet born great great grand daughter will bentch lecht in my mother's lachter and think back on where she came from.

Spread the giving out...

For newly engaged couples and newly married couples the time period can be overwhelming and deciding on a gift can be just one decision too many. Once a couple has settled into their new marriage and has seen what they got from strangers as gifts they may be in a better position to know what they would like as a gift from their parents or close family. Give them an IOU to be fulfilled after the wedding chaos is over. Or wait until a yom tov rolls around, or a birthday or anniversary.

Some final words...

Perhaps the first step towards cutting down the choson/kallah gift madness is to stop thinking that jewelry is the only appropriate gift. If you can't think of anything else, you're not thinking hard enough. The next step is to stop thinking in "dollar and cents" amounts and starting thinking with "sense" or "sentimentality." And the last step is to finally recognize the truth that "less is more." There will hopefully be a lifetime to spread the gift giving over--why deluge a choson and kallah in one fell swoop? "Keeping up with the Schwartz's" is a poor reason for giving lots of expensive gifts of jewelry. "Everyone does it" is also a poor reason for breaking the bank.

Just a note: I mentioned these thoughts to a cousin. She ventured a guess that the gifts of jewelry, which began in Europe, may well have been because jewelry was portable, and if Jews had to leave town suddenly jewelry was small, could be packed and "hidden" quickly, and could be exchanged wherever the Jews found themselves for the local money. Gold retained its monetary value better then the highly fluctuating local currencies. This surely is not the case in the US today. Much of the jewelry that my mother has from her mother and grandmothers was hidden before they were deported, was found after the war and some funded the migration to the US.