Tonight I am attending a family gathering for my grandmother’s birthday party. As usually when it comes to birthdays everyone tries to find the person something that they would like. My mom decided to give her $100 from that climate action dividend cheque that people here in BC received not too long ago.

The funny thing is some people thought that is kind of weird as they believed that it almost fell along the lines of giving someone a present that you received from someone else which you have no use or interest in. I was thinking to myself how it’s just money and so it doesn’t really matter too much.

I often see people give away things that they have no use for as a way to not only save money but at the same time hoping that the new owner will find better use of it. While I have never been the recipient or provider using this method, I can’t see how people can be labeled as being say “cheap” for doing it if they genuinely thought you would like it.

Speaking for myself, in some strange ways too knowing that they didn’t have to spend much money on gifts for you is kind of a relief as I personally don’t like it when people think things like gifts are some kind of financial obligation.

Yesterday I received a gift and was told that they wanted to give it to me as an early Christmas present because they thought that I would like it a lot. Indeed, I did and was thankful. It was kind of interesting I thought though to call it a Christmas present since we are still months away from that date.

When you think about it, I guess most people in general feel strange buying gifts for people without having some kind of special occasion to do so.