Good at Gifts
finding the joy in small luxuries
A few years ago, for an anniversary, my husband Tucker and I were at a loss for just what to get each other for the holiday. For me, Tucker is my most intimate confidant; he knows me better than almost anyone. I love him dearly and each anniversary, or birthday, or holiday, or any day, is an opportunity to show him that. I want to shower him with gifts, but at the same time, I don’t want to overwhelm him with the clutter of stuff seldom used. And since we are both adults, generally, if we want something and it’s feasible, we manage to acquire it eventually.
Also, to be totally honest, we’ve been together for almost 15 years. There’s no easy way to say this, but I don’t want any more jewelry. I do love flowers, but they die. Stuffed bears aren’t my forte either.
When it comes to gifts for him, I generally come up short as well.
So we decided on a rule, which has become the guiding principle for many holidays since, and has led to so much joy around gifting for us. If you don’t know what to get someone, get them small luxuries.
Small luxuries don’t have to be expensive or expansive, they only need to improve some aspect of daily life. Because of this guideline, so many of the gifts we’ve exchanged over the past few years have been memorable.
The first small luxuries gift from Tucker was a small french butter dish and a wooden butter spreading knife. Toast is one of my favorite foods. The butter dish keeps the butter airtight on the counter, and the oils from the butter condition the wooden knife and keep it from drying out.
There was an incense burner with incense from a place we visited together.
This past Valentine’s day, we’d been watching Ken Burns’ Jazz, and I purchased a few rare jazz records to kick off that part of his collection.
For Christmas last year, I decided that if I could give him anything in the world, it would be a Grateful Dead concert ticket. After a quick search on Etsy, I found a ticket stub from a concert and a deadstock sticker from the same show. I bought the stub and found the performance of the concert online.
Outside of gifts exchanged, the idea of small luxuries has also permeated how I care for myself and how I take note. There’s a certain feeling that I correlate with receiving a small luxury. The gifter can be a person or the universe, but I try to take a moment and breathe it in all the same. It feels like abundance. It feels like sunshine.
Last week I said out loud, “I want to get some Le Labo.” If you’re not familiar, Le Labo is a really bougie perfumerie, and the bottles are expensive. I wanted some samples to try them out again because a few years ago when I was in London I bought some samples, and when my camera was stolen, the perfume samples went along with it. A few days after declaring my intention, a PR package from a movie company showed up at my house with a Postmates gift card in it. I don’t love using those to get food from small businesses because they take a large percentage from the restaurants, but after browsing the app, I found out you can order products for delivery. Who was on that list? Le Labo. Within two hours, the best smelling bag I’ve ever received showed up on my doorstep. Micro grandeur.
This morning, as I drank my coffee and ate a small piece of lemon pound cake that Tucker brought home from work, I felt it. I took a deep breath and knew what I wanted to write about for the newsletter today. Another small luxury in and of itself, after three different newsletter drafts that didn’t feel right this week.
I was nervous last week about an opportunity that came my way. I had to negotiate something pretty big, and I felt out of my depth. I looked down at my phone, and my mother-in-law had texted me. She ended up giving me the most helpful and targeted advice. A tiny magnificence.
It can be a moment, a physical item, or a feeling. It can be anything that gives you pause and makes you take stock of the good in your life. It’s a tangible reminder that there is a doorway from wherever we spend most of our time to gratefulness for existence. Anything that reminds us to walk through that door and brings us into that gratitude is something to be honored because it’s hard to remind ourselves of the splendor of just being here.
I hope today you find a small luxury of your own, and if you do, I hope you find a way to gift a small luxury to someone else.
A note before we get started with recs: In light of the horrific act of racially motivated domestic terrorism in Atlanta that directly targeted the Asian community, please check out this non-definitive list of ways you can financially support the AAPI community across the US.
Reading: Two newsletters this week! Fran’s Joy Digest + Greenish!
Watching: The last season of Search Party and this performance by Yo-Yo Ma after receiving his first dose of the vaccine, which he performed during the 15 minute observation period.
Buying: I’ll write about it more officially soon, but I got a job at a design agency, and I am thrilled about it. So I’m ordering a few things to wear to in-person training like this Market Dress from Wray I’ve had my eye on for over a year.
I also pre-ordered Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib to celebrate.
Writing: About how the pandemic was one big near-death experience, about being fat in high school, and about spring and flowers.
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