Why we can't get enough of gift guides

To buy is wasteful; to appreciate is human

Nov 25, 2024

When I was little my favorite thing to do at Christmas was page through catalogs and circle everything I wanted. Hearthsong catalog in particular. The company still exists, selling products made for kids of crunchy parents since the 1980s. They had forts you could set up inside the house. They had dollhouses made out of wood. Felted dolls. Shoes with springs built into them. I coveted a bouncing ball that looked like a ladybug years after I’d physically outgrown it.

There was something thrilling about the knowledge that all this stuff was just…out there. I loved seriously considering whether I wanted the fort that looked like a castle or the one that looked like a tree. When I got older, I did the same thing with catalogs from dELiA*s and J. Peterman and Sharper Image and Sky Mall, the latter of which I always paged through at the end of every flight.

Who were the $5,000 massage chairs made for? What kids had parents who actually bought them a fort shaped like a mermaid’s tail? Was that bouncing ladybug as amazing as it seemed? What would it take for me to get the Sky Mall necklace that looked like the one in Titanic?

I’ve been thinking a lot about stuff and gift guides because it’s the season when Americans are inundated with both of them. Spending (and consumer debt) is on the rise. The National Retail Federation predicts Americans will spend a record $902 per person this year on gifts and holiday items. Magazines and newsletters are full of gift guides because they’re popular and, in this day of affiliate links, it’s one place where publications can still make money. I’ve never in my life written a gift guide and yet every year my inbox fills up with emails from PR representatives pitching products for me to include.

Both of my jobs have variable incomes that make it impossible to budget. My spending plan for the last year has been “buy less” with a large helping of asking myself “do I really need this?” before every purchase. (I certainly don’t plan on spending anywhere close to $902 on gifts.) Somehow this has worked out. I’d rather write my friends a heartfelt card than get them a gift they don’t need so I’m not relying on gift guides to give me ideas for what to buy. But every time a gift guide comes across my feed, I click on it.

Some people undoubtedly make use of “gifts for mom” suggestions when doing their holiday shopping but I think a not insignificant percentage of us are reading for the joy of finding out what’s out there. There are so many things to buy on the internet that shopping feels overwhelming.

“Shopping and gambling have this in common: the house always wins.”

Even if I know I want a pair of gold hoop earrings, getting sucked into hours of research to figure out which pair is “the best” takes all the joy out of it. Either the stuff I buy is meaningless (fast fashion comes to mind here, as do the black shirts I wear as a server that will get covered in bleach stains) or expensive enough that I feel like I have to research and read reviews forever to be sure I’m getting the perfect one. No wonder so many of us buy too much. No wonder we feel bad about our spending after we’ve poured hours into a choice and found what we bought somehow defective.

As Amanda Mull wrote in a piece about the gift guide economy, “readers do seem to want people to sift through the internet’s endless pile of stuff on their behalf and pull out the things they might actually like.” The luxury paint company Farrow & Ball does make for beautifully colored walls but I think the smartest thing the company has done is limit its selection of paints to 132 colors. I simply cannot compare between 500 shades of white paint—but I can pick the best out of five. Luxury is choice made easy.

Black Friday and the too-numerous sale holidays once felt like a way for consumers to shop smart. Wait to buy appliances until a holiday weekend sale. Buy Christmas presents right after Thanksgiving. But they’re just another way to trick consumers into overspending. Amazon famously raises its prices just so it can “drop” them before Prime Day or Black Friday. Companies make cheaper models of the same televisions so they can offer them “on sale.” The deals are not deals. So many brands have sales every other week that buying anything at full price from a major retailer is a scam. (Rule #1: there’s always a coupon code.)

Buying things I actually need to buy increasingly reminds me of car shopping. I need to prep and research and know how people are going to try and scam me just to make it out unscathed. Want a sweater that will last forever? Too bad because they’re all poorly woven and made out of polyester now!

At least the fact that it’s unpleasant to shop makes it easier to save money. I’ve been trying to pick out a new dining table for two months. I’ve been on the lookout for a butter dish I love for two years. Shopping and gambling have this in common: the house always wins.

Sometimes I think companies are making gift guides just to let us blow off inequality steam before it leads to actual class warfare. I love to hate on the over-the-top items some stores actually offer for sale to real human beings who are apparently just like me. When I think about the excess of the 1%, I don’t think about yachts but remember the existence of the Dolce & Gabbana Smeg refrigerator. (It’s $5499.95—because $5500 would be too much—and cannot be returned.) It’s expensive, unnecessary, and ugly. A trifecta of sins for so much money.

Goop knows what it’s doing when it adds a $10,000 cold plunge pool to their “for him” gift guide. (DIY it at home for a few dollars with a few bags of ice and a bathtub!) Williams-Sonoma’s holiday catalog is so ridiculous that writer Drew Magary has turned roasting it into an annual tradition. In a Marketplace interview about the gift guide industrial complex, journalist Jessica Roy agreed there was an element of voyeurism to looking through gift guides. “It’s sort of like the e-commerce equivalent of watching a reality TV show. You feel like you have this healthy dose of, like, shock and horror at how the other half does the holidays.”

Perusing gift guides is the grown-up version of me wondering what kind of kids’ parents were buying them expensively designed forts instead of handing them a pile of sheets and calling it a day.

But how to square this with the fact that I actually love looking at small, well-crafted stuff made by artists or small companies. Sometimes I like looking at gift guides for the same reason I circled through all those catalogs: I just want to know what’s out there and think about whether I’m the kind of person who might want it in my home or not.

I’m delighted by beautiful things. I got excited yesterday when I saw that illustrator Julia Rothman was making prints of a “guest check” that she’d personalize by hand with whatever you wanted written onto it. Jewelry designer Tessa Metcalfe makes a gold ring that looks like a pigeon is sweetly yet terrifyingly grasping your finger. (If my novel sells, there will be signs.) My friend Rae Swon creates incredible needle-felted art you can hang or wear—a custom life/death mask, a headpiece straight out of The Boy and the Heron. And, by god, I don’t need it but how delightful is this hand-carved, wooden squirrel?

Window shopping in stores that have items like locally made ceramics, unusual candles, soft woven blankets, paperweights with a dandelion seed inside, is a favorite way to spend the day. I get especially excited about textiles and well-made clothing. When I feel silk, I remember that all of it started with little worms.

My favorite part of MoMA New York is the section of the museum devoted to household objects. I like being reminded that even a coffee maker or a chair was designed and imagined by a human being, that they can be products and art. This doesn’t mean we should buy them needlessly. It doesn’t mean they should be mass produced by the millions and thrown in landfills when they don’t sell. But I like that humans are makers and creators. Not all stuff is worthless.

There is a kind of shopping (or window shopping without intending to buy) that feels like to going to an art museum. I’m looking at beautiful things displayed on shelves or tables or hung on the walls. The difference is that, in a store, I can interact with the art and entertain the thought of taking it home. A very rich person might own a Van Gogh but anyone can find a beautiful coffee cup that brings them joy.

I’ve always been a toucher. I like to drag my hands across blankets and sweaters and feel the weight and texture of different items. Humans made all this. We spent lifetimes and years perfecting our artistry and crafting to get to create thoughtfully made items. They exist to make us feel something even if that feeling is just the appreciation of something beautiful.

A good gift guide gives me a hint of that same feeling I get walking through a tiny, curated store. I think that’s why I can’t help but look at them and think of the person who made the guide and the type of person the guide was made for. I don’t need most of the things. I don’t even want a large percentage of them. But I enjoy seeing them spotlit and placed together for me to consider.

To circle or not to circle?

Notes

No one has heard the song “Little Dogs” by Mudhoney which came out a year ago and has a full music video. I clicked on it randomly but can’t stop thinking about it. I’m frankly obsessed with the fact a band that has been around for 36 years went, “I absolutely love little dogs and they bring me joy and I’m going to write a song about it” and did. The result is an unabashed grunge-style ode to little dogs. Run, don’t walk.

If you haven’t seen the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix and have access to it, I can’t recommend it enough. She’s a fascinating person.

I have been in a novel revision hole the past week and haven’t been reading as much but I am absolutely obsessed with Out There: Stories, a short story collection by Kate Folk. The stories all have a speculative fiction element but are done so well that I keep thinking “what if this was the real world.” I also read God of the Woods by Liz Moore and really enjoyed spending a day curled up with a well written mystery.

As a lover of literary bumper stickers, I would be remiss if I didn’t share this Artist’s Way themed option from Etsy to compliment your Mary Oliver sticker.

What have you been loving? Please share your finds and obsessions in the comments.

A Little Detour with Tove Danovich

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