Be it a weeding, a birthday, a baby shower, visiting your boss's home - carrying a gift along, speaks wonderfully of you and for you. So what would make a perfect gift?
- For your parents - any thing that they may have expressed interest in, or asked for, or pertaining to their hobby.
- An office colleague - if it is for a wedding , then pool in with co-workers, if for a birthday, no personal items, but safe things like flowers or a cake/gift voucher/a laptop bag you thing he/she needs.
- Your boss has just invited you for dinner at his place - Flowers for his wife and a bottle of wine/champagne/something you have hand made.
- If you are the boss and would like to gift your entire staff to show how much you value them, then anything that is not persona; is acceptable
- Remember though, that gifting a boss or a colleague can always lead to a misunderstanding. So be careful.
- If you cannot be part of a celebration of someone close to you, feel free to send a gift. That just shows your care.
- I very happily re-gift a gift I did not like, to someone else, preferably to someone the original giver does not know.
- Never gift a religious gift to someone who is not part of the same religion.
- You can inform the recipient that you have kept the receipt in case they would like to change the gift. And always remember - adding a hand written note, just adds to you class act!!!