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On Gift Cards

I used to have a somewhat curmudgeonly view of gift cards. A gift card was saying, “I don’t care enough to bother shopping for you, but care just enough to tell you where to spend my money!” I took a slightly less dim view of cash. At least you can spend that anywhere on anything or even stash it and earn compound interest. My overarching principle though is that if you really want to give a gift, put in the freaking time to consider and select one.

Of course my mother-in-law had to go and wreck that philosophy.

Now I should mention that the fact that these cards were quite generous was a factor. My mother-in-law was definitely not into the $10 Starbucks drive-by. I’ll just say that while you couldn’t get a laptop or netbook, much of the iPod line was in range. Still, if one was truly being a humbug, the above sentiment would apply no matter the denomination.

But the key was that the past few gift cards (8 or so between Christmas and birthdays) were from Borders. Big deal you say? Well up until this year, Borders.com was essentially a private label Amazon.com for books and music. Win!! At least until Borders decided to strike out on their own. One highly inconvenient Borders shopping trip with a gift card later (Whaddya mean my Amazon Prime doesn’t apply? How the hell do you find the House music in this mess?) and I’m dropping hints with my wife that it would be great if she could find a way for her Internet challenged mom to generate Amazon gift cards.

This Christmas we made a step forward to the BestBuy gift card, as generous as ever. Granted it’s not as convenient as Amazon or price competitive as NewEgg, but I look at it this way. A decent sized gift card is a pretty good head start on a significant electronic purchase. That’s how the MacBook purchase came about. I had a store credit and didn’t really know what to do with it. That plus saving some pennies over time got me a new laptop. Same concept will apply with my mother-in-law’s present. I’m thinking of targeting a digital SLR camera.

My mother-in-law will never shop for the geek stuff I like. But she never wants to be told what to get for a gift. A stance I agree with. Gift demands are for children. Judiciously chosen gift cards allow us to meet halfway.

Subsequently, I’ve revised my thinking about gift cards. Obviously, I’m going to graciously receive them. But now I’ll consider giving them, although I try to team them up with something inexpensive that I’ve picked out, just to show I’ve put in the effort.

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