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I
Want, I Want, I Want
Wish lists come to the rescue for uninspired givers, picky
recipients—and pretty much everyone else
A couple of years ago I exercised my newfound excitement about
Equal Exchange—a cooperatively owned company specializing
in fair-trade, organic coffee, tea, and cocoa—with a number
of gifts for a wide range of family. The cocoa was a universal
favorite, and the coffee got some good reviews. My mother
told me in her usual blunt fashion that Equal Exchange tea
didn’t meet her standards (I have since found other organic,
fair-trade tea that does). Not wanting to be as straightforward
as my mother, my brother-in-law subtly, but with unmistakable
intent, added Starbucks coffee to his wish list the following
year. Wish lists have many uses.
The Christmas/winter-holiday wish list has an ambivalent place
in many of our hearts. Most of us started out writing, and
possibly even mailing, our letters to Santa. They were serious
endeavors, filled with touching moments (“I want my grandma
to get better”) and life lessons about priorities and disappointments
(“Didn’t Santa know that I just listed Matchbox cars as filler?”).
But as an adult, the players get more numerous and the expectations
get more fuzzy. Aren’t we supposed to be able to divine the
perfect gift for everyone at all times? Doesn’t asking for
things spoil the surprise? Sending a wish list to someone
who didn’t ask for one can feel like a questioning of their
gift-selecting skills. Requesting one can feel like an admission
of laziness.
But shopping for a tough-to-please relative or newly acquired
in-law, or figuring out how to dispose of yet another ill-matched
gift, can get most of us over the hump and into the strategy
phase, even if it’s still a little uncomfortable. (When I
finally instituted a permanent online wish list on my homepage,
I felt compelled to hedge it with a title something like “Not
because I’m greedy but because everyone always asks.”)
The central balancing acts of a wish list are simple: First,
list enough that people have options while still making it
likely that you’ll get some of your top choices. Second, be
specific enough to get what you really want, without making
life hell for your potential gift givers. If you’re like me
and are tempted to write something like “[clothing item] made
of organic cotton, not made in sweatshops or sold by a union-busting
big corporation, with hypoallergenic dye, in a warm color
. . . ,” do everyone, including yourself if you really want
the item, a favor: Skip the moralizing, do the research yourself,
and just provide a link to the thing you have in mind, or
at least the product name, bar-code number, and store’s address.
Meanwhile, there’s also the likelihood that wish lists, especially
ones seen by lots of people, will spawn duplicate gifts. That’s
where online wish-list registries come in. Expanding on the
idea of wedding registries, online wish lists avoid duplications
by allowing people to check off what they’ve bought. Additional
benefits of the online approach are that the lists can be
updated in an ongoing way, after the url has been distributed
to friends and family (who thinks of everything at once?),
and specific requests can be made easy for the shoppers through
direct hyperlinks.
Oddly, according to a number of articles from 2000-2001, people
were slow to adopt the online approach (and indeed, most of
the sites listed in those articles are now belly up). But
a new generation is going strong, refusing to let a good idea
go unrealized.
If you want an online wish list, here’s what you should know:
Most are free, funding themselves with advertising, often
in the form of “recommended gift ideas.” Beware of those that
only let you request products from their partner stores (unless
you really like their partner stores). There are plenty—www.wishcentral.com,
www.wishrepublic.com, or www.findgift.com, to name a few—that
allow you to request anything you want, general or vague,
online or off. You can even link to your favorite cause or
charity’s donation page. With these sites, you can support
local businesses by suggesting or linking to them rather than
linking to a mail-order site.
Of course, maybe you don’t really want stuff, or don’t trust
anyone else to shop for you. Besides lightening up a little,
you do have a wish-list option: www.smallwishes.com. Using
a time-honored nonprofit fund-raising technique, Small Wishes
allows you to list a wanted item, but ask people to give you
the cash value of it, rather than buying it for you. (It also
allows you to mix in items that you want people to actually
buy.) The caveat here is that you have to establish a financial
account with the site, and it’ll take a 9-percent cut of any
cash gifts you receive. So be sure cash and control are really
important to you.
In fact, if you really want cash, and you think your fam will
really balk at giving it to you, Small Wishes offers a devious
workaround: for items from Amazon.com, you can make it so
givers think they are buying the item and having it shipped
to you, when actually you’re getting the cold, hard moolah.
“It makes both you and the purchaser happy because you get
the money, and they think they bought you something you need,”
reads the site’s FAQ. Ah, warm fuzzy deception.
On the friendlier side, www.easygiftexchange.com allows you
to set up family groups, the members of whom can not only
view each other’s lists, but add to them. For example, if
my brother hasn’t put juggling rings on his list, but I and
a bunch of my family members know he wants them, I can go
add them to his list and immediately mark that I’ve bought
them, so everyone else knows not to get them. (Or, though
the site doesn’t promote this, I could list something I think
he’d like but know only my parents could afford, and not mark
that I’ve bought it.) These added entries are hidden from
the intended recipient.
So the tools are there; now it’s your turn. Like the self-improvement
gurus say, you’re not going to get what you want until you
know what it is—and ask for it. Happy listing!
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
2004
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