Gifting vs. Giving

The lines have blurred.

I am a person and I give gifts. I own a company and sometimes my company gifts sauces as samples, bottled prayers that maybe some other writer or chef out there will fall in love with them and spread the word.

Since the term “gifting” emerged, I had thought that people give and companies gift. I thought gifting and giving were distinctions made to differentiate between entity and human. But the lines have blurred. I’ve heard now countless people I’ve given things to — things I’ve made with time and attention — thanking me for gifting things to them.

And I’ve wondered, have I become synonymous with Poi Dog? Have we melded so that I thought I was giving and others thought my company was gifting? Am I a company? Am I a brand? The thought perturbs me so much that it paralyzes me from promoting my actual brand during a time when I really need to because of course, yes, we desperately need the sales. Poi Dog is the most human of brands, I suppose, because it’s just me and Ari here behind the sauce company. If anything, it’s a smokescreen for just two people.

Am I simply perturbed by semantics? (Along with the evolution of the word “giving” are we now required to step away from it and use “gifting” to indicate the transference of a physical object.) The seeping of internet-speak into literal, actual, spoken word, transferred audibly from mouth to ear? It could be that. And also the melting of marketing into seemingly every crevice of my internet existence.

As a human giver, I’m so exhausted by being marketed to. I’m not a minimalist. I love beautiful, well-designed things. I love shopping for beautiful, well-designed things.

Mercifully this year, at least, I also love making them. For the last few weeks, I’ve been holed up in a corner of my basement, in my yarn corner, hand making everyone’s gifts this year. There are some exceptions. Some of my friends are getting candles and ceramics made by other friends who also need the sales right now. Useful things, that will hopefully not be clutter.

Gift giving is my love language, something I struggle with in the face of two things: a fear of clutter and retaliation. The former probably makes more sense. But I grew up in a large Chinese family that drilled into my head the notion that if I didn’t come back to Hong Kong without a gift for every family member, I would bring shame upon my family. That I wasn’t raised right. Throughout college in Italy and in the U.S., I’d dutifully pack panettone, rosaries, matching Christmas ornaments and socks into my luggage every Christmas, hauling back boxes of chocolates, one for every one of my mother’s ten siblings, some of their helpers and some of my cousins. God forbid if I left anyone out. I still shudder thinking how often I’d be screamed at if I did.

In their old age, my family has gotten better about this, living in houses now filled with clutter. Decades ago I had switched to only edible gifts for them, thinking that at least they could be consumed, and not eventually donated or forgotten. They now ask for nothing, but I still bring something.

Every gift was a gesture, a talisman against getting into trouble. These are not the gifts I enjoy giving. They’re gifts of obligation. But they’re still an exercise in giving, not gifting.

And I’ve learnt, over the years, to really give out of love. So if you receive a gift from me this year, please know that I’ve given it to you, not gifted it.