All that said, I have to tell you a secret: I am the worst gift recipient in the world. I have a closet full of unopened gifts. I’m in denial about them. I should probably seek therapy for it. I love showering other people with gifts, but I don’t want to get them.
To clarify: With people I know, I’m pretty good with thankyous. It’s when strangers send me things that I freeze up. The obligation such gifts raise in me outweighs the joy they provide.
So to all the strangers who have sent me gifts: a great, belated thanks to you all, and I’m sorry I was too overwhelmed to respond before now. I love whatever it is, and it was so generous and sweet of you to think of me. Now please take anything else you might want to send and give it to someone more deserving.
Why, you may ask, don’t I just pass along all those unwanted gifts to others who may enjoy them? Well, I learned the hard way that regifting is dangerous. When I was at Parsons, there was a going-away party for a coworker I had been extremely fond of at one time but then came not to like very much. I was planning to sit out the farewell fete, but some colleagues insisted I go. I was very reluctant but finally agreed, and I thought I would just go to my gift closet and find something appropriate to bring her.
I found a silver Tiffany pen. It seemed perfect: not too personal, but nice. I’d been given it when I judged an art contest among the employees of the Port Authority. It had been a great event on the sixtieth floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, a long time ago.
At the party, I presented her with that beautiful little blue box with the white ribbon, and she was delighted. She opened the box and pulled out the pen with a smile on her face. Then she said, “Oh, look, and it’s engraved, too!” As she read the engraving, her face felclass="underline" “Best wishes from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.”
It was very embarrassing. And yet, once the first flush of shame had passed, I thought it was pretty appropriate. I didn’t want to go to the party. I didn’t want to bring her anything. And so even though I went, my true feelings crept through. In effect, my elegant Tiffany pen bitch-slapped her. That’s a situation where I should have just trusted my instincts and stayed home.
I’ve been on the other side of this kind of faux pas, too. When I was living on Perry Street in the West Village, there was—and I believe still is—an annual street fair called the Perry-phernalia Block Party. My neighbors Bea and Jerry Banu and I always sat together out on the stoop. In fact, Jerry was in charge of the event. One year, as my dear friend Bea was setting up her table she declared, “I’m going to get all the jewelry I don’t like,” and she came back out with a box full of things I had given her!
“I’m glad to know you don’t like this stuff!” I said. “Now I can stop giving it to you!” She was mortified, but I said, “Don’t bring it back inside. It’s done. Forget about it. Maybe now they can find a happy home.” It’s good that I don’t have an ego about these things.
And I was serious about being glad to know. I know it’s not proper to tell people when they have terrible taste or to specify what you’d like for the holidays, but sometimes I wish I could.
My mother to this day buys me socks and underwear—and in the wrong size, no less! I am fifty-seven years old, and she still buys me things in a size L—large. No matter how many times I tell her, “Mother, I’m a medium. I always have been!” she doesn’t listen. And every year I have to return what she gets me.
One time she bought me a shirt that came in a Lord & Taylor box. I went to the Men’s Department to exchange it for another size, and they said they didn’t carry the item at all. I called my mother to tell her, and she gasped. “I got it at an outlet,” she said, blushing through the phone. “I just used the Lord and Taylor box.”
When pressed on her dubiously successful gift giving, my mother just gets defensive. “You and your sister and your niece and nephew are so hard to buy for,” she told me recently, “because you have no interests.”
“What? No interests? Wait a minute!” I said. “Just to speak for myself, I am passionate about many, many things. I love fashion. I love design. I love books. I love architecture. I love movies. I could go on! You could get me any book. You could get me a DVD. An Amazon gift card.”
For me, gift cards are fantastic. Whenever I don’t have a perfect, one-of-a-kind gift in mind for someone, I love to give gift cards. Alas, my family says that’s too impersonal. They’re always complaining when I give these cards, saying I didn’t take the time to find the perfect gift for each person. I finally told my sister, “Apparently, my hinting has been too subtle. I get these for people because I’d like to receivethem.”
And they’re way better than crazy objects that I then have to move around my house and hide in closets. Recently, I was given an objet d’art by some friends. They have never been in my apartment, and when I saw what they sent, quite frankly I was insulted. It’s grotesque, and 100 percent not me. I wish I could show it to you so you could see how there is no apartment on the planet, at least none I’d want to visit, where this could possibly look good. It’s ambitiously bad.
Why did these friends feel I needed that piece of bizarre sculpture in my life? I was honored that they wanted to give me something, but it’s very presumptuous to get people things that are going to take up a lot of space in their lives unless you know for a fact that they will really love it.
That’s why I find registries very handy. You can see what people need and want and what other people have already bought for them. It takes all the pressure off and makes you feel like you’re getting something that’s really going to be appreciated.
I’ve bought a lot of presents off gift registries, but truth be told, I haven’t been to a wedding in fourteen years. I’m old enough that, by now, people in my peer group have either married or they haven’t. And if they’re doing it for a second time, it’s usually a small event with just a few family members, so I just send a small gift to acknowledge the event.
The last wedding I went to was at the couple’s house in Greenwich, Connecticut. They were fashion people. They had a big tent in the backyard and every possible bell and whistle. There were probably 350 or 400 guests. Even the Porta-Potties were fully equipped, luxurious trailers. I was sitting at the table of the grandmother of the bride, and I said to her, looking around in awe, “This is phenomenal!”
She looked at me with a trace of pity and said, “You must not get out much.”
This was the bride’s grandmother! Isn’t she supposed to rave about her family? Isn’t she supposed to be enthusiastic?
She’s right, I don’t get out much,I thought. But even so! This is an incredible wedding.
This couple really wanted a lavish party, but I pity brides today who feel that breaking the bank is an obligation. Weddings seem so stressful to me in general; it’s a wonder how anyone who’s throwing one feels like getting married at all by the end.
I know someone who rented the whole Yale Club and had a towering raw bar for the postceremony cocktail hour. This was before the multicourse sit-down dinner for more than two hundred people. They must have spent a quarter of a million dollars.
I always say in a case where you’re already breaking the bank (as on one of those ridiculously priced designer handbags), you should spend 10 percent less than you’ve budgeted and give that extra money to charity. Your wedding guests won’t notice if there’s one less tier of oysters and lobster claws, but 10 percent of a fortune can make a real difference to people who truly need it.