[wtrk]

People tend to be polite, especially when it comes to expressing thanks for a gift.

One way to gauge the recipients' true enthusiasm would be to look at how many of them have followed your lead.

If you've been doing this for three years, how many home-made gifts did you receive in return in the second and third years? If you're counting this as the third year, how many such gifts did you receive last year?

[bunderbunder]

My wife and I have been doing it for several years now, and over that time we've been getting increasingly many home-made gifts from people who know how to make things.

But I don't really expect the majority to follow suit, because most the people I know simply don't know how to make things. To them canning is a black art, and a batch of toffee involves hours in front of the stove and only comes out successfully a third of the time. Ironically, many members of this cross-section of my family have actually ramped up their gifts to us in an apparent attempt to "keep up."

I'm not sure it would really be so great if all of them followed suit, anyway. The end result would just be that everyone ends up with twelve pounds of baked goods and confections to decide between eating (gluttonous) and throwing away (wasteful). We only do it because we know we can't convince everyone to cut us out of their gift-giving list entirely. Giving homemade food and baked goods is just a way to accomplish the mandatory reciprocation in a way that makes us feel a bit more comfortable with the whole affair. What I really do want is for the gift-giving tradition to go away, or at least be scaled way back. Wasteful overconsumption might involve more or less wasteful materials, but less wasteful is still a far cry from not wasteful.

[wtrk]

Instead of discouraging people from showing their care/regard for you (which, with a generous helping of social obligation, is what gift-giving is about), why not try to find ways to help gift givers give useful/desirable gifts?

Children have wishlists (adults too nowadays -- e.g. Amazon), people 'register' for weddings, etc.

[bunderbunder]

I've no desire to discourage people from showing their care or regard for me. But I would strongly for them to do it directly, by engaging in activites that center on care and regard for each other. Spending time together, perhaps.

Material goods are a poor proxy for that in my case, because they have the effect of actually reducing my quality of life. I've already got a cluttered house and more possessions than I know what to do with. It's actually pretty hard for me to think of objects that I genuinely want - so hard that when people give me gift cards, they generally go unused. I've got more than enough stuff, I'm actively working on having less stuff, and so I'd rather let it go to waste than acquire an object I don't want and will just go unused until I eventually discard it during the next round of decluttering.

So in any case I feel bad - either because of guilt over not appreciating an object that I simply can't because it brings me negative utility, or guilt over the money or effort people put into trying to give me an object that brings me negative utility, or for actively involving myself in the acquisition of an object that brings me negative utility, or for the sense of being wasteful that comes with the inevitable disposal of an object that brings me negative utility. And I would greatly prefer for people to show they care in a way that doesn't make me feel bad. I just wish I could understand why in this one situation I'm generally considered to be a bad person for wanting my loved ones to not make me feel bad. Isn't it supposed to be a time of year when we're supposed to gather together and try to make each other feel good?

Sadly the ritual just isn't really structured in a way that makes it workable for folks like us. The material gifts are inextricably placed at the core of the social construct, to the extent that there's really no way to extract them for the sake of respecting the feelings someone who doesn't desire a material gift. So inextricably that we can't just not give an object to someone who would rather not take part in the exchange of objects because we care about them and understand that would make them happier. Instead we have to make them out to be some sort of Scrooge.

[taybin]

That would be a faulty correlation. I often receive gifts that I like, but I don't turn around and give the same gift the next year.

Also, while people might just be being polite, that possibly doesn't go away with a purchased gift.

[wtrk]

Actually, no. If you give someone a delicious homemade chutney and that inspires them, they could gift you the following year with a marmalade or cherry confit or something else.

Your reply suggests that you may be giving homemade gifts and getting retail-purchased gifts in return.

I actually agree with what you're doing but doubt that many recipients truly appreciate your gifts, which are likely pretty neat.