It's time to exchange presents and you thought this year everyone said not to exchange, but suddenly everyone else are pulling out wrapped boxes. What to do? Sure, there's the standby of a 'coupon', redeemable for what they want... a gift that screams "didn't actually get it". Worse, what if the coupon isn't what they want? Or too open-ended?

With flair, my nephew Ben crafted a solution that neatly turns a dilemma— what to get for the person who has everything— into a solid gift. It's a coupon with 3 tracks:

Please check off a, b or c:
a) What I was planning to get for you is __________
b) The gift you'd rather get instead is ____________
c) Or, go random: __ (check for me to get you something completely else!)

The fun in this is you list what you planned to get them in (a), but they (upon receipt of this coupon) have a bailout where they can either list something in (b) or check off (c) instead.

In practice, this has played out well. My son ditched the offered (a) gift and put in an obscure downloadable as (b). Some folks went with (a), some (c), a few (b). Either way, it elevated the simple coupon to be a heartwarming gift-giving idea.

What did I do last year? I checked off (b), and the gift I asked for was... permission to publish his idea in my Dec column this year, to help other people looking for gifts.

Until next year,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net, freelance