How Does a Superman, a Professional and a Genuine All Around Great Guy Select a Gift? Read On!

Gift baskets are out of date!  Or is it that they’re just boring?  My fervent hope is that you’ll eventually come to the conclusion that both statements are wrong.  I’m actually a gift food merchant.  Kind of has a special ring to is, doesn’t it?  Granted, it may be less significant that solving the global warming problem or removing a pesky mouse from under your kitchen cabinet, but it’s an honest way to pay for the roof over my family’s head.

I can read your mind: “All of his gift problems are solved; he just gives the same boring baskets year after year to everyone.”  I want to disabuse you of your smug attitude!  In fact, I face the same dilemmas that you face during any gift giving, decision making crisis.

I don’t give only baskets of joy to my loved ones.  However, even if I did, the choice would still not be easy.  At my store, we offer scores of fruit baskets, gourmet meals, wine gift baskets and far more than that, even.  (I can hear you right now, begging me to tell you where this wonderful store is.  A little patience is called for on your part.)

Before you coerce me into giving away my store location, I want to share my own decision making strategy with you.

First, I decide on an appropriate category of gift.  If Uncle Milton has his drinking problem under control for the first time in ten years, then the wine gift baskets are out of the running.  Instead, I think I’ll send him an assortment of gourmet cheeses and a fresh fruit basket.

Dear, dear Aunt Mildred is a great wine talker.  I don’t think she truly enjoys sipping her wine, but she loves to try to impress everyone with what she knows about it.  She loves to let everyone know the best vintage years, the kinds of grapes that are used in various blends and, most of all, how much she spent on the wine you just spilled all over her new carpeting ($95 a square yard).  I’ll give her one of my better wine gift baskets, but I refuse to give her the best stuff.  Sure, I get it wholesale, but I still have to pay for it!

Everyone in our family, except me, says that my nephew Alfred finally made his girlfriend an honest woman.  I, on the other hand, never doubted his girlfriend’s honesty, but I have some reasons to suspect Alfred.  In any case, they finally got married.  To tell you the truth, even I agree that it’s about time.  Alfred spent the last eight years trying to decide if she was worth the cost of a diamond ring.  (I suspect that he eventually settled on crystal, which, considering Alfred, would be thought of as generous.)  What he wants is a check.  Well, he’s not getting that from me.  I’m sending them a delicious lobster dinner for two.  My thinking is that this is the only way to get his bride out of the kitchen.  Alfred would never pay for a restaurant meal, so, in a sense, I’m sending the restaurant to them.  (They honeymooned by visiting me!)

Second, I decide how much I’m willing to spend on these losers.

My grandson is getting the latest video game system.  Let’s face it; he is truly special.