Who’s the Scroogiest of them all?

Do you give Christmas presents to your child?  No seriously, if you celebrate Christmas, do you exchange gifts?  I’ve heard of families who just don’t want all the – excuse me but it’s true – junk around the house, and hence say “no gifts please.”  I wish I could do this, but I can’t even impose my vegetarianism on others for much too long.

Then I read about Joel Waldfogel’s book, scroogenomics.  This economist calculates the dollar value of satisfaction of gift giving versus giving to yourself.  The result?  We’re more happy with gifts we buy for ourselves.  Big surprise, right?  I like my new Wii, my own present to myself.  I’m not so fond of Edie’s growing Baby Doll collection, now up to three of the exact same doll*.

The New York Times counters this argument, suggesting that Waldfolgel forgot to calculate the value of one’s affection.  Says Edward Glaeser:

Inevitably, I’m an imperfect buyer, but I like to think that the recipients of my gifts value the knowledge that I care, more than they feel the welfare loss from my mistakes.

I buy this.  Economist and Sociologist Nancy Folbre long ago addressed the value of love over money.  But what if we truly don’t want the junk around the house?  If we listen to Waldfolglel, a full 25% of our gifts go unused.  I’m thinking it’s a lot more than that.

In the end, however, I can’t rationalize myself into changing my family tradition.  I love opening presents, looking through them before we open them, thanking the people they come from, watching them open my gifts in return.  I love my little red book that I keep, recording gift ideas around July or August, where each person is thought about and cared for if for only this thing they may never use.

So here I am, practically a full-on socialist, telling you to Buy Buy Buy!  And if you don’t buy, don’t not do it because the market told you to.

*My daughter however has no problem with this.  Let it be known.

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