Holiday Gift Giving | The Slow Goods Podcast | Episode 9

Episode 9 December 08, 2023 00:33:27
Holiday Gift Giving | The Slow Goods Podcast | Episode 9
Slow Goods with Logan Rackliff
Holiday Gift Giving | The Slow Goods Podcast | Episode 9

Dec 08 2023 | 00:33:27

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Show Notes

In this week’s episode, unwrap the art of gift-giving with timeless and thoughtful gifts. On each episode, we ask our guests about their favorite item and it’s always something we don’t expect: something useful, that has heritage and history or tells a story. Something that goes beyond its monetary value. In the episode, we share our tips for how to approach the season with intention and joy And create lasting memories through gifts that are both timeless and thoughtful.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Slow Goods podcast, where we love to talk all about Maine quality, craftsmanship, and timeless design and how these three things often intersect. Along the way, we'll hear some inspiring and authentic stories, and if we have ears to hear, gain some wisdom as well. The topic today is approaching the holidays with mindful spending habits. [00:00:21] And we like timeless things here, but we live in a seasonal life, seasonal culture, so we thought it'd be neat just to talk about that, how to approach things with mindful spending habits for the holidays. To be clear, first of all, I'm not Hannah. My wife does a lot of our holiday shopping, and she does a great job because she really cares. She listens to people. [00:00:59] If she spent like one or two days or one or two conversations with somebody, she just picks up on all these things and just get them great gifts immediately. [00:01:11] She's always done a great job, so she does a lot of that. But of course, I've done some and I need to get her gifts. But this is a very spirited and what I would say an ideally world or an ideal sense of everything we talk about here on Slow Goods. Quality, timeless design, things like that. [00:01:39] So the first thing I wanted to talk about thinking about starting out would be to have a budget, have a budget in mind. It's like, well, Logan, I don't know anything, or maybe I budget some things. I don't like budgets. [00:01:58] Hannah and I never did budgets for a long time, and we're getting more and more into it. And I can tell you right now that it brings order out of chaos and much more peace to your life. [00:02:12] If it's just setting a number for everybody you're going to spend for, maybe you want to get deeper into the budget and say, well, I want this much for this person, this much for this person. But you got to start with somewhere. What you don't want to do is be running around feeling just crazy, and you want to get everybody the perfect gift. And they're all what I tend to do, I don't know about everybody else have just leaned, like, spending more. If I want to get something nice, it's always like half again. As much as I thought I was going to spend, then all of a sudden it's like, wow, I spent a lot of money. I was not prepared for that, and now I don't feel good. And the truth is, if you made a budget and a plan, you would probably get better items and you were very intentional and would feel much better about the whole thing. And I bet the people would even be you'd get better gifts, that they would enjoy more. [00:03:13] That's what I've seen a few gifts when I get things, or I've seen people do that. [00:03:21] So that is kind of tip or rule number one. I would say just go into it with a budget. Doesn't have to be super planned, but like, here's the number. And like I said, if you want to go person to person, then that's up to you. Or however you want to attack that. But don't just go in open pocketbook. [00:03:47] That's a recipe for disaster on so many levels. Could be. I mean, financial things, I think they say I'm not an expert, but that's like the number one thing even in marriages, that there's the most conflict, right, any kind of relationship. [00:04:03] And we all know how it feels when we overspend. It doesn't feel good. It isn't good, it's not peaceful. So go with a budget. [00:04:12] So budget not only your money, but budget your time. Think about your time. [00:04:19] It's so neat that we have the internet and there's so many things out there that we feel like we can get. The possibility is endless and I'm thankful for it in many ways. But another way is like every time, so many times now when I go to look for something, I just feel like I'm lost. [00:04:37] There's just so much out there, so many reviews and you think there's something better. [00:04:42] Then you spend all this time and you get it. And it's not what you think it is because you didn't see it in person. Pick it up and feel it and touch it. [00:04:53] So maybe don't do hardcore time budget, but just think like, I'm going to spend two days shopping in person, try to get all my gifts. Let's say something like that. And then for the things, people, I can't find anything. [00:05:12] Then I'll go online and I won't stay up past whatever 11:00 looking online for stuff. I won't just binge and just obsess and look at every item on the planet on the internet, trying to find something for somebody. [00:05:37] You're less sleep. Screen time, they know on every level is not healthy for you, basically at this point. And the more the worse it is, the later at night, the worse it is. And I don't know about everybody else, but man, when I just do a lot of that, I just feel like I've just wasted a lot of time and I feel chaotic. [00:06:00] So just think about your time. I mean, just set some parameters, some borders. I'm not going to spend more than a half hour three times a week looking at stuff online for Christmas presents or something like that. And I'm not going to spend more than two weeks doing it. [00:06:20] I'm going to do this three times and then I'm going to make a decision or something like that. [00:06:27] Yeah, just don't let your time with your family. [00:06:33] All these things can affect your family, your health, everything else. We want to bring order and peace and fulfillment. We don't want chaos and feeling strung out. [00:06:48] So those are the ways to do it. So then how do we find by doing these things. How do we find great gifts, great items for people that make them feel like we really care? [00:07:05] Not that we love them, but that they feel appreciated and listened to? Yeah, that we really care. [00:07:14] So, I mean, I think I'm just stating all the obvious things here, but just really pay attention to listen to them throughout the year. A lot of us I can just think of my there's a lot of family that I might get gifts where I don't talk with them a lot throughout the year. Yeah, maybe if my mom or dad I grew up with them, I know them pretty well. [00:07:37] Also, a lot of mom and dads or just adults in general, they can be tricky for here in America if they make pretty decent older, they generally have most everything they need and that they kind of want to have. [00:07:55] If they want it, they have kind of gotten it by now, so they're very hard to buy for. Right. So how do you get them something special? [00:08:06] And we all have already, certainly all that we need to survive, but we already have so much stuff. [00:08:19] How can we get one item that is actually going to maybe bring more joy into somebody's life or be practical that they can use and give them more, not just good feelings, but make their life less like, let's just say chaos. Something that just maybe saves them time or makes things a little slicker or is dependable. [00:08:50] But really, especially with some people, just really listen to people and what they like. My wife is so good at that. I'm not as good working on getting better, but just picking up little things like, you're a detective. [00:09:08] Clue number one, if anybody ever says, I like this, pay attention and take that in, you'll find their likes pretty quickly. [00:09:21] And there's a lot of other phrases there, I love this, I like that. I mean, this is all one on one stuff. [00:09:27] So when you kind of have somewhat of a feel of what somebody might like or want, now we want to get something that is really meaningful. [00:09:41] And I guess I've touched on that a little bit already, but something that isn't just, oh, yeah, this is great. [00:09:53] Thank you so much. And they pretend to love it and then never use it, or yeah, they never use it. It goes downstairs or wherever it goes for three or four years until it goes out to a lawn sale or it gets thrown away or something. [00:10:14] Or the classic, like, I was listening to the show one time and somebody was when people give art or something like that, the classic is that they don't put it up, they don't like the art, they hate it. When they come over for dinner, they put it up, type of thing. [00:10:33] I always thought that was great and that people do that, but it could be any item. You never use, but somebody got it for you and they thought it was the best thing ever that you were really going to love. And you don't love at all. You don't even want anybody to see it. But anyway, try to get something meaningful. [00:10:55] Not just get stuff for stuff's sake, something that can help their lives, that means something that's intentional. Okay, now we've got some ideas. We've got a budget. [00:11:09] So now we're going to go shopping, hopefully in a store so we can see it, feel it, touch it. [00:11:18] And I mean, there's some great I'm not saying I don't do online shopping. There's especially like some places that I love to shop because they curate and they get good stuff for the most part that I can trust. [00:11:35] But online is definitely better. I mean, I'm sorry, in store is definitely better. In person is always better. [00:11:41] You can just feel when something is it might be the kind of category you like, like, oh, this is the item to fill this need, or whatever it is. But you should be able to feel when something's cheap when I say cheap, like put price aside, not well made. [00:12:05] They're going to feel lighter, they're going to feel looser. [00:12:11] Sometimes there's certain items you want as light as possible, but they're still strong and durable. [00:12:17] But in general, quality is going to feel heavier. [00:12:23] It will look nicer. [00:12:26] It probably won't be quite as flashy depending on what you're getting more timeless. [00:12:35] You can just tell it's very intentional. [00:12:39] Should have some warranty with it or just some kind of reputation or something along those lines. [00:12:48] Okay, so now we're going to go shopping. So here's the big advice. I think almost like a light bulb moment for me just thinking about this podcast and kind of what Hannah's always done. [00:13:07] What we like to do is get somebody something. This is like how you should this I feel like this is the phrase you should have in your mind. [00:13:19] Get somebody something that they otherwise would not spend themselves to get. If they usually buy $50 jeans or something. [00:13:34] Jeans is probably a poor example. We're probably not going to buy people jeans. But if it was $50 jeans, if you could buy them $100 pair of jeans that they would just from a brand that they absolutely love, but they would never spend that with their budget and how they work, that would be really neat. Or if they're going to go buy a blanket and there's somebody that would buy $100 blanket with their budget and what they usually do. And if you go buy them a $200 blanket or even whatever it is, it could be if you have a secret Santa thing, that's for $50 and you could get somebody like a really nice pen or some kind of notebook. Or if you're going to do any kind of notebook thing, I think that you got to lean, like, a little more blank. Unless you just know the person and how they would want to organize their life. [00:14:36] But anyway, just as if you kind of know the people, you really want to just go up. [00:14:49] When we buy gifts for people for our team or in general, we want to get something for them that we pretty much know they will love but will most likely never they would never buy the item themselves. [00:15:11] And that's really cool to see when somebody gets that. I mean, this is material things. This is stuff. This isn't what everybody this isn't the be all, end all of happiness. But you can say a lot to make people feel appreciated with a gift. And everybody has I'm sure everybody knows kind of about the love languages. They're all different ones. And some of it there's five of them and one of them is gifts. Some people gifts are a bigger deal. [00:15:42] Maybe that's something to know too. Maybe you can work if you do know somebody's love language, you could try to work that in there a little bit. But if somebody's just quality time, I don't know if like writing them hey, we'll have a date on this time to go hike this mountain or something and really like hike it. Maybe that could be really great. I don't know. Maybe that's something that otherwise you would have never done that would mean a lot to that person. Maybe that is a good idea. [00:16:15] But be careful on that if you think they're expecting a gift, I guess. [00:16:25] But yeah, it doesn't have to be a material thing. You could really know the person and be creative, but be intentional. [00:16:36] And the idea of getting on that level of spending, of getting something that they would not normally spend that kind of money on I think if you think of these things in size and quantity, level down. [00:16:52] But when it comes to brand reputation, quality, locality, story of products level up, just go one or two notches more than maybe you would have spent or you think this person would have spent on this type of item. [00:17:09] If they just would never buy, if they really like outdoor heritage gear or something like that, if they would normally buy. [00:17:27] I don't want to put any brands down or anything, but let's just say Filson's, a really nice outdoor heritage brand. [00:17:36] I like filson stuff. [00:17:40] Get them something from know if you can afford it, even if it's a smaller item. [00:17:48] There's a million brands. That was just one example. That's easy for me. [00:17:56] So level up on the brand, level up on the quality. If the size is smaller, great. Just get something nice. Don't try to get something big, something flashy, something that is just this certain thing that you think they're really going to like. Maybe you nailed the thing that they really are going to like, but you bought a piece of crap, something that just it doesn't mean it was cheap to you. Like, that was a lot of your hard earned money, and you did it joyfully. [00:18:36] But it just doesn't perform. It doesn't last. [00:18:40] It just doesn't work out for that person. Then it creates more chaos in their lives. And another thing in the landfill, and it's just too bad. [00:18:50] But I've seen too, especially with our team, when we love to just get gifts around Christmas for our team, like a true gift. And you can just tell they was like, wow, thank you. [00:19:08] This is really neat. And they appreciate it and they use it. So it's great to see. Not saying we've nailed all those. Maybe they brought stuff home and put it in their closet and never looked at it again, but hopefully that's how it went, that they took it home and used it, and that's a good part of their life. So I hate to say this, but I don't know if I hate to say this. It's practical. I mean, if all else fails, get a gift card. [00:19:40] If you just can't figure it out. I hate the idea of giving money or cash, but if you're going to go somewhere like that, get a gift card. Because do the same concept, like brand up reputation. [00:20:00] If you think they like this type of stuff, they can shop at this type of place. Get them a gift card. That I mean, a lot of these places really know Macy's or whatever it is. They have a lot of stuff, and they have high end brands to lower end brands, or however you want to call that. But the best you can. It would be cool to find a more under the radar brand, not a huge brand to get them a gift card to that is more curated for what they like, but they carries really nice things. [00:20:33] So get them a gift card to one of those types of places, maybe someplace that maybe they don't even know them, that they never would have shopped of at before. [00:20:41] But yeah, at a brand that they really love, maybe don't even know about, but it's a category they love, and they would just be really excited to be able to get something there. [00:20:56] So we've kind of put your budget in mind for all our spending for the year. [00:21:03] We maybe even did that more person base, and we kind of set some borders around how much time we're going to spend. [00:21:10] And we've listened to the people the best we can, took mental notes, maybe even wrote them down. [00:21:21] And now we think we kind of know the area that they would like maybe some items. [00:21:28] We've chosen to go for quality and timeless design rather than size and quantity. [00:21:40] And we've probably branded up like, we've gone reputation, locality, story, whatever it is we've branded up. And we're going to get things that last longer, work better, have a more timeless aesthetic, things like that, or maybe we couldn't quite figure it out, but we know where they would really like to shop and we've got them a gift card. The next thing would be presentation. [00:22:09] So I'm not sure how everybody else is out there, but for me personally, like a really nice box, which a lot of the nice brands have with a story or something like that. When you open that, I don't know, it is part of the experience and it's awesome. It feels great. The people that really do it well, it's like wow, this is something. And it makes it feel much the moment much more special, your gift much more special. [00:22:38] So hopefully they have a good box but also how you wrap. [00:22:47] And for my wife, Hannah, she loves presentation is almost bigger than the gift and it's a really big deal there and she loves presenting things beautifully to people. That's why she's so good at everything she does here and styling photo shoots and our aesthetics and doing things at the office and talking about trade show, all kinds of but so presentation is big. So I never became a professional gift wrapper and I'm pretty sure if you asked Hannah, she would say she'd rather have it professionally wrapped by somebody who really knows what they're doing rather than I do my half ass job. And you might have some people out there that would rather see that you put the effort in. So I'm not saying, I guess do hardcore one or the other, but give a nice presentation. If you did a gift card, then get a really nice card to go with it. [00:23:52] Have a great and you can even make things like more unique there with a really nice paper, really nice note, maybe another small item that goes with it as they open it. [00:24:07] Maybe that's your fancy pen or something. [00:24:11] But that would be be creative with a presentation. Make that part of the experience and make it beautiful, make it timeless the best you can. If you're not good at it, use somebody that wherever you got it. That's what's great about shopping in stores during the holidays. A lot of times they will wrap them for you and at the nice places they will have nice wrapping and thank you all you that do that. So definitely take them up on that. Pay for it if you need to. [00:24:41] A lot of times it's just like a donation to some local charity. [00:24:45] So part of that is definitely writing a nice little note would mean a lot. I mean, when we think about at the rope company, we love all of our vent, all of our customers, we sell to a lot of brick and mortar stores and we want to let everybody know how much we appreciate them and would love to get everybody like really nice gifts. But that can get kind of weird and seem like you're bribing somebody. And also it is very expensive, like when you start talking about a lot of stores. So we want to be fair to everybody, too. [00:25:30] What we love to do, we don't always get everybody all the time, but we love to do handwritten notes because especially nowadays where everything is very impersonal, it's just emails and texts and zooms and everything else. I guess there's different levels of personal there, but to take the time to handwrite a nice note and all the effort to get the card, put it in there like that all takes a lot of time. [00:26:00] And that's not something we want to give up a lot here. And that's a very thing we want automatic nowadays. But to sit down and write a nice note, it doesn't even have to say a lot, but write a nice note in a nice card that says volumes. So I highly recommend you do that, whether it's super close family or somebody you hardly know, just something nice. How you appreciate them goes a long, long ways. And yeah, just make sure it's sincere. [00:26:34] Just don't make it some kind of fluffy whatever. Just make sure it's authentic sincere. [00:26:41] No building them up if it's a lie or something like that. [00:26:46] Just authentic sincere. [00:26:49] Everybody has gifts and strengths and things that you can really point out that is good about them. [00:27:02] Find those things and encourage them and let them know what they mean to you. [00:27:12] Yeah, there we have it. [00:27:16] We want to have the holidays, right? [00:27:22] We all have that cozy family, being around the living room fire, watching football or having nice meals, just a nice joyful time together. And a lot of times you hear that that's not how it is, and there's tension. [00:27:41] And then also getting all the gifts for everybody, everybody's running around and feeling chaotic and many times overspending. [00:27:49] So let's try to make this just a peaceful, orderly time for all of us. I mean, doing things ahead of time. Obviously, you all know people that are a lot better at it than others. I've always been very last minute, but I've been getting better, making effort to get better at that all the time, and I have been. [00:28:16] And we want to get things for people that if we're going to get something, I don't think it's all about stuff, but if we're going to do it, let's be really intentional about it. Let's get them something they otherwise would not get for themselves and that they can really use and that will work well for them, or they'll appreciate something that'll be beautiful and helpful. And another thing I didn't want to talk about, I know during this time that with all these sales going on, a lot of people are just shopping for themselves to get good deals on things. And I want to say a couple of things about that. [00:29:03] Take advantage to save money. [00:29:09] Be intentional about that. [00:29:11] We need this, whatever washer dryer, whatever it might be. [00:29:19] And I'm going to wait till this Black Friday or whatever the sale is going on to get this item. Or maybe it's a high quality thing, something you've always wanted from this brand. And this is their one big sale of the year. [00:29:31] Awesome. Do that, but just take a little time. Just like, this is what I'm going to spend. These are the few items. [00:29:42] Don't just wait for Black Friday or whatever these are and just see whatever the deals are and just start clicking and buying. [00:29:50] If you're going to go into some situation like that where you just want to see what the deals are and get the best deals you can, I guess I just would not recommend that in general. But if you're going to do that, just, I guess set a budget for it. If you're shopping for others or for yourself, just put limits on it. [00:30:13] I don't know how many deals, great deals I've gotten in my life. [00:30:19] And then I'm like, well, that was awesome deal, but I really can't afford this. So it was not a good deal at all. And the Black Friday, all these sales, for the most part, not everything, but these are pretty much the items that everybody's trying to empty out for their year end, just to turn over the new stuff for next year. This is all the stuff that not everything. [00:30:46] But just be aware of this, that the huge price drops. [00:30:52] The more desperate they are to get rid of something means it probably means the least people liked it. [00:31:02] It could very easily mean lesser quality. [00:31:06] For some reason, people did not buy this when they're trying to get rid of it. That's the idea. They're trying to empty this stuff out. Like nobody's selling these. These are slow movers or we're going to next year. We got to bring the new stuff in. [00:31:18] It's very likely that it could be less quality, so just be very wary of that. [00:31:24] Now, just because something was a 2023 item and something new is coming in for 2024, but they're trying to empty out the 2023 items, that doesn't mean it's poor quality. [00:31:39] We have to do that sometimes. We just made too much stock, and we can only have so much stock. And we're just like, hey, we want the new stuff to come out. And we just put some of our items on sale, doesn't mean that the item is less quality. It might just mean we basically would just mean we forecasted too many. None of the stuff is going to make your life better. [00:32:02] And if you overspend, it's definitely going to make it worse. [00:32:06] So just be very careful of that and really try to make the holidays about others, not about yourself. [00:32:14] And I need that reminder, certainly. [00:32:21] So be thinking of me, praying for me. But yeah, just really, we want you, we want everybody just to enjoy this holiday and do it with order and as much peace as they can and enjoy the others around them. Try to make the others first be intentional and just continue to go for quality and I don't think you can miss thank you for listening to this episode. If you like what we are doing here at Slow Goods and want to see us grow, please support us by sharing it with someone who may also enjoy it. We would also really appreciate your support by subscribing following liking wherever you can find us on any of the platforms, whether it be anywhere you listen to a podcast or YouTube or Instagram or something like that. We'd love to hear from you, what you really liked, how can we improve who you want us to interview and we would just really appreciate any of that support and advice and encouragement. So thank you very much.

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