giving what you would like to receive

last night while at a christmas eve gathering, the subject of gift giving and re-gifting came up.
one very honest soul admitted that she bought a present ( a book)
for her son mostly (entirely?) because she knew that she would be able to read it when
he was done with it.
so in actuality, it was a gift to herself, but with his name on the tag.
most of us have probably done the same thing.
i'm sure that i have.
feeling strongly that this concept needed it's own name,
i dubbed this phenomenon "pre-gifting".

another person told an amazing tale of a friend that gave her a gift this year with the condition
that it be returned to her within six months.
that's a new one on me.
but seemed like it needed a moniker as well.
we called this a gloan (meaning :gift- but -really- a-loan) .

we spent the remainder of the evening trying to come up with a name for a business
for one of the people at the party.
it started off as an earnest pursuit to help jim brainstorm some viable ideas
but eventually devolved into a mostly lewd and lascivious laughter fest. that session of hardcore laughter
was the best present i have received
in a long time (other than my laptop).

merry christmas .
with wishes for a hearty HO HO HO filled new year!