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Shopping -
Everything Else
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Written by Ahmed Amr
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Monday, 30 November 2009 05:59 |
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Page 1 of 2
A few weeks from now, young and old alike will wake up full of anticipation and eager to unwrap the contents of the colorfully wrapped boxes below the Christmas tree. For many of us, it’s not so much what we get that makes for the magic of the moment, it’s what we give and how the recipients will react to our thoughtfulness, our lack of taste or our tactless sense of humor.
Will Uncle Joe appreciate the flash light that doubles as a bottle opener or will he consider it an indictment of his drinking binges? Will little Danny appreciate the purple Chinese truck or whine about the batteries you forgot to buy? Will your Grandma appreciate the shawl from Guatemala or pack it away in her closet till the Salvation Army truck makes its rounds? Will your dad laugh at the elegant $50 Gucci tie and thank you for the gag gift? Will the missus consider the petite sized coat a hint to lose some weight? Will you have to hand her the receipt and the tag so she can exchange it for the right size? Will she notice that you spent $9.33 to celebrate your first Christmas together?
There’s away to avoid all these potential mishaps - gift certificates. If nothing else, it’s an efficient way of taking care of the holiday business. You can do it all in thirty minutes from your laptop. Just make a list, check it once and wait for the mailman.
Gift certificates are especially handy if you’re sending a gift to a loved one who lives on the other coast or abroad and they’ll save you the trouble of having to stand in those endless lines at the Post Office.
You can buy gift certificates at the mall that are good for a number of stores and that gives the recipient a multitude of choices as to how best spend the money. An additional benefit is that they can get quite a bit of bang for the gift buck in after Christmas sales.
With discretionary income taking a major plunge, it’s a sure way of making sure that your loved ones get something they really need as opposed to something that will clutter their basement.
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