Gift-Giving

I recently started thinking about gift-giving, and how strange our "traditions" have become.  I may be romanticizing my childhood, but I seem to remember times when people didn't ask for gifts or expect gifts, but a family member or friend spotted something just right for them and gifted it anyway.  Gifts were about thought, and surprise, and the general expression that you think enough of someone to see something, be reminded of them, and buy it for them.  

Now, we send long lists of things we want.  We expect someone to give us a gift if we buy one for them.  We agonize over how much someone might spend on us, worried that we have to spend an equal amount on them.  We ask for cash, or gift cards.  We expect gifts in the first place.

Doesn't this seem odd?  It's like gift-giving has lost its beauty, its surprise, its thought.  Sure, it's tougher to find the right gift for someone when they haven't given you a list, but it's a great chance to ask yourself what you actually WANT to give to a person you care about, not what they have explicitly stated a desire for.  If you can't think of a single thing you'd like to give someone, why are you buying them a gift, anyway?  It's not a requirement, and shouldn't be expected.  

I am guilty of messing this up, and I hope to correct it...

Gifts should come from the heart.  That's my point.  Not a list, not expectations, not duty.  Just from the heart.