NEW YORK — Gift givers are getting ready to cut.
Against the backdrop of record high unemployment and other financial struggles, people are taking out their holiday gifts lists and finding themselves having to cross off friends, relatives and co-workers this year.
“Like the rest of the world, this economy has me cutting almost everyone off the gift list,” said Trish Bonsall, who lost her job as a sales manager for a new home builder in June. “In the past, it was a very long list. This year, we’re cutting it drastically.”
For Bonsall, 51, of Charlotte, N.C., that means losing all but about six people — her four sons and their significant others — from her list of 35.
“Christmas is my favorite season. I like to buy presents,” she said. “It hurts.”
A survey earlier this fall by market research company NPD Group found that 27 percent of people said they would cut their personal or business lists this year. But when gift comes to shove, not everybody can go through with it. Marshal Cohen, NPD’s chief industry analyst, expects about 19 percent will trim the list.
To avoid hurt feelings and awkward situations, experts advise, be kind and tell the truth. If you must buy a gift, come up with something less expensive, like a holiday lunch, says gift expert and author Robyn Spizman.
Whom to cut. When it comes to friends, Spizman suggests cutting people you don’t see any more. Instead, send a card with an offer to get together.
If you live nearby, invite the person over for dinner.
When it comes to family gifts, you can skip grownup gifts and buy only for children, or draw names for the adults, so each person buys and receives one gift. The same can be done for children, by drawing names for, say, all the cousins.
Part with a possession. “Maybe this is the year you pass something down that was meaningful to you — a baseball, a comic book,” Spizman says. Or she suggests giving four or five books to help someone start a library or a piece of jewelry.
Lend a hand. “Long after the fruitcakes are forgotten, people remember true help,” Spizman said. “They remember when you repotted the plants at their front door when they no longer have the energy, or the soup you brought, because you made that by hand.”
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