On The Takeaway, we often have conversations about improvement, or fixing things that are broken. Politics, policy, business, economics, daily life, how we live in our communities. Today, in honor of Christmas, The Takeaway looks at how to improve the holiday gift giving tradition.
The question over how and why we give gifts is central to the holiday season. What do we really value about gift giving and receiving?
Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, says there are ways of measuring the value of gift giving and getting. It turns out that all of the time we spend thinking up special gifts for each person may be wasted effort.
DT Strain, a humanist minister and writer of The Houston Chronicle’s The Spiritual Naturalist blog, has a response to the whole idea of Christmas gifts. Strain is calls for a moratorium on giving presents. He asks for gifts in the form of charity and time.