The Art of Giving
Not long ago I handed someone a gift, and almost immediately I felt the urge to mention it to a mutual friend. I caught myself. Telling would have missed the whole point, and it would have undone the thing I was actually trying to do.
Think back to a time you played secret Santa. The quiet pleasure of it came from staying hidden. You got to watch the surprise and the puzzlement cross someone's face when a little package turned up at their door or on their pillow, and they had no idea who left it. That anonymity was the good part.
Giving can satisfy more than receiving does. I know a kind woman who, whenever she speaks to a group of children, slips each of them something they weren't expecting: a candy bar, maybe a dollar. You can see what it does for her in her expression and hear it in her voice. She doesn't have much, yet she parts with what she has and wants nothing back.
That is real giving, when you offer something and no return crosses your mind. Part of the joy is the surprise itself, sensing the right moment to hand a person exactly what some instinct tells you they should have.
A present handed over with strings attached isn't really a present. A true gift carries no conditions. The person giving it won't feel any happier because it was received with gushing thanks than if it went unappreciated, or even got tossed aside.
Receiving has its own rule. When a gift arrives, even one you didn't want, offered in good cheer and goodwill, the decent thing is usually to take it gladly in that same spirit. Most of us already understand this with children. A small child hands you a pebble or a flower, and you treasure it, because it is love, and because the child chose to give it to you instead of keeping it.