The power of small gifts

Happiness: my wife laughing and smiling because of my gift. No, it wasn’t a Birkin bag, a Rolex watch, or expensive jewelry. The smile was elicited by the simplest of presents: I gave her Archie comics. Weena had told me that, as a child, her favorite pasalubong or small gift that she’d receive from her parents when they’d get home from work were Archie comics. Part of the reason for that was that, at the time, during the martial law years, these comics were a bit hard to come by and so getting them was a real treat. So when I saw some comics at the magazine stand in Shang mall, I had it get them for her.

My own favorite pasalubong from my parents was invariable the edible kind. My parents weren’t the most verbally expressive folks, particularly in regard to affection for their children, but they’d show it in other ways, particularly by bringing us little tokens, like our favorite food when they’d come home from work.

It was simple fare, usually cheeseburgers from Tropical Hut or, later in the mid-‘80s, chicken from KFC. Kids nowadays take KFC for granted since the chain has stores every couple of kilometers but during the ‘80s, if I recall correctly, there were only a handful in Metro Manila so getting a barrel of KFC chicken, in those old styro barrels, was like receiving a special gift.

In fact, even when my parents would travel abroad, their pasalubong was mostly edible. And you’d know where they came from by the food they brought home. If they had vacationed or worked in Saudi Arabia, the goodies would be pistachios, beef or turkey salami, and dates — boxes and boxes of the stuff. Coming home from a Hong Kong trip, they would have a tin of Mrs. Field’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. A trip to the US would mean M&M’s and Snicker bars by the box-full. Of course, my children now cannot understand why these would be special treats because we can get all of these items from the supermarket. But the pre-globalized world had its charms as well and part of it was not getting imported goods so easily, which meant you appreciated them all the more. A Hershey’s chocolate bar as pasalubong might bring a smile to my kids but when I’d get one of those in the ‘70s or ‘80s, I’d be positively beaming! And I wouldn’t eat it all in one go. The chocolate bar would be consumed deliciously slowly — a few segments at first, then stashed away and made to last for a day or so.

The favorite pasalubong of my young kids are books and writing materials, which gives an indication of what kind of family we are. We are a family of bookworms, and proudly so. We love to read and my eldest son, Santi, who has autism, loves to write and play with his colored pens. I think that precisely because all manner of foodstuff and treats are easily available because of globalization, particularly food, my kids don’t really get excited about receiving M&M’s or a packet of Skittles. So they prefer books, which are still not so easy to come by, despite the proliferation of National Book Stores, Fully Booked, PowerBooks and other outlets.

Actually, what’s more important is the giver and receiver, not the gift itself. One of the best examples of this is something I experienced in school. A suitor had secretly tied some very colorful — and I think somewhat expensive — balloons on a female classmate’s car for her birthday. After classes, as we walked outside of the school building, I witnessed my female schoolmate get angry and upset, instead of being surprised and happy, because of the suitor’s gesture. Although I know that she wasn’t at all attracted to this suitor, personally, I thought the balloons were a sweet touch and so, to me, her reaction seemed a little ungracious. More so because I had seen her being effusive with her thanks when she received some local chocolates from a guy that she really liked. Thus, a handful of Choc-Nut from the apple of your eye is worth far more than the most expensive trinket from someone you dislike. Also, gifts can be dangerous things because they can reveal how much the receiver values you.

This is why I’m not a big fan of expensive gifts. There’s always that danger that you spend a lot of money on an expensive watch or gadget to be given as a gift and the recipient will just absolutely hate your gift. You might have totally different tastes or the person might already have that specific watch or gizmo already. This is why, whenever my wife asks me what I want for my birthday (which is on Oct. 2, I’m turning 41; I’m officially middle-aged!), I always tell her to just give me a budget. That way I get to buy what I really want without any hassles or worries on her part. And it’s always a modest budget because I’m not really into expensive stuff, I usually end up buying moderately priced clothes and some books.

Affordable and thoughtful gifts or pasalubongs are so much better because 1) they’re far more easy to accept since sometimes you feel embarrassed if a present is too expensive; and 2) if the right amount of thoughtfulness is exercised, it often ends up as the perfect gift. I think it is unfortunate that people, when giving pasalubong items or presents, take the lazy road and just buy branded or expensive things, plugging into the materialistic mentality of contemporary culture. I call it the “Designer Bag” mentality. Husbands slave away to save up for some extravagant handbag, which will, of course, be appreciated, but what the wife really wanted was something special and very specific to her that didn’t cost as much as a down payment on a car. It might have been a reservation at her favorite restaurant or a day of spa treatments. Simply put, a real gift requires some thought and effort, much more than it requires a bunch of zeros at the end of a receipt. Like the Archie comics. Of course (and I’m patting myself on the back here), I had to remember the details of our past conversation about my wife’s favorite pasalubong. That small bit of effort made the gift far more special than if I had just bought, say, some expensive chocolates. Yes, she’d like the chocolates, I’m sure; but, for that specific moment, Weena would still have preferred the comics.

Walt Whitman once wrote, “Behold, I do not give lectures or little charity. When I give, I give myself.” This is also a big part of genuine gift-giving. With our gifts, we should give kindness and thoughtfulness, even love as well. The Tropical Hut burgers from Mom and Dad conveyed their affection and concern for me even without uttering a single word. That is why I remember and appreciate it still after three decades.

Sesame Street has a wonderful cartoon sketch on what constitutes the best kind of gift. I don’t know the real title of it but I remember it as “The Alligator King.” The Alligator King asked his sons to give him a birthday gift and, of course, he received costly and precious gifts like diamonds and rubies. He received so many of these gifts that he fell down under the weight of them. His youngest son, who had no gift, simply lent him a hand to get back on his feet. And so the king announces that the youngest child’s gift was the best. He sings, “You didn’t get me diamonds and rubies but you helped me up when I was down.”

Finally, these little pasalubongs do have the power to lift others up. That is why I encourage my friends and family to take the effort to buy pasalubongs before going home from work. Especially with family, often it is difficult to find the occasion and the comfort level to tell family members that we care for them. So by giving small gifts, even comics or cheeseburgers, we convey the affection that we may, at times, fail to express in words. And when we give these tokens we give, like Whitman, not mere trinkets or portions of food but instead, in the deepest sense, we give of ourselves.