Ask Alana: Holiday gifts for newlyweds and annoying co-workers

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This week: Whether to give holiday gifts when you’re already buying a wedding present, whether to reciprocate on office gifts, what to get your frenemy for Secret Santa. If you have a question for our etiquette maven, e-mail askalana@latimes.com

Dear Alana,
Our daughter is getting married this spring. The wedding is costing us a small fortune. My husband says not to give her and her fiance Chanukah and birthday gifts this year in addition to paying for the wedding. I want to give them gifts from their bridal registry for these occasions. What do you think we should do?
Janice Murphy, San Francisco

Dear Janice,

I must admit, I am always curious where the money goes when people decide to spend small fortunes on weddings. A 38-piece band with a famed Japanese flutist? Thousands of wineglasses so that you don’t end up doing the dishes? Buckets of gourmet pigs-in-blankets so there’s not fighting over hors d’oeuvres? If I was getting married and hadn’t given my small fortune to a cunning investor/scam artist, I would probably have spent it on either my honeymoon or a lawyer to craft a prenup to ensure my new husband couldn’t touch a penny.

Anyway. Although it’s great of you to put on a nice wedding for your daughter, you probably don’t want to start the new year by giving them a box full o’ nothing under the Chanukah tree. Summer Krecke, deputy editor of WeddingChannel.com, says that “you should still do something to show that you care.” Apparently, spending your retirement fund on a wedding doesn’t speak for itself. Krecke recommends do-it-yourself gifts such as baked goods, cards or IOUs for help moving or other things that only cost back pain and not actual cash.

I don’t think that getting them something from their registry is a good idea. First off, save your money for . . .

. . . yourself, Janice. There’s a recession on. Throw your children off the boat! And second, I firmly believe that parents should not buy things from the wedding registry. If you do, you’ll take all the good registry gifts and leave the other guests to buy something lame like napkins or a plug adapter that will make the newlyweds think, “Why did we add that to our registry? And why did we invite Janice to the wedding again?” whenever they see it.

So stick to Summer’s recommendations, or give them something else that doesn’t cost much. Maybe you can even write a note on the card that refers to the wedding and reminds them that you didn’t buy them a real gift because you spent all your money on that flutist from Japan.

Alana

Alana
Last year, one of our co-workers made small goody bags for everyone for Christmas. Do we have to reciprocate?
Shira Mather, Cambridge, Mass.

Shira,

History tells us that reciprocating when you’re given a gift isn’t always necessary. Did the Trojans give a gift back to the Greeks after they received that awesome horse? Did we give the Statue of Liberty back to France? No and no.

Giving “should not be gift pro quo,” said advice columnist Amy Alkon. If you don’t speak Latin, that means “gift for something.” Here’s the thing: Some people like giving gifts, because it’s the only time they can show off their baking prowess or get rid of unwanted things that have been lingering in their closets for decades. And some people just don’t like giving gifts, maybe because they’re direct descendants of Ebenezer Scrooge. (He ended up having kids, right? Or was that just something my mom told me to make me stop crying?)

It might be tempting to give your co-worker a gift this year, maybe upping the ante a little and giving a slightly larger goody bag. Don’t do it, Shira. If that happens, Amy Alkon predicts of such people that “10 years from now, they’ll be giving each other a car for Christmas.” Have you ever wondered who the heck would actually listen to those holiday car commercials and give each other SUVS with big red bows for Christmas? Now you have your answer: people who got a gift bag from their co-worker 10 years ago and kept upping the ante till there was nowhere left to go.

Alana

Alana
I know who my office Secret Santa is and I hate him. I would prefer
to never speak to him, talk to him, much less be his Santa.
Can I trade?
Diane Chambers, Hollywood, Calif.

Diane,

I think you are looking at this the wrong way. In the words of Texas evangelical preacher Charles Swindoll, “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” I think what Charles means is that it’s important to make the best of everything. And if you can’t take holiday advice from a preacher, who can you turn to?

This seems like a perfect time for you to get your co-worker a present that says, “I hate your guts. Happy Holidays.” Excellent gift choices might include Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which says, “You have no friends.” Or a bottle of Disney cologne, which says, “You smell bad but are immature and thus should use cologne designed for toddlers.” Or what about a Christmas sweater, which says, “This is the kind of clothing I think you like”?

See, Diane? You could trade Secret Santas, but then you might end up getting a gift for someone you actually like. This way, you don’t have to spend too much time gifting and can instead spend the days before Christmas watching TV or eating cookies. Duck out at the last minute to buy something that shows your co-worker just how much you care.

Alana