Christmas Wedding Gifts
Indians rock at the wedding gift-giving thing. In fact, I think the Indian version of giving wedding presents is far superior to the typical American way. This belief of mine is based on the one Indian wedding I’ve attended – my own – so it’s not exactly statistically sound. But I think my experience is enlightening, nonetheless, and I’m told it’s fairly typical.
Last Christmas, exactly a year and four days after our civil ceremony in the
Of course, the timing also meant that I couldn’t spend the holidays with my culturally-Christian family in California, exchanging gift cards (Best Buy for Aditya, Borders for me), and watching various younger cousins, nieces, and nephews play with the cardboard boxes their toys came in. Still, I consented to go to
Shall I start with the reasons why Indian wedding gifts are excellent?
Number One:
Indian weddings can last several days and have over a thousand guests – tiring, yes, but it also means days getting gifts. Maa and Baba (Aditya’s father) took pity on their shy daughter-in-law, and chose a ceremony that would only require me to be on center stage for a couple of hours with a few hundred guests looking on. The day after the wedding – Boxing Day for those keeping count – we had a modest reception, at least by Indian standards. We ended up receiving gifts for about four days in a row: wedding items in the days before the ceremony from family members, then gifts from guests after the wedding ceremony and during the entire reception. And our wedding was on the short side!
Number Two:
The guests actually give the gifts. Instead of placing all of the presents on a table off to the side, as is common in American weddings, Indians walk up to the bride and groom to hand them their gift. For better crowd control, there is typically a designated area where the bride and groom will be waiting to meet their wedding guests. For instance, Aditya and I had proper thrones:
While I was not thrilled to remain the complete center of attention for so many more hours after the wedding ceremony (see how my eyes are glazing over in fear and jetlag in the photo?), I do think that the throne idea is a good one. We were able to meet everyone at the wedding, exchange at least few words, and get a quick picture in. And because guests came up to us in small groups I could be briefed on who they were and how to greet them by Maa or Aditya.
Number Three:
Money is a seen as a perfectly acceptable gift. In fact, you can even explicitly tell guests ahead of time that money is preferable, as Maa did for us since luggage space is always tight. So practical! As an economist I can also appreciate that giving money tends to decrease the deadweight loss that results from getting a present that cost more than you value it at. (Of course, the story on deadweight loss is more complicated than the rediff article makes it out to be). Money gifts in India are typically given in envelopes made for occasion. Here’s a few we kept:
Although not pictured here, many envelopes come with a place on the front to glue a one Rupee coin, since it’s considered inauspicious to give money in even denominations.
Number Four:
Here’s the one that sends Indian gift-giving out of the ballpark (a right proper sixer for all you cricket fans): thank you cards are not required or expected in any way! Since the guests actually handed the gifts to us (mainly to me, actually), we were able to thank them on the spot. And, really, that’s much more personal than a barely-legible card produced in a marathon afternoon of note writing.
Lastly, Number Five:
Indians just pick really good gifts – at least for me! Except for a few culturally ill-informed pieces, which I’ll discuss in a future post, all of the (non-money) gifts we received were either beautiful pieces of artwork for the house, or lovely saris, shawls, or jewelry for me. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff, that I’m still ooohing over – especially since we’ve finally got everything unpacked and arranged around the house.
It was actually Aditya who got the bad hand as far as presents go – he missed out on the Christmas gift card craziness with my family, but was given only one gift - a very nice watch - meant for him at the wedding. Well, he also received a money envelope from one Uncle who was a close friend of Aditya’s father. Uncle’s years had brought him plenty of wedding experience, and perhaps a little clairvoyance: “This envelope is for you, Aditya, since all the other things will be for Gori… from now on.” Truer words were never spoken - being a daughter-in-law in Aditya’s family is a pretty sweet deal.
…of course, what Uncle didn’t know that there’s a Best Buy quite close to our house, and a lack of Christmas gift cards didn’t keep Aditya from purchasing a “wedding gift” or two for himself. So I guess we’re all winners in the end, at least as far as presents go. Except for those poor suckers American newlyweds writing thank you notes. Next time have an Indian wedding!
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Comments
From the bits I’ve picked up, Chinese gift-giving seems to be as practical as the way Indians give. I’m all for practicality! Thank you cards are nice, but no more so than a thank you in person or over the phone, as far as I’m concerned.
My brother’s wedding was similar in terms of sitting and having the guest greet them etc. His wife is Thai though. Another similarity is my brother got married first with a civil ceremony and then they had their Thai ceremony about a yr after.
I am jelious now, I HATE writing Thank You Cards…
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I have always been fascinated by Asian traditions in gift-giving. They often seem SO much more sensible than our seemingly “I’m embarassed to give or accept anything” based customs. In my family the “no thank you card for things given in person” rule always applied and I am always a bit irritated that it doesn’t in my husband’s family…