how to get good last-minute christmas gifts

Stressed and struggling to find the perfect gift for someone this season? In this video, Melissa explores the art of gift giving and tries to be a better gift giver.

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SOCIAL MEDIA
Sabrina
Melissa
Taha

CREDITS
Produced by Melissa Fernandes
Video Editing by Joe Trickey
Motion Design by Sabrina Cruz

MUSIC

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Melissa is a bad gift giver and is stressy
01:44 Why We Give Gifts
03:09 Melissa does very normal things to get gifts for her friends
06:36 Paying The Bills
07:56 sleuthing mode engaged
09:24 Melissa should have planned better
10:17 Melissa spreads joy, question mark
13:19 a mushy end to a mushy video

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Welcome to the joke under the fold!

What paper product speaks really quickly? Wrapping paper

Leave a comment with the word WRAPPED to let me know you were here ;-)

[answerinprogress]

I hope you enjoyed that video, leave a lil comment for the ~ algorithm ~ and tell me about the most memorable gift you’ve ever gotten. Have a safe a happy holidays <3
- Melissa

[Forrestianum]

I actually write down gift ideas throughout the year. Makes things a whole lot easier, plus I sometimes stock up way early, especially if there is a sale, so by the end of the year my closet looks like Santa's secret hideout.

[Qwety]

Adding to that idea of "getting something they wouldn't buy themselves", I think allowing someone to indulge in a way they wouldn't normally, like the valorant gift card, cool snacks, ect. is a great gift. It's something that a person might want, but be afraid they are wasting money if they buy it for themselves. Having it as a gift completely removes that burden of guilt for indulging in something you really enjoy.

[OtakuLoki]

One of the best gifts I ever got was while I was in the Navy, stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean. A friend sent me a note, and included with the note were two fall leaves. It was a very small thing, but felt huge.

[Ruxinator]

In first grade (I think it was first grade?) I remember I was gifted a DVD of Monsters Inc. (it came with a specialty toothbrush as well). I remember it very clearly because it was the first time I felt like a mature person who owned a thing. Like seeing it in among my parents' movie collection I always would know that that movie was "mine" and that that meant something about me.

Kind of silly looking back on it, but I just remember that feeling being very visceral. I was like an adult because I owned a movie.

[AntonWongVideo]

Don't be afraid of the sentimentality of gift giving, Melissa!

*EMBRACE THE MUSHINESS!!!*

[creativedesignation]

The best gift I ever received were kitchen utensils and some furniture for my first apartment. The person who got it for me got most of it for free (which I was actually very happy to hear, because it was a lot of stuff) and anyways it wasn't the best gift, because of it's monetary value.
It was the best gift, because she knew my parents didn't care for me, so I had no one to get these things for me and she felt that I should have someone to help me with that and decided to be that someone.

[FlynnTheRedhead]

Love how perfectly Melissa can ride the line between being sentimental and being grossed out by being sentimental

[nandankulkarni]

I missed the cicada emergence this year and was bummed about it, so my friend preserved one of the cicadas and gave it to me in a test tube. Honestly such a thoughtful gift

[krank]

I feel like a lot of anxiety around this would just be… solved if we collectively just decided to not stop writing christmas wishlists as we grow older. Just write the damn list, make sure all the people you're gonna swap gifts with have access, and things will work out. If you come up with something unique and fitting that's not on the list, GREAT. But if not, you still have a fallback list of stuff the person will appreciate. And also know not to get for themselves until after christmas/birthday/whatever..

[alexfrost]

The two best gifts I ever got was from my BFF and then my entire group of friends.
Last year a couple of weeks before my birthday I got a targeted add and found a books series from my favourite author that I haven't read before. I sent the screenshot to my BFF, joking that now my life goal was to collect all of the books in the series. Books are pretty expensive, so I planned to maybe get one book every year for the new year. But on my birthday my friend group showed up at my doorstep with a giant gift bag filled with half of the books from the series. It was a fantastic birthday present.
And once on my birthday my BFF gifted me a professionally printed out version of a story I wrote, with my illustrations and comments (He asked to see my drafts and I decided to put in some comments in before sending it to him so that he'd have a more fun time reading through it, I actually thought he was just asking to see it out of curiosity). I almost cried, it was the most thoughtful gift I ever got.

[suericata]

I find that giving experiences or building memories together is the best gift, especially if the gift reciever is a minimalist.

[freyak]

I love how this channel now has 3 hosts that are so amazing in their own way. I don't find myself preferring one or another, you guys are all great and it adds so much to the channel to have the 3 of you working together.

Also, the most memorable gift I've gotten was probably an amazing painting my brother found while cleaning out a house.
Worst gift I've ever given: I gave my sister a comb for her birthday when I was 6 (not even a brush, just a comb)

[ayellowpapercrown]

I can’t be the only person who doesn’t like giving gifts because the mere thought of gifting something the person hates makes me wanna crawl out of my skins and die. Doesn’t make me happy or make me excited, just make me anxious from start to finish. I still get cringe attacks from bad gifts I’ve given in the past.

[MichiruEll]

One of my favorite gifts was a simple hand-drawn birthday card from a girl in my class in first year of high school. I didn't think we were particularly close, but she took the time to make that card for me and write a lovely message. Fifteen years later, she is still one of my best friends

[BeeKnown]

My family has a tradition that we drink orange juice and eat croissants from the supermarket for breakfast whenever someone has a birthday. super basic but when i moved out of home the thought of having breakfast on my birthday alone made me really sad and i thought it would be weird to buy those things for myself and i mentioned that to a friend ages ago and then she bought me orange juice and croissants for my birthday and it was the most thoughtful gift!

[snowshinobi]

I say this as a person whose anxiety and trust issues makes her resent gift-giving culture with the passion of a thousand fiery suns ... this vid helped me understand the genuinely touching reasons someone would gift me something. Receiving things will always feel like incurring a debt to me, but knowing that there's sentimentality there ... makes the immense gift-guilt I get a bit easier to handle. Thanks, man.

[DemetriPanici]

I’m a minimalist and I’ve had a hard time for a while with receiving and giving gifts. Thank you so much for this!

[nobody]

My goal with gift giving is to make the receiver smile, even for a moment. I'm generally garbage at finding something that's both in budget and they legitimately want/need (outside specifically asking them), so I aim to surprise. So far that method hasn't let me down.

[byslo]

A box of 24 letters with prompts to read at a specific moment/phase/emotion I’m feeling. This gift was from a really close friend 💛