A gift guide for those who already have everything

As if buying gifts weren’t already an Olympic sport, complete with hurdles like budgets, ideas, limited options, and a chronic lack of time, I often run into the hardest challenge of all: what do you buy for people who seem to have everything and can afford anything they want? My guiding principles are attentive listening, creativity, the element of surprise, and occasionally, overpaying for things. But given that the first is almost impossible these days when the time we spend with people we love is reduced to birthdays, and that I’m admittedly lacking in the second, I tend to fall back on surprise and overpaying. What does that mean exactly? Let’s say you’re buying a gift for someone we all know. Let’s call her Barbara. Besides looking like a million dollars and therefore needing very little skincare, Barbara has no problem treating herself to every new thing that catches her eye online. What Barbara doesn’t have is time.

And that’s where my approach comes in, smooth as a Luka Dončić three-pointer. Barbara isn’t familiar with many of the things I find incredibly fun to give as gifts. For example, she doesn’t know about an anti-stress decision-making gadget, a sauna hat, or the fact that tic-tac-toe exists in a 3D version. Those are exactly the kinds of things that can genuinely surprise her. Barbara is also sensible. She’s not going to spend €200 on Missoni face towels, nor will she buy a Saint Laurent camera. Which is why, when the final seconds of pre-holiday madness are ticking down, that option becomes a wild card worth playing.

But of course, let’s not forget the most important thing of all: these are just small gestures for the people we love, and the most beautiful gifts are always the ones that aren’t material at all.