Gift Giving

Hello, I find gift giving to not be my skill. Other people seem to do so well, knowing just the perfect thing. My family did not exchange luxury gifts, but leaned more to the practical. However, I remember the feeling of being able to give my mother a “pop up toaster”. We three children pooled our money to be able to do that. Our old toaster was a type where the doors on both sides came down and there was no automatic to it. It had to be watched to determine when the bread was toasted on one side, the bread turned and toasted on the other side. Frequently the bread burned as my mother worked doing other things to get a meal on the table. My mother would be moved to swear or curse, not too much. It would scare me as she fumed about the smoke in the house along with the wasted bread. Jewels might have been nice, but the automatic toaster was much appreciated. Even though these were not luxury items they almost become that when there is no money to be used for such an article when you already have one that works. Most of the people I gift today do not really need anything. I am then at sea in a possibility of hundreds of things to get, but what would be best? Or then there is the case of Leroy, many of the things he might want are best procured by himself because I do not know what is right such as stamps for his collection. Paula