The first Christmas that I was with my boyfriend, his family asked for my Christmas wishlist. I was unused to the concept, apart from writing to Santa as a kid. Usually, my family’s norm is to haphazardly guess what each person might want – with a pretty conservative success rate, if I’m being honest. So I was surprised by the tradition of requesting and sharing wishlists – and even more surprised by how much I liked it.
I’m the kind of gift-giver who keeps an eye out year-round for what people might enjoy, picking things up in advance and delighting them with my acuity and taste. Nonetheless, I don’t find the perfect gift for everyone every single year like clockwork, because I am not superhuman. Ever since adopting the wishlist tradition into my own family I find having gift ideas direct from the people in my life is unbeatably practical, massively stress-reducing and satisfying.
When I first broached the idea one November, my family accused me of materialism and besmirching the spirit of giving. But by December, all of them were clamouring for lists. Now my dad just tells me what incredibly specific Home Depot item he actually needs, instead of me wondering whether he’d like Ottessa Moshfegh or wear Lululemon shorts.
Recently, a 33-year-old Redditor made waves on the Am I the Asshole forum by sharing an “anti-wish list”, sick of receiving endless pyjama sets from her mom. While she could have been more diplomatic, she did have a point: we really do accumulate a lot of unnecessary stuff. The holidays can be extremely wasteful, thanks in part to people shopping while bewildered and under pressure; in the US, an estimated 5bn lb of gift returns end up in landfills every year.
Yet there is a certain taboo around wishlists. Some think they’re tacky. But why?
When Dr Julian Givi (yes, that’s his name), West Virginia University professor of marketing, began studying contemporary gift-giving rituals a decade ago, he thought gifts were “basically about making recipients happy”. What he’s learned since then is that the ritual is equally about making the giver happy. “We want to give something that makes us feel thoughtful,” he says.
But studies “tend to find that people generally, perhaps unsurprisingly, actually appreciate gifts that they explicitly request” more than surprises, says Givi. Givers tend to focus on the “moment of unwrapping” – the gratification of confronting someone with our acuity and taste – while receivers are more tuned into what they’ll actually enjoy or use down the line.
Wishlists can also feel openly transactional – both to the giver, who might feel obliged to buy only specific or expensive gifts, and the receiver, who must specify the items. Asking for what you want can feel strange, inducing guilt about making demands, discomfort with revealing our needs and a fear of coming across as rude.
My friend Carine Redmond, a PR professional, tells me her dad always asks for her Christmas wishlist, but finds the lists “weird” to write. “It’s … juvenile?” she says. “I’m not going to be like, ‘I’d like these leggings from Aritzia in an XL and this maternity bra.’ I would never send that to anyone.”
I get where she’s coming from, but in practice, I find writing my wishlist and seeing other people’s lists interesting. Casey Lewis, a cultural insights expert and author of the After School newsletter, monitors wishlist content on social media platforms like TikTok, where posting one’s wishlist items is a huge trend, and Pinterest, where a representative told me searches for “shopping wish list” are up 950% from this time last year. “I understand that there are capitalist and consumption concerns, but for me, it’s just so much fun to see what people want,” Lewis says.
Lewis observes that trends often start with teens and end up influencing adult culture. That applies not just to slang and pant width, but also etiquette norms like sharing wishlists without shame. Gen Z has embraced wishlists in a way that goes far beyond scribbling down a few ideas. They’re making PowerPoints, designing Canva presentations and setting up registries on platforms like Giftful. “There’s no stigma around that any more,” says Lewis. “I would have felt so tacky sending my grandma a registry for gifts. And now it’s kind of the norm.”
Making an elaborate registry for Christmas might be a step too far for older adults. But sharing a note with some ideas is perfectly fine, says Diane Gottsman, etiquette expert and owner of The Protocol School of Texas. “A wishlist can be both practical and helpful when presented in the appropriate manner,” she says. Primarily, that means the list has to be requested: “Sending out a random gift registry to people without being asked comes across as pushy and presumptuous,” she says.
But when you’re exchanging gift lists out of an established, mutual desire to be helpful, it’s totally polite to be specific about details like an item’s brand, size and color. Just be sure to choose a variety of options with different price points without going “over the top expensive”, she says.
If the whole idea still gives you the ick, don’t worry. “There should be no obligation,” to buy something off of a wishlist, says Gottsman. Selecting a thoughtful gift for someone based on your own knowledge and observation of them is a tradition worth keeping, and truly sentimental gestures can never be reduced to a checklist. Yet, as we balance the spirit of Christmas with the reality that many adults know what they need or want – and aren’t looking for extra clutter – a wishlist feels less like a fallback, and more like an act of consideration.
