It’s that time of year again: that gruelling period where you try to find the perfect present for the person whose tastes you either don’t know well or don’t understand, or who might already have the thing you’ve considered buying them.

Or it may be that you’re the sort of person who flounders the minute you walk into a gift shop, instantly fearing you’re drowning because there are too many potential bad choices and gift-clichés like this poor father faced today:

Now there are some people who probably love Christmas shopping, keep an eye out for the perfect gift all year and have a stock-pile in their ‘Present Cupboard’ (I believe these are actually a thing) ready for any contingency. If you’re one of these people, this article isn’t for you.

But for the rest of us, I may just have an alternative:

#115 Give Christmas Shopping a Surprise Twist

Why not — and hear me out on this — advise the person you’re planning to buy a gift for of the price range you’d like to pay and ask them to buy their own present, wrap it up and give it to themselves in your presence!

That lovely surprise element that is part of the fun of Christmas gift-giving is still there, just inverted. Now, it’s the Gift-er who gets the surprise, not the Gift-ee. The Gift-er has given a present that is truly wanted and the Gift-ee experiences no disappointment, no having to exchange the item on Boxing Day, and no need to fret about re-gifting it later without the Gift-er finding out.

I know, I know. This is so simple you’re wondering why it hasn’t become a tradition already. So am I!

Last year, I gave the woman who cleans my house a Christmas cash bonus, and she sent me this lovely photo a few days after Christmas:

This was thrilling to receive. In a million years, I wouldn’t have known she had lusted after ‘Birks’ for months and that my present could tip it into becoming a reality for her.

It wasn’t until I did the same thing this year and realised I got as great a thrill at seeing what she really wanted as she did buying it

that the penny dropped!

Had I ever heard of Le Labo from Grasse — New York‘s eau de perfume natural spray? Of course not. There was Buckley’s chance I’d have landed on that present left to my own devices, but with this new system, both of us are truly happy. This is what Christmas giving is all about. I’m happy, you’re happy, retailers are happy!

Never again will you gift a friend The Complete works of Mills and Boon only to discover they’d have preferred a first edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Nor will you have to endure horrified and sorrowful looks when you give them an adorable kitten only to watch them immediately start sneezing.

So there you have it, an easy solution to end-of-year angst:

Inverted Christmas Shopping

Just in time for … next Christmas.

You’re most welcome.