When Christmas morning arrives and they look for that box among the piles, maybe they’ll realize that their silence has had an effect. How great would it be to be a fly on the wall in that house?

“Where is it?” you can imagine them asking.

Where is it? You never noticed when it came—how it is you notice when it doesn’t?

My mother reached that point with a relative. She never heard a word after the gifts stopped, and she was sorry she hadn’t stopped sooner.

At the same time, giving people something you know they’re going to love is thrilling, and when it’s acknowledged it makes you closer to that person. Thank-you cards are an opportunity to tell the giver how happy you are to be considered, and to tell them how much they mean to you. It’s a lovely part of social life.

Alas, I am afraid the thank-you note and even the ritual of gift giving are on the outs these days. I’ve heard of these things called “no-gift parties”—wedding invitations that say things like “No presents, please,” or funerals that request that mourners donate to a charity instead of sending flowers.

I’m just baffled. Why would you want to derail people who have a good impulse? Don’t people who are getting married need things? Charity should be part of the whole year. Everyone should give back. But weddings, like birthdays, should be a really special occasion. If there are no presents, why bother having a party? You can see your friends anytime.

Children especially need to receive presents. Not only do they want them—and why shouldn’t they—but presents are good for them. When they open presents in front of people, they learn how to be gracious, even when they get something they don’t want or when they get two of the same thing. (Not that there’s much chance of that these days—there are so many different kinds of toys now. I was looking at the Toys “R” Us catalogue. There were four pages of Legos. My inner child almost fainted.)

All that said, I have to tell you a secret: I am the worst gift recipient in the world. I have a closet full of unopened gifts. I’m in denial about them. I should probably seek therapy for it. I love showering other people with gifts, but I don’t want to get them.

To clarify: With people I know, I’m pretty good with thankyous. It’s when strangers send me things that I freeze up. The obligation such gifts raise in me outweighs the joy they provide.

So to all the strangers who have sent me gifts: a great, belated thanks to you all, and I’m sorry I was too overwhelmed to respond before now. I love whatever it is, and it was so generous and sweet of you to think of me. Now please take anything else you might want to send and give it to someone more deserving.

Why, you may ask, don’t I just pass along all those unwanted gifts to others who may enjoy them? Well, I learned the hard way that regifting is dangerous. When I was at Parsons, there was a going-away party for a coworker I had been extremely fond of at one time but then came not to like very much. I was planning to sit out the farewell fete, but some colleagues insisted I go. I was very reluctant but finally agreed, and I thought I would just go to my gift closet and find something appropriate to bring her.

I found a silver Tiffany pen. It seemed perfect: not too personal, but nice. I’d been given it when I judged an art contest among the employees of the Port Authority. It had been a great event on the sixtieth floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, a long time ago.

At the party, I presented her with that beautiful little blue box with the white ribbon, and she was delighted. She opened the box and pulled out the pen with a smile on her face. Then she said, “Oh, look, and it’s engraved, too!” As she read the engraving, her face fell: “Best wishes from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.”

It was very embarrassing. And yet, once the first flush of shame had passed, I thought it was pretty appropriate. I didn’t want to go to the party. I didn’t want to bring her anything. And so even though I went, my true feelings crept through. In effect, my elegant Tiffany pen bitch-slapped her. That’s a situation where I should have just trusted my instincts and stayed home.

I’ve been on the other side of this kind of faux pas, too. When I was living on Perry Street in the West Village, there was—and I believe still is—an annual street fair called the Perry-phernalia Block Party. My neighbors Bea and Jerry Banu and I always sat together out on the stoop. In fact, Jerry was in charge of the event. One year, as my dear friend Bea was setting up her table she declared, “I’m going to get all the jewelry I don’t like,” and she came back out with a box full of things I had given her!

“I’m glad to know you don’t like this stuff!” I said. “Now I can stop giving it to you!” She was mortified, but I said, “Don’t bring it back inside. It’s done. Forget about it. Maybe now they can find a happy home.” It’s good that I don’t have an ego about these things.

And I was serious about being glad to know. I know it’s not proper to tell people when they have terrible taste or to specify what you’d like for the holidays, but sometimes I wish I could.

My mother to this day buys me socks and underwear—and in the wrong size, no less! I am fifty-seven years old, and she still buys me things in a size L—large. No matter how many times I tell her, “Mother, I’m a medium. I always have been!” she doesn’t listen. And every year I have to return what she gets me.

One time she bought me a shirt that came in a Lord & Taylor box. I went to the Men’s Department to exchange it for another size, and they said they didn’t carry the item at all. I called my mother to tell her, and she gasped. “I got it at an outlet,” she said, blushing through the phone. “I just used the Lord and Taylor box.”

When pressed on her dubiously successful gift giving, my mother just gets defensive. “You and your sister and your niece and nephew are so hard to buy for,” she told me recently, “because you have no interests.”

“What? No interests? Wait a minute!” I said. “Just to speak for myself, I am passionate about many, many things. I love fashion. I love design. I love books. I love architecture. I love movies. I could go on! You could get me any book. You could get me a DVD. An Amazon gift card.”

For me, gift cards are fantastic. Whenever I don’t have a perfect, one-of-a-kind gift in mind for someone, I love to give gift cards. Alas, my family says that’s too impersonal. They’re always complaining when I give these cards, saying I didn’t take the time to find the perfect gift for each person. I finally told my sister, “Apparently, my hinting has been too subtle. I get these for people because I’d like to receivethem.”

And they’re way better than crazy objects that I then have to move around my house and hide in closets. Recently, I was given an objet d’art by some friends. They have never been in my apartment, and when I saw what they sent, quite frankly I was insulted. It’s grotesque, and 100 percent not me. I wish I could show it to you so you could see how there is no apartment on the planet, at least none I’d want to visit, where this could possibly look good. It’s ambitiously bad.

Why did these friends feel I needed that piece of bizarre sculpture in my life? I was honored that they wanted to give me something, but it’s very presumptuous to get people things that are going to take up a lot of space in their lives unless you know for a fact that they will really love it.

That’s why I find registries very handy. You can see what people need and want and what other people have already bought for them. It takes all the pressure off and makes you feel like you’re getting something that’s really going to be appreciated.

I’ve bought a lot of presents off gift registries, but truth be told, I haven’t been to a wedding in fourteen years. I’m old enough that, by now, people in my peer group have either married or they haven’t. And if they’re doing it for a second time, it’s usually a small event with just a few family members, so I just send a small gift to acknowledge the event.