Best Gift Ever

This is a really clever present for a child or young adult

First a disclosure: I’m not super into gift-giving or gift-receiving.

Lest you think I’m some kind of ogre (inert ogre-y noise here), I do love together time.

And helping people.

And the look of surprise on my kids’ faces when I give them something they’ve been wanting for a long time.

The gift of giving

The best present I ever received was a gift I gave to myself: A challenge to give 50 meaningful presents to OTHER PEOPLE to celebrate MY 50th birthday.

And I’ve also never met an indoor plant I didn’t love. Or an organic date-sweetened milk chocolate bar (I just made that up. Not sure it even exists).

Just in case you were wondering about a gift to give me...

But I digress.

Back to why I’m not a fan of gifts galore.

My 86-year-old dad (Dad, are you reading this?) used to say, “Space is money.” I’m not sure I knew what that meant when I was little but now that I’m over a half century old I think he was right.

We think things will make us happy.

And, yes, the endorphin spike you feel from partaking in retail therapy (aka shopping when you’re feeling blue) appears to be real.

But those feel-good hormones don’t last. In fact, researchers from UCLA contend that the more material things we have in our homes, the more stressed out it makes us feel.

Believe it or not, people—especially women—who live with more clutter have higher levels of stress hormones like cortisol in their blood.

Clutter is a bummer

But wait, there’s more.

There’s also a strong association between clutter and depression, according to a 2016 study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

But, despite all of this, we live in a gift-giving culture.

There are birthdays! And Christmas! And Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so help us all.

So what’s a person (parent) who wants the people in her life (her kids) to feel special to do?

The brilliant gift idea

(that I can’t take credit for since I think I first saw it somewhere on social media suggested by someone else…)

Here’s my the brilliant, non-gifty non-clutter-y non plastic-y gift your kids will love.

This is a present you can give anyone between the ages of say, seven, and seventy-seven.

It works best for kids old enough to understand the pun and young enough to still be wowed by money.

Enter the money pizza.

What’s a money pizza?