Giving and Receiving

For the real good of every gift it is essential, first, that the giver be in the gift - as God always is, for he is love - and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of God is but a harbinger of his greatest and only sufficing gift - that of himself. No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best; therefore many things that God would gladly give us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until we ask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts we find him, then in him we shall find all things.

George MacDonald The Word of Jesus On Prayer #92. 

That the giver be in the gift and next that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. We know this even in earthly gifts. There has been a slow but pronounced deterioration in this over my lifetime. Indeed, it was already not very good when I was young. It was wonderful when my mother took her father's banjo-mandolin, with which he had courted my grandmother, and had it refurbished to give to me one Christmas, when I was actively in a band that played some country and bluegrass material. The instrument never lived up to its promise (it was a terrible idea for a hybrid), and I did not live up to the gift. 35 years later I found a better owner and gave it to him. 

I had thought that the ideal was that one gave a gift that showed you understood the recipient, and that the recipient in turn saw what the connection was that it was you who gave it, and that you gave it to him. The personal, communal, and interactive nature of giving and receiving was part of the process. It owes something to Christian teaching of the New People.  Whether it also descends from the Norse admiration for leaders who were great givers of gifts I don't know, but the value at least describes similarly.

Now we seem to be driven to gift cards more and more, as it is unclear what the person would particularly like or need.  We fight against it in this family, but it is a rearguard action.