I abhor the question, what do you want for your birthday, for Christmas, for anything.
It's the equivalent of asking someone what they'd like to eat instead of cooking them a meal. There is something particular about sitting down at someone's table and finding that they planned it, shopped for it, thought about what you'd like. The food doesn't even have to be very good. The effort is visible in it. Say just order tacos and all of that disappears.
Gifts aren't for needs. If I want something, I usually go and buy it. A gift is supposed to delight me, to make me feel seen, to close some distance between us. Being asked what I want opens the distance instead. It tells me you'd rather ask than notice.
So I deflect. I think I once answered peace.
And when I don't deflect, something arrives that I asked for, and it's fine, and I don't think about it again.
The answers I get are the same. I don't know. Don't get me anything. Just give me a call.
My father says he wants to see the grandchildren on WhatsApp.
I used to file that with the others. It isn't. It's the only straight answer anyone has given me. He named exactly what would delight him, and I can do it, and I do, and he says it makes his week.
But it asks something of me rather than of my wallet, which is probably why I didn't hear it as an answer for so long. And I'll admit the rest: it still doesn't feel like giving him anything. I want to send him something.
That may be the real problem with the question. Not that people won't answer it. That when they do, the answer is often something you can't wrap.