So, I'm an ask person. Oftentimes, I don't even sing "Happy Birthday" to people unless I know they appreciate it, because my experience is people seem to find the burst of concentrated attention more offputting than they enjoy the well-wishing, and thus I have little desire to take part.

One consequence is that I generally don't give people gifts on occasions. That doesn't mean I don't give gifts- just that I don't give something to someone unless they have a readily identifiable need that I can fill. And so my parents, who have gotten me something without fail every Christmas and birthday, have only received one return gift, which they immensely enjoyed.*

But, for various reasons I'm trying to become better at traditional social things, and so last night while thinking about this and my impending vacation home, I thought "I ought to get my parents gifts." Of course, there's nothing they need at the moment- their planning has beat out their bad luck so far, leading to them being rather well off, and their wants are moderate enough to be satisfied- but when I rephrased the question from "what can I buy to genuinely improve my parent's lives" to "what can I buy to signal I know their tastes" I immediately came up with answers for both of them. It was sort of shocking how quick it was. Finding suitable instances of those imaginary gifts may not happen soon enough to act on those thoughts, but beyond that I'm not sure I want to change my dynamic; we're practical enough to be holding our Thanksgiving celebration a week late to beat the traffic, do we really need to signal our affection expensively? But it's worth trying at least once.

*After the switch to digital TV, they were no longer able to watch Scrubs reruns, a cherished nightly ritual, and so I bought them the season DVDs. The opportunity presented itself only because I knew they wouldn't be willing to buy it for themselves.