Christmas Gold Gifts

Decide the household's gifts in one sitting rather than one at a time. Choosing the metal colour once, and choosing from one family of pieces, keeps four separate gifts from looking like four separate afterthoughts when they are opened in the same room.

Differences in substance between the gifts are normal, but they should be deliberate. Where one gift is markedly larger, it is better opened privately than in the circle beside the others.

Keep a note of what went to whom. In a year's time the note is what stops the same person receiving the same idea twice.

The same kind, not the identical object. Two children opening matching pieces at once tends to make each feel they received half a decision, whereas two pieces from the same family in the same metal, differing in some detail, read as chosen for each.

Where the children differ in age, the pieces can differ in scale without either looking like the lesser gift, because the difference has an obvious reason.

Where they are close in age, keep the scale level and vary the form instead. A pendant for one and a bracelet for the other avoids a comparison that nobody wins.

Yes, provided it is small, needs no size and is complete in itself. A pair of studs, a fine chain or a pendant already on its chain is found among the other small things and worn for the day.

It should not be the main gift in disguise. A stocking is opened quickly and early, and a substantial piece found there is looked at for a moment and then lost under everything else.

It works well as a companion to a main gift given later, since the stocking piece can be the chain the pendant under the tree will hang on.

Later rather than first, and not last if last means after everyone has stopped paying attention. The good moment is after breakfast or after the meal, when the paper has been cleared and there is time to look.

A piece of gold opened first, at the start of a long morning, is admired and then buried under everything that follows. Opened when the room is quiet it gets the attention the giver intended.

If several people are receiving gold, their gifts can be opened together at that quieter point, which also makes the moment a shared one rather than a series of separate ones.

Yes, and it is a long-standing tradition. A small pendant, a pair of studs or a fine bracelet is opened on the morning, worn for the day, and then kept by an adult until the child is old enough to look after it.

The piece is understood as a beginning rather than as something for daily use at that age, and it is often the first piece the child owns as an adult.

Choose for the adult as well as the child. A plain, small piece in a classic form suits both ages; a novelty design is loved at seven and left behind at fifteen.

An adult, in most households. The piece is worn on the day and for occasions afterwards, and between those it lives in a drawer or a box that a parent controls.

That arrangement continues until the child is old enough to keep track of it, which varies from child to child and is usually obvious when it arrives.

The piece is then handed over properly, often at a later occasion, and by that point it has acquired the history of having been given at that particular Christmas.

As early as the decision allows, and earlier than instinct suggests. December is the busiest month for every workshop and every carrier, and anything made after the order, sized or engraved needs the longest margin of all.

Work back from the morning rather than forward from today. The question is not how long the piece takes, but whether the whole sequence, including any adjustment, fits before the day.

Where the margin is gone, choose something that exists already rather than something made to a specification. The difference in the piece is usually smaller than the difference in the anxiety.

Put a card under the tree describing what is coming, and let it be opened with the other gifts. It is a perfectly good Christmas gift in its own right, and most recipients enjoy the anticipation.

The piece itself then becomes a second, smaller occasion when it arrives, opened when there is time to look at it properly rather than among everything else.

What to avoid is silence. A recipient who receives nothing on the morning and a parcel a week later, unexplained, reads the sequence as forgetfulness rather than as a plan.

Choose against the season rather than with it. Pieces in seasonal colours or seasonal motifs are put away with the decorations; a plain piece in a form the recipient already wears goes into daily use.

The occasion is the giving, not the object. A piece does not have to look like Christmas to have been given at Christmas, and the ones that do not are the ones on the recipient the following year.

Where a seasonal reference is wanted, a card or a note carries it better than the design does. The note is kept with the piece and read again; a motif on the piece is what keeps it in the drawer for eleven months.

The terms that apply are stated with each order, and they are worth reading before the gift is wrapped. Pieces made to a specification, sized or engraved are usually treated differently from pieces taken from stock.

The giver makes an exchange easy by keeping the box, the packaging and the order details, and by saying when the gift is given that a change would be no trouble.

That sentence matters. A recipient who has been told an exchange is welcome will say the ring is the wrong size; one who has not will wear it on the wrong finger and say nothing.