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Good morning.

This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is to decide on a gift of the year.

You can make gift giving easier on yourself by being more streamlined,

but you can preserve a lot of thoughtfulness too.

My guess is that if you are the sort of person who listens to this podcast, you want to

give gifts that people will love. You also don't want to spend huge chunks of your life

hunting through the entire universe of gift options. If that is the case, you will probably

benefit from having a default plan.

Just as I have a basic structure for each before breakfast episode, so I don't sit down and say,

hmm, how should I begin things today? It can be helpful to add structure to your gift giving.

For instance, you can always give one particular thing for people's special occasions.

I know of a couple who give every young couple that's getting married, whatever betting they

have registered for, no deliberating over gifts, and no need to remember what they gave anyone else, or whether it was

equivalently priced. You put sheets on your registry? That is what this couple is going to give you.

You can do something similar as we go into the holiday season. Decide on a gift of the year. Choose something you like that you think

others will like too, and then give it to most of the people on your list, in some form or another.

So, for instance, if you like those LL bean boat bags, and who doesn't, give them to everyone on your list.

You can vary the specifics by person. The family that loves picnics gets a big, open-topped bag,

...