18 Occasions, And When To Actually Order

A Milestone Birthday

Order ~10 weeks ahead

The 40th, 50th and 60th are the birthdays where the recipient already owns everything they actually need, and everybody buying for them knows it. That is why these parties produce a table of wine, candles and gadgets and one thing that gets remembered.

A Wedding Anniversary

Order ~10 weeks ahead

The traditional anniversary list puts silver at twenty-five years, which is the single most useful piece of gifting trivia there is — it hands you both the material and the meaning without you having to explain either.

A Retirement

Order ~10 weeks ahead

A retirement gift is usually chosen by a committee and paid for out of a whip-round, which is exactly why it so reliably ends up being a watch, a decanter, or a plaque with the wrong font on it. There is a budget and no single owner of the decision.

A New Dog Or Cat

Order ~8 weeks ahead

The first weeks with a new animal are the period when its owner will show you photographs unprompted and describe its personality at length, which means you have unusually good reference material and unusually enthusiastic reception.

A Promotion Or Work Milestone

Order ~8 weeks ahead

A work milestone gift is the one that lives on a desk in an office where colleagues, clients and the recipient's boss will all see it. It is the only occasion on this list with a guaranteed daily audience.

A New Home

Order ~8 weeks ahead

A housewarming gift enters a house where every surface is still being argued about, and it will be judged against a scheme that does not exist yet. It is the only occasion where the recipient literally has empty shelves waiting.

A New Baby

Order ~10 weeks ahead

A new baby generates an enormous volume of gifts that are all deliberately temporary — clothes outgrown in weeks, toys outgrown in months. It is the only occasion where the gift can be aimed at a person who will not appreciate it for twenty years.

Groomsmen & Best Man

Order ~12 weeks ahead

Groomsmen gifts are bought in sets of four to eight, which is the only occasion on this list where you are buying the same decision multiple times and where one recipient will inevitably compare his to the best man's.

A Wedding

Order ~12 weeks ahead

A wedding is the one occasion with a published list of what the couple want, and going off-list is a deliberate act. It only works if the off-list gift is clearly not a substitute for a toaster.

A Graduation

Order ~10 weeks ahead

Graduation gifts are given at the exact moment the recipient is about to move house, which is why so much of what they receive ends up in a parental loft. Anything bulky is being given to the parents, whether or not that was the plan.

A Baptism, Confirmation Or Bar Mitzvah

Order ~10 weeks ahead

A faith milestone produces a table of gifts that are all sincere and nearly identical, because the whole room is drawing from the same small set of symbols. It is the occasion with the highest ratio of good intentions to distinguishable objects.

A Memorial

Order ~10 weeks ahead

A memorial gift is the only occasion here where the recipient did not ask for the occasion, and where the wrong gift causes actual harm rather than mild disappointment. It is also the only one where arriving late is often fine, because the anniversary comes round again.

Losing A Pet

Order ~10 weeks ahead

People who have lost a pet are typically given a paw print in clay and a card, and they usually already have four hundred photographs of the animal on their phone. What they do not have is the animal in three dimensions at the right proportions.

A Coach Or Mentor

Order ~10 weeks ahead

A coach or mentor gift is usually funded by a group of people who were each shaped by the same person at a different time, which means the gift has to represent a decade of different relationships rather than one.

Christmas

Order ~12 weeks ahead

Christmas is the only occasion with a fixed national date and a production queue that gets longer as it approaches, because the number of hands in the workshop stays the same while the orders stack up. Order in early October, not December.

Father's Day

Order ~10 weeks ahead

Father's Day is the occasion where the recipient has spent years actively insisting he does not want anything, which has trained everyone around him to buy socks, a mug, or a barbecue implement he already owns two of.

Mother's Day

Order ~10 weeks ahead

Mother's Day runs on flowers, which are beautiful and dead within nine days. It is the one occasion where the entire default category is deliberately temporary, and where a permanent object therefore stands out disproportionately.

Valentine's Day

Order ~10 weeks ahead

Valentine's Day is the only occasion where both people typically buy for each other on the same day, which means your gift is not competing with a shelf of alternatives — it is being compared directly with exactly one other gift.