The most important thing in the exchanging of gifts is it shows that you really know the person well, and you really care about them," said Ryan Howell, a psychologist at San Francisco State University and co-founder of beyondthepurchase.org.
That generally means tailoring the gift to the recipient. For example, Howell told Live Science, research finds that people who want to buy meaningful gifts don't buy the same gift for two of their friends — even if those friends don't know each other, would never compare the gifts and would both enjoy the same item.
It's also important to consider practicality. A 2014 study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that gift givers focus too much on the desirability of potential gifts and not enough on how the recipient might use those gifts. In one study, gift-giving participants tended to choose gifts that were desirable but impractical (e.g., a gift certificate for an expensive but faraway restaurant) rather than those that were more practical but less desirable (e.g., a gift certificate for a closer but cheaper restaurant). But the participants who were receiving the gifts actually preferred the more practical option.
In other words, gift givers shouldn't choose presents based on what they would like to give but rather on what the recipient would really want to receive. [Avoiding Identity Theft: 10 Tips for Online Holiday Shoppers]
Gift giving "is an expression of truly seeing the other person and knowing what they want," said Allison Pugh, a sociologist at the University of Virginia who studies consumption.