What to do when you receive an unexpected holiday gift
An unexpected holiday gift can be a great surprise, but it can also make you feel anxious and guilty if you can’t offer anything in return.
postscript. A new survey from Wells Fargo shows that young people on their holiday gift lists want money or gift cards instead of physical gifts, but they feel uncomfortable asking.
A year-end gift survey of more than 2,000 people found that 45% of Gen Z and 42% of Millennials prefer digital payments, compared to 27% of Gen X and 10% of baby boomers. USA TODAY exclusively published the study for the first time.
“I feel like we’re a little influenced by our parents’ generation in the sense that we’re taught that[asking for money]is bad,” Steve Selfridge, director of product management at Wells Fargo, told USA TODAY. However, when I asked young relatives in their teens to 20s to answer honestly, they said, “They want money because they can do whatever they want with money.”
Physical gifts remain the most popular presents
According to Selfridge, when giving money, there is a slight disconnect between the emotions of the giver and the receiver.
Giving a physical gift remains the most popular, with 65% of those surveyed saying they prefer to give a physical gift and 55% prefer receiving a physical gift. 54% of people prefer to give gift cards and 56% of people prefer to receive gift cards.
But when it comes to money in cash or digital form, that number drops a bit, with 34% of people preferring to give cash or a check and 18% prefer to give digital payments like Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, and CashApp. Among gift recipients, 48% said they would prefer to receive cash or check, and 29% said they would prefer to pay digitally.
There are some differences between generations of gift givers. 32% of Gen Z and 28% of Millennials are willing to give digital cash gifts, compared to 11% of Gen X and 7% of Baby Boomers.
It’s embarrassing to ask for money as a gift.
Despite the desire to give and receive money as a gift, both people still feel awkward.
More than half (57%) of gift givers said that sending digital cash “makes it feel impersonal, like you didn’t put any effort into the gift,” and 49% of recipients strongly agreed that “I’m happy to receive digital cash as a gift, but it feels weird to tell the gift giver that.”
Selfridge says it’s very difficult to tell someone if they can actually use the money or if they just want it as a gift.
Still, 65% of adults surveyed agreed that they appreciate receiving a digital cash gift because it gives them the freedom to choose what they really want, and 65% also agreed that receiving a digital cash gift is convenient because they don’t have to worry about wrapping, mailing, or shipping the gift.
Roughly one in three, or 36%, agreed that they would appreciate receiving a digital gift because they don’t like most physical gifts they receive during the holidays, and 32% said they would like to give money digitally as a gift, but aren’t sure if it would be socially acceptable.
Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Contact her at blinfisher@USATODAY.com or follow her at @blinfisher on X, Facebook and Instagram and @blinfisher.bsky.social on Bluesky.. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, breaking down complex consumer and financial news. Subscribe here.
