We wrap up our series this week by looking at the love language of receiving gifts. This is appropriate because we’re all thinking about the gifts we will be giving to our loved ones in the next few weeks.

At some level, everyone enjoys receiving gifts. Gift giving is a part of every culture around the world, although some of the customs vary from place to place. For example, in some Asian countries, when you are offered a gift, you are expected to refuse it a few times in order to avoid the appearance of being greedy. But in many other places, this might be considered rude.

No matter where you are from, gift giving is a way of expressing love and appreciation. Solomon seems to acknowledge this in the book of Proverbs when he says, everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts (Prov. 19:6). That’s because everyone enjoys receiving gifts.

But for some of us, this is our primary love language. It needs to be said that this doesn’t make a person shallow or materialistic. It’s just how they’re wired. For some people, receiving a gift communicates more than words of appreciation or physical touch. It says loudly and clearly, You are loved.

We pointed out a few weeks ago that we tend to express love to others in our primary love language. But the whole goal of this study is to learn how to express love to someone in their primary love language. So gift giving will probably require a bit of a learning curve if receiving gifts is not your primary love language. But according to Dr. Chapman, gift giving is the easiest love language to learn.

This is good news for someone like me because gift giving is not my love language. If I were ranking these 1-5, it would probably come in at #5 for me. Which means that there have been times in the past when I’ve not been the best gift giver.

In the past, I wouldn’t want to buy flowers or chocolates for Sunny on Valentine’s Day because it was “expected.” I’d go on a big rant about how Valentine’s Day is just a made up holiday and how Hallmark and Hershey got together and decided to push this fake holiday on us. I didn’t really appreciate gift giving because it wasn’t “my” thing.

But even when I would give someone a gift, I wouldn’t always put the most thought into it. I have truly given some lousy gifts to my loved ones over the years. When we were teenagers, I once gave my best friend Lane a Christmas gift — but instead of wrapping it in wrapping paper (like a normal person), I put it in an old ratty pillow case. Thankfully, he didn’t unfriend me.

If you think that’s bad, I think I might win the prize for the all-time worst birthday present from a husband to his wife. I didn’t get her jewelry or clothes or something nice like that. I got her tickets to the Tennessee Valley Vipers arena football game at the Von Braun Center here in town. I thought long and hard about it and thought that the best way to show my love to my wife was to get her minor league arena football tickets. Pretty lame, right?

So if you’re like me and you’ve struggled with gift giving in the past, the good news is that gift giving is one of the easiest love languages to learn.

Here is the formula for successful gift giving:

Thoughtfulness + Generosity

These are the two key ingredients if you want to grow as a gift giver.

Thoughtfulness is sort of obvious, I guess. You have to be thinking of someone in order to give them a gift. The gift is basically a symbol of that loving thought. In fact, we have a saying: It’s the thought that counts. That’s true, but the problem with my arena football tickets is that they weren’t quite thoughtful enough. It’s the thought that counts, but some thoughts are definitely better than others.

The thought has to be followed up by action — that’s the generous part. Gift giving doesn’t require that we spend a lot of money. Gifts come in varied forms: some are expensive, others are free. But gift giving does require us to exercise a bit of generosity. The gift must be purchased or it must be made, requiring a degree of time and other resources.

Some of my favorite gifts I’ve received over the years didn’t cost much in terms of dollars. What makes them special to me is that these thoughtful, generous gifts came from people I love dearly.