Gift giving is not about changing a person's life forever, or shouldn't be. Its making them smile on the day. That's it. If they're entertained or please I knew what they liked or just hungry, I've succeeded and the gift has succeeded.
I have no birthday, and I don't celebrate gift giving holidays. I don't want any presents, and I won't reciprocate.
I do apprechiate postcards and holiday cards though, but I don't generally send them and I'll feel a little bad about that. Maybe one day, my heart will grow three sizes and I'll start sending a handful of cards.
This seems to cause friction though, and maybe represents some kind of personality issue. I don't know why I'm like this or what it might mean though.
For the record, I did secret Santa a couple of times. First time went to a ton of effort to send a nice, appropriate thing (House of Leaves colour hardback) and got nothing. Next time though I sent some crappy thing and received a giant box of Simpsons socks. That was actually really cool.
Maybe I'm biased, but if expressing your non-consent of celebrating something about you that you didn't chose causes friction, that's not your personality issue. A desire to give everyone presents even if they don't want them is the personality issue.
Receiving a present creates a social obligation to deliver a present later and may also be a conflict of interest. My spouse was an elected official (board of supervisors of a tiny government agency) and it was great because I had a concrete reason to refuse gifts; anything from not close family over a tiny threshold had a reporting obligation, and anything over a not so big threshold was prohibited; nobody wanted to participate in reporting, so no gifts.
