Ask or Guess

Good morning, Five Minute Families! So, a very important question here less than two weeks before Christmas... does your family write out Christmas gift lists to share with each other? We’re not talking about the letters to Santa for the younger kids, though that is an element, but an actual Christmas list for each member of the family, no matter the age? One family I knew had each person write a list and then everyone in the family and extended family choose something directly from the list. No surprises, just exactly what you wanted. Another family I know, drops hints all year long and each hopes to be pleasantly surprised on Christmas morning. In fact, our family has never done a Christmas list of any sort, but a post and thread on Reddit made me start wondering if that was the best practice we could use, since we have had some disappoints through the years, by both the giver and the receiver. Here is a lightly paraphrased summary of one part of that Reddit thread: “Ask Culture meets Guess Culture. In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get ‘no’ for an answer. This is Ask Culture. In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or someone is simply being polite; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept. All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you’re a Guess Culture person, then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you’re likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated. If you’re an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression. Guess behaviors only work