There is one question however that we need to ask before we start.

"Have you ever been to a reception and found that at least one of the many gifts have been duplicated?"

One wedding shower my wife and I went to showed the bridal couple had been given a toaster by three guests. Although two of the toasters were part of a kitchen set with other pots and pans etc.Yes there was some laughter and some humour to cover up the embarrassment but also some disappointment as well. Apart from that someone was going to have to go round the different department stores with receipt in hand and attempt to do some exchanges. Would you really want to put yourself or your friends/family member into that situation?

But can you get around the problem of duplicate gifts? Or to put it another way.

Do we need to think about makes a truly unique gift that will really mean something?

First of all, your present has to say you have spent some time searching for something that says you think your friend, family member or colleague is special. That means it should not be found in every store in the neighborhood.

Personalization of any gift will make it stand out in the recipients memory whenever they use so you could try to find a personalized gift idea .

There are a lot of unique gift ideas on the market but we need to ask some questions.

* Can you really say the gift you are about to buy someone is truly unique? * Would someone automatically think you had gone to some trouble to find something different to everyone else? * Is it personalized in some way to say that it was bought for that person alone rather than a unwanted gift being reused? * Will the gift last longer than a bouquet of flowers or the bottle of wine that is here today and gone tomorrow? * Is it something that even the person who seems to have everything doesn't have?

Can you really say the gift idea is totally unique in some way? When you stop to think about it very few gift ideas meet all the above criteria.