Christmas gift-giving destroys up to a third of what it cost

In 1993, economist Joel Waldfogel surveyed students on what they'd received as gifts and what they'd have paid for those items themselves. Recipients valued gifts 10-33% below their retail price, a pure loss no one gains from. Cash and gift cards, often seen as thoughtless, actually waste nothing at all.

— Joel Waldfogel, The Deadweight Loss of Christmas — American Economic Review, Vol. 83, No. 5, December 1993