Like many a longed-for gift, it was, in possession, unwelcome.

"Nobody gave me what I wanted for my birthday! Nobody! What sort of presents do you call these? New shoes, a green sweater and a bunch of stupid toys!"
"What were you expecting?"
"Real estate!"

The present is far from gift-wrapped.

Like a 'Fuck You' for Christmas, his gift is a curse

I was a Christmas present that was delivered unwrapped.

A gift is the transfer of a good without an explicit specification of a quid pro quo. The good can be a tangible thing or money, but it also can be intangible, as in the form of time, attention, information or knowledge. A present is a gift and so may be the attention that one person ‘gives’ another, or the time that a person donates to an art institute as a volunteer. Usually a gift entails reciprocity: the giver expects something in return for the gift given. Friends expect friendly gestures in return for their friendly gestures; donors expect some form of appreciation or another; and those who give presents at Christmas expect to receive presents in return. The key to understanding the phenomenon of the gift is the nature of the reciprocity involved.

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.

. . . gifts have a way of coming to those who do not desire them

I had no genius, no mission to fulfill, no great heart to bestow. I had nothing and I deserved nothing. But all the same I desired some sort of reward.

(Tatiana nervously looked down at the present.) "Thank you". Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper.

I don't think you can very well give people as presents: they might not like it.

I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.

The next time you face something that is unexpected, unwanted and uncertain....consider that it just might be a gift.

A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery — as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source.