I'm a thoughtful gift giver (and put a lot of time and effort into selecting the perfect gift), so it confounds me, and hurts a bit, when others don't seem to make any effort at all. I blame our increasingly disconnected society...people are getting more and more self-absorbed, I think. (And by "people", I mean a great number of people, not *everyone*. I don't mean to throw a blanket generalization over the issue.)