Small Ways | Tiny Gifts

Goodness, hope, and love

Feb 28, 2025

Simple. Reachable. Doable. Small ways. They pack enough punch to change your world, or your day. Or maybe, simply and gloriously, they’ll change your moment. Small Ways is a series about small objects, small gestures, small touches. Small ways for living well.

It’s the kind of thing you one day stumble into, and there you are, smiling right up to your eyebrows because you’ve found yourself in the most delightful of circumstances: that of giving and receiving.

In the bands of friendship between myself and two dear women, we’ve happened upon the habit of tiny gifts. Never associated with a big day, big event, or big milestone, tiny gifts are for the ordinary days. They’re for the June afternoon, the September overnight, the February weekend. They’re for when we have a slip of time or a stretch of days together. They’re for after the hugs and how-are-you’s. They’re for saying, I thought of you, here’s a tiny gift.

Interestingly, my friends and I never talked about starting this tiny habit. We’ve never discussed the ins or outs, the whys or hows of tiny gift giving, never hammered out rules or written down regulations, thank goodness.

We simply give.

In anticipation of an upcoming visit, we’ll look through our homes, gardens, and around our worlds with eyes of generosity to see what tiny gifts are waving, ready to be given. A pair of knitting needles. Fresh, homemade salsa. A pouch of flower seeds. Home preserved oranges in Cointreau.* Fresh-pressed cider. A jar of baking soda shared from the over-abundance in the pantry. Flowers snipped from the backyard bed. A packet of sprout seeds that will become the crunch of fresh, tiny greens on late winter lunches.

In an unsure world, in circumstances out of our control, in the wake of injustice and heartbreaking damage, or, even at the end of a plain old day that’s been hard, or lonely, or long, what can we do? We can give. The reciprocity of giving and receiving is our currency with which we build, strengthen, and uphold. Goodness, hope, and love, gift by tiny gift, adding precious weight to the opposite side of the scale.

If ever there was a tiny gift guide, I suppose it would read something like this: Choose something simple, something small, from what you have, or what you can gather. Buy it if you must, but best if not. Most importantly, give. Then give. Then give. Then give.

For the curious, other tiny gifts given & received:

homemade fire starters
apple butter
cotton cloths
smoked salmon
curly wood shavings (that became the above mentioned fire starters, tiny-gifted back)
garden produce
chimichurri
kimchi
maple syrup
Ranch dip mix
basil pesto
yarn
flower bulbs
strawberry rhubarb jam
songs

*The oranges in Cointreau came in a sweet vintage jar. My friend keeps a small stash of them just for gifting things in. I keep a small collection of Weck jars for the doing the same. Other helpful things to keep on hand for tiny gift giving include craft paper gift bags, seed envelopes, and lengths of ribbon or twine for tying a bow.