It's that time of year when I get stressed about getting Christmas gifts for my family. Is it just me, or does it get harder all the time?

I'm fully aware that this is an extremely first-world problem, and that Christmas gifts are just part of the consumerist machine that is destroying the planet. I also have a sample size that's limited to basically me and my wife. There are also confounding variables, like maybe this is one of those things that just gets harder as you get older. But let's see, anyway.

I don't even have that much Christmas shopping to do. A few years ago I called a ceasefire with my extended family, to put an end to the farce of buying one another junk year-on-year that we all knew neither party would really want, because we hardly see each other. So other than three children in the family (comparatively easy to buy for), it's just my wife, parents, and my sister and her husband.

The trend lately within the family has just been providing explicit lists, complete with links, of what we might want for Christmas. This is the easy path. But both my wife and I find this unsatisfying. The adage “it's the thought that counts” only applies if there has been any, well, thought. Another strategy has been doing this by less direct means — asking the spouse of the recipient for a list. This might preserve a little more of the surprise element for the recipient, but it still removes the thought requirement from the giver, and instead burdens the spouse with doing the thoughtful work the giver should be doing. Or, inevitably, the spouse just asks the recipient, so the overall effect is the same.

The last couple of years, my wife and I have tried to avoid using these lists, with mixed success. It just seems to get harder. I think there are a few reasons for this, based on the changing ways we consume. One factor is the simple fact of analysis paralysis — there's too much choice thanks to online shopping. It used to be that — absent of any nice finds you'd picked up through the year with Christmas in mind — you'd pick a weekend, go to a department store or shopping centre, and look around for things a person might like. You'd see a relatively limited range of products, displayed in an enticing way that clearly communicates “this would make a lovely Christmas present for someone”, and match the products to the person. Now we have access to pretty much unlimited products, all displayed in a uniform way as little square photos on a website. Nothing jumps out, and the choice feels overwhelming.

This online convenience all means that, if the recipient is even just slightly affluent, they probably have access to most of things they want that the gift giver can afford. Take even the classic men's gift — socks. Since ordering socks is just a few clicks away for anyone, it's not a particularly welcome gift any more. Because even with something as ordinary as socks, it's not just “the thought that counts” — as Oliver Burkeman points out in Four Thousand Weeks, really, it's the effort, and ordering socks is now virtually zero-effort.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in media. It used to be that if an artist had a new album, or you knew your giftee had enjoyed a film at the cinema, you could pick it up on CD or DVD as a failsafe gift. Now, most people use streaming services, so these are no longer on the table (thankfully, for music, my family is generally quite into vinyl, so there is still some scope here).

The two main things that I feel still make decent gifts for anyone are books (even though no one reads them, they're still nice to get), tickets (though this can get very expensive), and consumables (whisky, candles, and chocolate). But over the years, my dad has had a lot of whisky, my mum has had a lot of candles, and I've had a lot of books (which I didn't read). And while whisky and candles are delightful, we're once again failing the “thought that counts” criterion.

Maybe it's just me, and actually everyone else is finding that e-commerce has made Christmas shopping as easy as promised. But I suspect not.