I probably have posted a definition of Thought Presents before. But I wrote out a way to explain it that I think is rather concise (more so than previous ways) and I wanted to preserve it.
There is a saying; The thought behind the gift that is important part.
When you see something or think of something that you would like to give to someone but for some reason it isn’t practical (it is too much, they wouldn’t have room, it doesn’t really exist, etc), you can give them the thought instead.
This is what I call a thought present.
Oooh, I like this concept! Thank you.
It got started when by boyfriend had left his sandman t-shirt at my place. I had washed it and was ready to give it back to him the next day when I noticed Neil Gaiman was doing a signing in town.
This was during the run of Sandman so Neil sightings were really really rare. I bought a white pen (since the shirt was black of course) and went to the comic book store. It was horribly hot out and the line was literally around the block so I couldn’t make it happen.
I gave him the thought present of the signed shirt when I gave him his shirt back.
Many times I have been ever so grateful to get the thought of something rather than need to deal with another object. It has been a blessing that way too.