I used to look down on giving people gift cards — until 2 of the best gifts I've gotten made me rethink my stance

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• I used to get annoyed when people bought gift cards for gift swaps. 
• Then, I received a gift card and purchased a dress I love. Another one sent me to a romantic hotel with my husband.
• Now, I see how gift cards align with my values and give them myself.

Last year at our family Christmas swap, I picked up a box that was suspiciously light for its size. We have a rule: Once you touch a present, you're committed. I realized I had been tricked — picking a big, beautiful box that, I now suspected, held just a gift card. 

A few years ago this would have annoyed me greatly. I enjoy finding the perfect gift for people I love. For gift swaps, where the recipient could be anyone from my teenage cousins to my great-aunts, I embrace the challenge of finding a unique gift that would be appreciated by everyone and anyone. 

I put serious time into finding the right gift, so when people wrapped up gift cards, I felt a flush of annoyance. It seemed like an easy out. One year, my brother even asked to forward me a digital gift card after I unwrapped an IOU. The only thing that could be worse was scratch lottery tickets, I thought. 

But last year, I unwrapped that big, light box to find a gift card I wasn't expecting: one for a night at a hotel in the mountains. A few months after Christmas, my husband and I utilized the gift card for a romantic night away, and it was better than any other Christmas present I've received. 

I received 2 of my favorite gifts through gift cards

The hotel certificate wasn't the first great gift I'd gotten using a gift card. A few years earlier, through a gift swap with a different group of relatives, I wound up with a $25 gift card to a shop I hadn't heard of. 

But, when I went online, just after Christmas, I hit the holiday sales. I found a fantastic dress that I've since worn to a plethora of weddings, graduations, and date nights since. Every time I slip it on, I smile at its origin story. 

I figured the dress was a gift card fluke. Yet when I put it on for dinner at the hotel that we were also paying for with a gift card, my attitude changed. 

I realized it wasn't about the gift cards at all

I challenged myself to think about why gift cards bothered me. Sure, they could seem impersonal, but so could a lot of swap gifts, so that wasn't it. For me, it was the fact that gift cards were so easy. People like my brother could purchase them with the click of a button and not even bother to print them out. 

Meanwhile, I was searching high and low online and in person to find an ideal gift. But why? Gift cards were easy. In many areas of my life, I embraced simple, but for gift-giving I seemed to be set on sticking with a more difficult approach that had the same end result. 

Gift cards aligned with my values

As a parent, I'm always challenging myself and my family to buy fewer things for the kids. During the holidays it's easy to give gifts just for the sake of having more. Unfortunately, many of those gifts then sit unused and unappreciated, until they eventually make their way to the landfill. 

Instead, I've started to focus on gifting experiences. I encourage my loved ones to do the same for my kids. Gift cards fit into that perfectly. I can get my mom a gift card for tickets to see a show and buy my daughter a gift card for a local pottery painting studio. My husband is notoriously hard to shop for, but he appreciates a gift card to his favorite sporting goods store. 

When I embrace gift cards, all these people can be perfectly happy with their presents, with a lot less effort from me. Amid the pressure and obligations of the holiday season, that break is a gift in and of itself.