Avoiding gift card hell

I have off today and, of course, it's supposed to rain.  That seems to have become the norm for me.  What I have is about a 2 hour window before it starts which is when I'm going to do my running around.  It's Christmas, remember, and there's a lot of crazy traffic out there on the roads.  People rushing from store to store in search of that perfect gift.  Hey, everybody on my list gets candy and that pretty much means 'one stop' shopping.  And nobody complains!  I used to give a lot of gift cards, but then little activation fees started being attached.  My local Giant sells a vast variety.  Hey, we even sell them at the store.  Another problem with gift cards is that they begin to lose value after a certain point in time.  The $50 gift card you buy today may only be worth $40 six months from now.

Why would anybody want to spend $55 for something that's going to lose value?

Retail stores love for you to give gift cards because those people who get them tend to spend more then the face value of the card.  That $50 dollar gift card quite will probably end up netting a retailer $85, or more, in sales.  There is this rationalization among those who get gift cards where-in it's good to use it for the discounting of a more expensive purchase.  What ever happened to giving a gift that was just a gift?  When did the dollar value become more important then that?  I just don't understand that at all.  So, even though it's going to rain today, I will run out and purchase the rest of the candy.  And I will bring it home and wrap it, and tie it up with cute purple ribbons.  Isn't that much nicer then giving someone an envelope with a gift card tucked inside?