I like to give my ATF's a nice warm coat.

Do you give providers a Christmas gift?  

I just read a review where someone gave a provider an ipod with speakers as a present - actually, the review is from November so it wasn't even Christmas.

Is there a point to this post, providers are people just like anyone else.  Why would it be unusal to give a person that someone liked a gift?

WVS, the point was simply to ask a question and some opinions.  I'm wondering how many of TER reviewers give gifts like an ipod with speakers to the providers.  IMO, the providers provide a service and are paid for that service.  It's a transaction - that's how the provider views it and how i believe most of us view it.  (I'm sure there will be some providers that say that there's a connection or more to it but you're not given free session because of that connection...).  

Goal isn't to flame or to be provocative.  Just want to hear different opinions.  Maybe my premise is wrong...

Whether I give a friend a gift and what that gift might be is really a private matter and shouldn't be of concern to anyone else.  Ditto when a provider chooses to give me a gift.  I don't babble about what I bought grandma, my lawyer, my boss, or anyone else, and I don't think it's necessary to somehow make any exception for what may or may not happen when one of the persons is a provider.

And I've had a couple give me gifts on my birthday & Christmas as well.