Recently, I've heard of people getting gifts from NPCs that they've become friends with on a regular basis. Personally, I've gotten a gift on all of my characters, but only once in the game. On my first character Lydia gave me Wine. On another, Idolaf Battle-Born gave me Nord Mead. On my most recent one, Jarl Balgruuf gave me a whole lot of Black Briar and Honningbrew Mead.

My question is, what triggers these gifts? And how many gifts have you received?

I thinks its random. One of them gave me a cabbage once. Ironically, it was that cabbage I dropped and people started fighting for it.

It was the legendary Beggar's Cabbage! One that would force common people to fight over it because they all ignored the Beggar.

Hehe. Actually, the fight was between two of the richest men in Riften inside the Bee and Barb.

My god... the curse is alot worse than I thought, or they are just greedy for cabbages...

I assumed the gifts were random, but there must be something that triggers it. I doubt it's coincidence that I always get gifts once per character at about the same point in the game. :/