I absolutely hate gift cards...the gift that says "I didn't want to put any thought into what to get you but I had to get you something."

especially to sephora!!

One of my stepdaughters gave me a gift certificate to Amazon.com, where I got a really pretty cuff bracelet that nobody else would have thought of buying...





I don't like it when people buy me stuff that is either too small, or not my style and I end up giving it away, causing me to feel guilty because someone basically wasted their money.

You have excellent taste in gifts

about gift preference. I LOVE getting gift cards -- much better than some item I don't need or won't use/wear.

My mother has absolutely no idea what to buy me RPG-wise, so--after years of not getting anything in that category--she decided to get me gift cards for the local store. They've certainly come in handy.

We had a gift giving exchange with neighbors who turned out to be corrupt. Before I understood how devious they were, they had started a gift exchange tradition with our family. It only lasted two Christmas seasons. The second year I was serving on the same board as the father and I was beginning to realize that something about his leadership was very off. Unethically so. The first year we were extremely tight on money so I went to every Toys R Us and toy store in the area looking for just the right gift. I nailed it for both kids. I bought one perfect gift for the girl, which happened to be on clearance. For the boy I went full price, spending twenty bucks. For me, it was worth it to see the look of gratitude on their faces. They weren't faking it. I don't remember what my kids received, but whatever it was, that first Christmas exchange was a pleasant memory.

The second year the father and I were beginning to bump heads. I was beginning to understand he was unethical and it was a difficult time. "Fortunately," I caught a terrible flu and had to send the kids and my husband to the gift-giving exchange without me. My kids came back with their gifts. They were given the same gift. I recognize them as those cheap hand held toys that are in the bargain bundles in front of the drugstores: buy one for $9.99, get the second one free. They both were given the same rudimentary computer game. And by rudimentary, I mean worse than Pong. My blood froze when I saw what it was. It was Hang Man. A game where you have to guess the word and each time you guess the wrong letter of the word, a section of the scaffold and hanging man gets drawn in.

It took me a long time to figure these people out, but I can tell you now my full impressions. They thought they were so clever when they ridiculed someone right in front of them, because they figured the person was too dumb to figure out they were being insulted. On one play day, when the girl was being too kind to my daughter, the mother told her, "You are year older than she is. There can only be one dominant one. You decide who that's going to be."

Maybe it's because I was recovering from the flu, but those Hangman toys were the worst gifts we ever received. We never had a X-mas exchange with them again.

And I don't own a hot water bottle. However, it came from my 8 year old cousin who was so proud she bought her presents that year with HER OWN money (chores, odd jobs), of course I smiled & said it was the best present ever.

Got it from my aunt when I was around 10. I don't think I ever wore it. My sisters would say it was was the bright pink madras plaid, patchwork blouses my dad got us one year. But, I still love mine, 20 years later.

At least not of the pantsuit. This happened back in the 1960s. As for the Madras shirt, I'm too lazy to take a photo of it. But, the material looks pretty much like this, only with more bright pinks:

Which was the height of fashion then.

Late 80s or early 90s.

Last edited Sun Dec 16, 2012, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)

edited to add the reagan book, which i'd thankfully forgotten.

I'm 5'1 and slightly built. She constantly buys me horrendous sweaters, many of which are XXL. I'm pretty sure she regifts.
One year my ex-boyfriend got a flannel shirt that I'm pretty sure came from my dad's closet. The look on my dad's face when my ex opened the box was one of pure horror.

My mom once got a vase from a friend that had been a wedding favor...from a wedding my mom AND the gifter both went to!!!

I hope she thought to take the ribbon off with the name of the bride and groom!

LOL! That's precious.

I was about 12 years old. just about the last thing on a young boy's wish list.

The themed ones are the worst. Santa on a tie? Um, thanks.

wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG

I did get some other nice things.....but not until I opened the cover first.

She had to install one of the filters (which I also bought but received no credit for) to see the actual gift of really nice sapphire earrings.

On edit: We did need the vacuum cleaner too.

It was from the parents of my then girlfriend. They didn't like me much.

My ex in-laws didn't like me much either.



My ex-husband was lucky that he had gotten me an expensive watch that year or all hell would have broke loose.

along with the in-laws!

Every kid's nightmare.

I had to throw it out on the way home - unopened, I was getting a reaction to it.

A few years ago two of my sisters got together and sent me copies of "The Pupose Driven Life" and "The Bible".

In the years since, one sister continues along the wing-nutty extremist path while the other has de-converted to atheism.

My cousins and I used to take turns giving each other gag gifts for x-mas. My dad and uncle got into the game as well. My uncle gave my brother a drum for x-mas one year. In revenge, my dad gave my cousin one of those pistols that shot little rubber BBs along with a copius supply of ammo.

holly-homemaker SIL from hell. I managed to get it on, but ripped it to shit just lifting my arms. It really only bothered me because she was one that insisted on the gift trades every year that most of the rest of us couldn't afford. I'm guessing my blouse cost her a few yards of thread and the tablecloth she cut it from.

My nasty uncle died on Christmas Eve, so on Christmas Day we had to go to his funeral.

2 boxes of chocolate frosted mini-wheats. Expired last August, so I couldn't even give them to a shelter.

What was that guy thinking?

Mr gut is famous for telling me the morning of.

A $1 lottery ticket would have been better!

The feeling behind it. I've concluded that the lottery officials advertise that the tickets make good gifts, so some people just accept that and give them.

Serious about Mr. gut. I have gone out at 5am when the large market opens to buy things he needs for work that day. Cookies for an office party, a gift basket for gift exchange, one morning I made him a quick costume for his Halloween party. It was a cool costume too, he won a prize.

you win

I talked to a friend of mine who had been seated next to the person who brought that particular 'gift'-- she said that when I opened it, she'd leaned over and said to the offender, "Wow, that's terrible. Why that?" (English is her third language... I love her "Why that?" remark!)

.
.
.
... to raise. She did an amazing job -- he's such a wonderful person, too (and his folks
went clean and sober much much later and he had a pretty good relationship with them,
eventually).
.
She bought me a little black leather magnetic money clip because she "liked the way it felt".
.
.
.
Me, too. It's actually one of the BEST presents I've ever gotten.
.
.
.

Not romantic.

Pounds and pounds of jerky is my favorite amount.

he ran out a while back.

ceramic oil lantern, in the shape of a cowboy boots, and the lamp of the lantern was in the shape of a cowboy hat. I received this gift from my mother/father in law.

given to me by a now ex-boyfriend that used to complain about my weight (told me I was too fat)

I hated the smell of the stuff. So I gave it to a co-worker - With a typed letter that looked like it came from one of his many ex-girlfriends, asking that they'd "get back together".

Needless to say, he spent much of the day CALLING these women that never wanted to hear from him again, asking them if any of them had left the bottle and the note on his desk. That didn't go over too well… For him.

Me?

I had to keep from cracking up, big time.

Did I mention that this guy had the temerity of badgering me in the office once and I lost my temper because of it? He should have never pissed me off.

He never knew who sent him that bottle of cologne and the letter. As far as I'm concerned, he'll go to his grave not knowing.

It serves him right.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I always hated getting money, checks or gift certificates when I was a kid.

For the past 20 or so years. Christmases and birthdays.
Nobody seems to remember me: not siblings, not guys-I-was-dating-at-the-time, not "friends".
Rather quite painful, actually.

I can imagine that would be quite painful.

I hope things change this year, and that you have an enjoyable Christmas!

<

I was and still am a hard core scifi geek.

I love gift cards, but not Wal-Mart.

Conversely, I had sent my mom-in-law an Amazon gift card and her response was that she didn't like to buy books online. Apparently she doesn't know that Amazon sells other things as well.

My in-laws are all idiots.

A stocking stuffer from my mother.

Message received.

From my husband. Who had initially forgotten my birthday, but remembered later in the day while we were on a long car trip. So we stopped on the road at WalMart and he ran into the store and came out with a set of glasses. He literally grabbed anything. Could have just as easily been vacuum cleaner bags or a 10-pack of Hanes socks. It was pretty stupid.

Old Bama jelly jars, in the South, used for iced tea glasses.

but just barely.

When I was a teenager, my hair was a source of major conflict with my mother and grandmother. It is naturally fine and straight, and I always felt that the real me had long hair.

My mother and grandmother, on the other hand, classified hairstyles into "long" and "cute." They both had short, permed hair all their very long lives.

I wasn't having any of it.

So the Christmas that I was sixteen, I received a home perm kit, a set of hot rollers, and a bonnet hair dryer. And nothing that I actually asked for.

It was the worst Christmas until the one in 1999, when I had such a bad case of the flu that I basically lay in bed drifting in and out of sleep for about 24 hours, with the classical radio station playing Christmas carols.

That was from my ex-girlfriend's mother. She hated me, and couldn't get over the fact that her daughter is a lesbian. I got the last laugh, though. It was a great suitcase and I used it in my travels quite a lot

Looks like in the quantity they would have bought it at, about $1.52.

I had to buy the tree, the ornaments, the gifts for him.
He said "I don't want somebody tellin' me when I should buy a present for somebody just because it's a certain day."

What that meant was, "I'm a cheapskate bastard who never wants to give anybody a present."

He would not get me ANYTHING for Xmas. Then he wondered why I sat there and cried for an hour, after he opened the nice things I bought him.

Once I think he called his sister and got me a pair of rhinestone stud earrings that said "Avon" on the back. she sold Avon. I think he did this as an emergency measure a couple days after xmas, when he had not bought me anything & I probably cried. He was utterly clueless.

We were only married and living together for four years, until my health broke from his incessant nagging and I was in and out of the hospital for about nine years with bacterial pneumonia, sinus infections, and severe bronchitis.My dr. vacuumed my lungs out 4 times in 5 years so I wouldn't die from my lungs being completely full of pus. Suffocate in my own infection.

He said I faked my illness just to take advantage of HIS insurance, and that I bribed
my dr to put me in the hospital.

If I wanted anything for xmas, even a coffee mug, I was "selfish". He was the most selfish and disrespectful person I have ever met. He didn't buy presents for our baby daughter either.



Now I am married to a wonderful man who LOVES to decorate and enjoys putting up lots of lights on the house (Griswolding).

We have two xmas trees inside (One a 7 ft plastic, and one fiber optic tree) and a big plastic one outside, with lights on it.