Our hapless, bungling attempts to love one another.
December 26, 2021 7:58 AM Subscribe
The Unbearable Sadness of Your Parents’ Bad Holiday Gifts "When Mom gave me a gray-and-white snowflake-pattern sweater one Christmas, I took it across the country with me to Seattle, where I staged photographs of myself wearing it with friends, one of whom then posted the photos to her Facebook page and tagged me so that Mom would be sure to see them. Later that afternoon, we returned the sweater to Macy’s. I often thought the sweater must have wondered what that was all about." (SLNYT)
My mom bought me a very large, expensive thing this year and I do not have the heart to tell her I got it for myself when I was all alone last year.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:28 AM on December 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:28 AM on December 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
I remember back in the 90's shortly after I graduated from college, my Mom gave me a compendium of O'Henry stories for a Christmas or birthday present. There's nothing wrong with O'Henry, but it definitely wasn't something I would normally dive into.
Books and movies are often a crapshoot in terms of gifts (I once gave my wife a DVD of the first season of "Moonlighting" because she mentioned watching it once when she was small, but it turned out she had zero interest in watching it again), but I looked at that book and couldn't help but see my Mom in a bookstore trying to figure what to get me and realizing she didn't have a clue as to what her twenty-something son actually liked. She knew I was smart. Maybe some classic literature, she must have thought?
I still have it. I may weed our massive library down to a couple of shelves one day, but not that one. I'll be damned if I give it up.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:36 AM on December 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
Books and movies are often a crapshoot in terms of gifts (I once gave my wife a DVD of the first season of "Moonlighting" because she mentioned watching it once when she was small, but it turned out she had zero interest in watching it again), but I looked at that book and couldn't help but see my Mom in a bookstore trying to figure what to get me and realizing she didn't have a clue as to what her twenty-something son actually liked. She knew I was smart. Maybe some classic literature, she must have thought?
I still have it. I may weed our massive library down to a couple of shelves one day, but not that one. I'll be damned if I give it up.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:36 AM on December 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
My friend Boyd and I have an aphorism: All mothers live in palaces built of lies.
Mr. Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known strikes again
posted by babelfish at 8:56 AM on December 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
Mr. Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known strikes again
posted by babelfish at 8:56 AM on December 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
My mom and I basically settled into a system where, over the second half of the year, I would tell her about nice books I wanted, and she would get a few of them for me, along with things like "eminently sensible items of clothing"
She's been gone for several years now - she died before the Hilary/Trump election - and I've mostly adjusted, but last month I felt a really deep sadness upon learning that the Codex Seraphinianus had been reprinted and having the immediate thought that I should send this to her as a gift suggestion.
posted by egypturnash at 9:02 AM on December 26, 2021 [35 favorites]
She's been gone for several years now - she died before the Hilary/Trump election - and I've mostly adjusted, but last month I felt a really deep sadness upon learning that the Codex Seraphinianus had been reprinted and having the immediate thought that I should send this to her as a gift suggestion.
posted by egypturnash at 9:02 AM on December 26, 2021 [35 favorites]
Gifts are so hard. I've pretty much convinced my immediate family to pare down to just consumable things. This year, my sister/her fiancé and my brother/his girlfriend, both gave us all Capital City Mambo Sauce, which I gather they have both recently discovered. It resulted in them exchanging sauce, which was second to best case scenario gifting and like an O'Henry ending that didn't suck (hate the gift of the magi, sorry!).
I have a friend who is a preternaturally gifted gifter, always finding that best case scenario thing you have somehow never heard of that is also perfect for you. She is a delight and I love her, but we all hate gifting her, because you will never match her thoughtfulness, it is insurmountable.
Anyway, I am going to try making a bbq glaze for roasted carrots out of the mambo sauce, and I found a book the gifted gifter hasn't read yet this year, so I had the most successful Christmas in years.
posted by the primroses were over at 9:19 AM on December 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
I have a friend who is a preternaturally gifted gifter, always finding that best case scenario thing you have somehow never heard of that is also perfect for you. She is a delight and I love her, but we all hate gifting her, because you will never match her thoughtfulness, it is insurmountable.
Anyway, I am going to try making a bbq glaze for roasted carrots out of the mambo sauce, and I found a book the gifted gifter hasn't read yet this year, so I had the most successful Christmas in years.
posted by the primroses were over at 9:19 AM on December 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
Parent of 30-something kids here...
The truth is, as your kids grow-up and develop private lives of their own, a parent becomes less and less aware of their kids' tastes and what not. This is especially true if your kids have moved far away. So, when faced with buying presents, one is often at a loss as to what your kids might actually like. It gets really dicey when a parent knows just enough about their kid's interests and tastes (but nothing specifically about those interests) to make a stab at something they might like.
FWIW, most parents a) Ask the kids what they actually want, and/or b) Buy knowing the kids will likely return it to the store and get something they actually like.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:28 AM on December 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
The truth is, as your kids grow-up and develop private lives of their own, a parent becomes less and less aware of their kids' tastes and what not. This is especially true if your kids have moved far away. So, when faced with buying presents, one is often at a loss as to what your kids might actually like. It gets really dicey when a parent knows just enough about their kid's interests and tastes (but nothing specifically about those interests) to make a stab at something they might like.
FWIW, most parents a) Ask the kids what they actually want, and/or b) Buy knowing the kids will likely return it to the store and get something they actually like.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:28 AM on December 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
My mother and sister were kind enough to buy me some at-home COVID self-tests this year but they neglected to notice that the box had temperature storage instructions and it's not supposed to be frozen and they sent it to me via USPS in a cardboard box with no insulation in the middle of winter...
I'm very skeptical if they're still functional after being frozen and thawed.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:33 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm very skeptical if they're still functional after being frozen and thawed.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:33 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
O’Henry? He wrote the classic story of Christmas gift giving - The Gift of the Magi.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:40 AM on December 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 9:40 AM on December 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
This is why I feel like it should be more socially acceptable to have a public wishlist somewhere where your friends and family can find it.
posted by gauche at 10:38 AM on December 26, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by gauche at 10:38 AM on December 26, 2021 [17 favorites]
Being given terrible gifts in my awkward, unlovable adolescence by my befuddled family was a great gift to me, because I learned quickly to not get too attached to gifts, it was a benevolent dousing of my ego. Hell, my mother, my biggest fan in the world, can't buy me gifts for toffee (I try telling her not to bother, but that never works). And I've grown into becoming a really good gifter; it's absolutely my love language, giving things, but I never expect gifts in return. Gratitude is nice, though!
posted by Gin and Broadband at 10:41 AM on December 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 10:41 AM on December 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Let's call the whole (personal gift-giving) thing off, especially in the US amongst people with means.
"Donate to this org on my behalf, no need to name me" seems apt.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 10:44 AM on December 26, 2021 [20 favorites]
"Donate to this org on my behalf, no need to name me" seems apt.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 10:44 AM on December 26, 2021 [20 favorites]
That gift of a donation on another's behalf business can be fraught, unless EVERYONE involved buys into it. And it comes with a loophole - what if the 'gifter' avoids the hit to their finances by merely claiming they made a donation to whatever charity?
posted by Rash at 10:51 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Rash at 10:51 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
There’s nothing in that essay about anything he gave his parents, how they liked it, whether it occurred to him to see them as they would wish to be seen. You can’t have it both ways, to be as unthinking as a kid and be seen as a grownup.
Plus also trying to give truly acceptable presents makes me so much more in charity with failures aimed my way.
posted by clew at 11:02 AM on December 26, 2021 [29 favorites]
Plus also trying to give truly acceptable presents makes me so much more in charity with failures aimed my way.
posted by clew at 11:02 AM on December 26, 2021 [29 favorites]
I have always wanted to be a really good gift giver, which I guess means that's one of my love languages. I'd lasso the moon for a few people in my life but I feel like I only get a really good gift in once every few years.
The most special memory so far is one involving my mom. Right out of college I got her a special American Girl doll as a birthday surprise. She and my dad had spoiled me with AG dolls my whole childhood, but by the time I graduated college they couldn't afford to keep our collection going. At a little over $100 this was a big purchase for me, someone working retail, and I had to drive to LA to buy it, which was additionally scary because I had only just gotten my license at 23 and driving was still new for me. But oh!!!! Was it worth it. She looked 10, not 50+, when she opened the box! I can still see that moment in my mind's eye, and I treasure it. I will always be looking for a way to outdo it, and find That One Present for my dad. (I want to get him a dog but that's kind of complicated.)
posted by The Adventure Begins at 11:03 AM on December 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
The most special memory so far is one involving my mom. Right out of college I got her a special American Girl doll as a birthday surprise. She and my dad had spoiled me with AG dolls my whole childhood, but by the time I graduated college they couldn't afford to keep our collection going. At a little over $100 this was a big purchase for me, someone working retail, and I had to drive to LA to buy it, which was additionally scary because I had only just gotten my license at 23 and driving was still new for me. But oh!!!! Was it worth it. She looked 10, not 50+, when she opened the box! I can still see that moment in my mind's eye, and I treasure it. I will always be looking for a way to outdo it, and find That One Present for my dad. (I want to get him a dog but that's kind of complicated.)
posted by The Adventure Begins at 11:03 AM on December 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
I’m on both ends of this. My parents’ gifts come through my mentally ill mother, so despite their multi-million dollar net worth and 3%-er pension she gave my husband and I 3 used books, none to our taste, and my kids some half-used craft supplies from her basement (to be fair, inside nice cases).
My adolescent son is increasingly hard to buy for and doesn’t like being asked for suggestions, so I split my efforts between gift cards and my best guess, which is probably bound over time to become sweater territory here.
I do not like charity giving, especially as my relatives use it as ideological warfare, giving in my name to anti-abortion funds.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
My adolescent son is increasingly hard to buy for and doesn’t like being asked for suggestions, so I split my efforts between gift cards and my best guess, which is probably bound over time to become sweater territory here.
I do not like charity giving, especially as my relatives use it as ideological warfare, giving in my name to anti-abortion funds.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is why I feel like it should be more socially acceptable to have a public wishlist somewhere where your friends and family can find it.
FWIW, Amazon has had public wishlists pretty much since day-1. Not that I encourage anyone to use Amazon, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:15 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
FWIW, Amazon has had public wishlists pretty much since day-1. Not that I encourage anyone to use Amazon, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:15 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
I just do a wish list, and a few months before a birthday or Christmas I edit it, add new things and remove stuff I already bought. A lot of it is stuff for projects I'd like to do, but don't have the time, so the list tends to double as a parts list when I get around to a thing
It keeps the family involved in whatever my current interests are (and I can be like "this is the thing I made or did with the stuff you got! So cool!"), and it mostly prevents the experience of "we heard you like hiking, so we got you this huge backpack. It'll last forever! Hoping to see it in photos on the mountain top"
It doesn't stop the occasional off-list gift that's perfect and just what I wanted, but those are hard to pull off and rare in any case, but it really helps people who just want to fulfill the gift obligation. I think the benefits outweigh the social stigma. (I don't make mine public, though, they need to ask for the link.
Exes and stalkers.)
What the rest of my family does instead is tell people what they want, in a sort of passive aggressive way throughout the year ("if someone wanted to give me a gift, five months from now...") and everyone has to pay attention.
Possibly the best thing to do is not overthink gifts people get you, and try not to see them as an obligation. In most cases, the worst that it signifies is that they cared enough to try, and there's nothing sad about that. I really like gifts, both getting and giving, and if I miss, it really doesn't bother me that they gave it away or never used it or read it or whatever.
posted by surlyben at 11:24 AM on December 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
It keeps the family involved in whatever my current interests are (and I can be like "this is the thing I made or did with the stuff you got! So cool!"), and it mostly prevents the experience of "we heard you like hiking, so we got you this huge backpack. It'll last forever! Hoping to see it in photos on the mountain top"
It doesn't stop the occasional off-list gift that's perfect and just what I wanted, but those are hard to pull off and rare in any case, but it really helps people who just want to fulfill the gift obligation. I think the benefits outweigh the social stigma. (I don't make mine public, though, they need to ask for the link.
Exes and stalkers.)
What the rest of my family does instead is tell people what they want, in a sort of passive aggressive way throughout the year ("if someone wanted to give me a gift, five months from now...") and everyone has to pay attention.
Possibly the best thing to do is not overthink gifts people get you, and try not to see them as an obligation. In most cases, the worst that it signifies is that they cared enough to try, and there's nothing sad about that. I really like gifts, both getting and giving, and if I miss, it really doesn't bother me that they gave it away or never used it or read it or whatever.
posted by surlyben at 11:24 AM on December 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
Is this really mom doesn't get me anymore, or is it I've rejected her values to assert my individuality and she's pretending not to notice? (That sweater fits someone's taste)
Is gifting a ritual of caring, or the imposition of burden to remember the gifter? (The gift that fits seemlessly into our lives might fail to trigger recall.)
Is it "I see you" or "I see what you might become?"
Don't take me for a Grinch, I love giving and receiving gifts. The questions I've presented are largely false binaries, because of course a gift can be all of those functions. Recognizing the complex relationship dynamics at play can aid those uncomfortable conversations that repair frayed relationships and restore the purpose and joy to gifting. The author touches on the regret of not being known by their mother at Christmas; this problem deserves redress the rest of the year if the relationship matters enough. The gift is the emblem, not the object.
posted by grokus at 11:35 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Is gifting a ritual of caring, or the imposition of burden to remember the gifter? (The gift that fits seemlessly into our lives might fail to trigger recall.)
Is it "I see you" or "I see what you might become?"
Don't take me for a Grinch, I love giving and receiving gifts. The questions I've presented are largely false binaries, because of course a gift can be all of those functions. Recognizing the complex relationship dynamics at play can aid those uncomfortable conversations that repair frayed relationships and restore the purpose and joy to gifting. The author touches on the regret of not being known by their mother at Christmas; this problem deserves redress the rest of the year if the relationship matters enough. The gift is the emblem, not the object.
posted by grokus at 11:35 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
My wife pointed out that my mom gave her all size S clothes and her mom gave her size L. She’s a medium.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:45 AM on December 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:45 AM on December 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
That weird feeling when I'm vaguely resentful of being given gifts and feel the pressure to be suitably thankful. And yet if I wasn't given anything, I'd feel resentful of that too.
I don't know what to do about this stuff. What am I supposed to do for the people who don't want anything, don't need anything, say they don't want or need anything, but they still want a gift? And they don't approve of money/gift cards? NOBODY WILL ANSWER ME ON THIS. My mom is on the phone with a family friend right now who is complaining about this ("they gave me gnomes, if I put them up, then everyone thinks I like gnomes and give me more gnomes"), and I asked what do you gift if you don't want anything, and got no answer. Please either (a) suggest something or (b) legitimately be fine with no gift instead of being passively mad if someone actually believes you.
I have a friend who is a preternaturally gifted gifter, always finding that best case scenario thing you have somehow never heard of that is also perfect for you. She is a delight and I love her, but we all hate gifting her, because you will never match her thoughtfulness, it is insurmountable.
Yeah, I have that friend too and she is SUPER MAD at people every year for not gifting her in the way that she gifts them. Every year I have to hear about it and how nobody loves or cares about her. She at least gives me a list, thank god, so I am hopefully not on the shit list, but I have to hear about everyone who doesn't care about her and she's chopped liver.
Other fun gift issues this year:
My mom gifted her boyfriend a toy train (WE ARE TRAIN PEOPLE IN THIS FAMILY, THIS IS A HUGE DEAL) and her boyfriend is not a clutter person and I don't think he's into it at all, but he's being very polite/hedging about it. She claims she told him she could take it back if he doesn't like it and he didn't say anything. She wanted to put it up last night and he put it off. She's hoping he puts it up this morning while home alone, but I doubt it. I don't know what to say there, but that's his problem to figure out.
Most of my friends didn't give me gifts this year, and I gave them ones, and I feel weird. One person in particular that I've been having some issues with this year is into gifting, and that one did NOT give me a gift this year and I feel totally hurt and offended that I'm no longer giftworthy, because if that person doesn't do it, it's...bad. I ended up giving my gift anyway (well, dropping it off, I didn't see them IRL) and they sent me a picture of what I gave in use the next day, but that was it. I honestly think I'm just going to avoid the heck out of them next time I see them, because clearly they are having more of a problem with me still than I thought they were. I thought we were over the issues I caused this year, but I guess not. :(
GIFTING SEASON SUCKS, WHY CAN'T WE JUST SPONTANEOUSLY GIFT THINGS ON A WHIM ONCE IN AWHILE WITH NO BAGGAGE?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
I don't know what to do about this stuff. What am I supposed to do for the people who don't want anything, don't need anything, say they don't want or need anything, but they still want a gift? And they don't approve of money/gift cards? NOBODY WILL ANSWER ME ON THIS. My mom is on the phone with a family friend right now who is complaining about this ("they gave me gnomes, if I put them up, then everyone thinks I like gnomes and give me more gnomes"), and I asked what do you gift if you don't want anything, and got no answer. Please either (a) suggest something or (b) legitimately be fine with no gift instead of being passively mad if someone actually believes you.
I have a friend who is a preternaturally gifted gifter, always finding that best case scenario thing you have somehow never heard of that is also perfect for you. She is a delight and I love her, but we all hate gifting her, because you will never match her thoughtfulness, it is insurmountable.
Yeah, I have that friend too and she is SUPER MAD at people every year for not gifting her in the way that she gifts them. Every year I have to hear about it and how nobody loves or cares about her. She at least gives me a list, thank god, so I am hopefully not on the shit list, but I have to hear about everyone who doesn't care about her and she's chopped liver.
Other fun gift issues this year:
My mom gifted her boyfriend a toy train (WE ARE TRAIN PEOPLE IN THIS FAMILY, THIS IS A HUGE DEAL) and her boyfriend is not a clutter person and I don't think he's into it at all, but he's being very polite/hedging about it. She claims she told him she could take it back if he doesn't like it and he didn't say anything. She wanted to put it up last night and he put it off. She's hoping he puts it up this morning while home alone, but I doubt it. I don't know what to say there, but that's his problem to figure out.
Most of my friends didn't give me gifts this year, and I gave them ones, and I feel weird. One person in particular that I've been having some issues with this year is into gifting, and that one did NOT give me a gift this year and I feel totally hurt and offended that I'm no longer giftworthy, because if that person doesn't do it, it's...bad. I ended up giving my gift anyway (well, dropping it off, I didn't see them IRL) and they sent me a picture of what I gave in use the next day, but that was it. I honestly think I'm just going to avoid the heck out of them next time I see them, because clearly they are having more of a problem with me still than I thought they were. I thought we were over the issues I caused this year, but I guess not. :(
GIFTING SEASON SUCKS, WHY CAN'T WE JUST SPONTANEOUSLY GIFT THINGS ON A WHIM ONCE IN AWHILE WITH NO BAGGAGE?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
My dad got me a kimono of all things for Christmas one year. It was kind of strange and there was close to no context in which to understand his motivation in gifting it to me. (I thanked him all the same, of course.) But ya know, I hung onto it and many years later found occasion to wear & enjoy it. I guess I just needed to grow into it. I'd like to say there's some kind of lesson here but I'm not sure how I'd formulate it.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:50 AM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
(And I also want to acknowledge the hollow feeling at receiving gifts which in no way reflect the person I am, esp. from a family member or lover. To feel so unseen can be hard.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:52 AM on December 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:52 AM on December 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Yeah, the Amazon-wish-list approach has spared my parents and me a lot of headaches.
However, I've also tried the Amazon-wish-list approach for one of my cousins and her kids - she has lists for herself and for the kids, and I was able to find small things on each list and took care of everything that way. However....my cousin has pretty much consistently ignored MY lists, and this year I got the somewhat baffling gift of a book of Pittsburgh slang. I am going to say Thank You and then quietly return it through Amazon.
Ironically, the aunt and uncle that are her parents are the opposite way - they never consult the wish list, but they somehow seem to find these things for me that I'd never heard of but it turns out to be something really surprisingly cool; like the Acadian cookbook a couple years back, or this year's cookbook of family recipes collected from women who'd emigrated here to the US from all over the world.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:00 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
However, I've also tried the Amazon-wish-list approach for one of my cousins and her kids - she has lists for herself and for the kids, and I was able to find small things on each list and took care of everything that way. However....my cousin has pretty much consistently ignored MY lists, and this year I got the somewhat baffling gift of a book of Pittsburgh slang. I am going to say Thank You and then quietly return it through Amazon.
Ironically, the aunt and uncle that are her parents are the opposite way - they never consult the wish list, but they somehow seem to find these things for me that I'd never heard of but it turns out to be something really surprisingly cool; like the Acadian cookbook a couple years back, or this year's cookbook of family recipes collected from women who'd emigrated here to the US from all over the world.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:00 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
My mom buys me clothes, which is fine, but they are all for someone 6'5" 270, and I am 5'10" 170lbs. She really has to go out of her way to find this stuff too, it's not just clearance bin stuff. Fortunately she now includes the receipts.
She also buys stuff for my kids that is a solid 3 years age-inappropriate, to the younger side, like she got my 11 year old some playschool blocks. I can understand that though - time passes differently at different ages.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:03 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
She also buys stuff for my kids that is a solid 3 years age-inappropriate, to the younger side, like she got my 11 year old some playschool blocks. I can understand that though - time passes differently at different ages.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:03 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Tim Kreider is so good at capturing emotional subtleties. I Wrote This Book Because I Love You is one of my go-to gifts.
posted by gottabefunky at 12:15 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 12:15 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
What am I supposed to do for the people who don't want anything, don't need anything, say they don't want or need anything, but they still want a gift? And they don't approve of money/gift cards?
NOBODY WILL ANSWER ME ON THIS.
I can relate, it's terrible, for I am one of these people. Something random and surprising that you weren't forced to go to a lot of trouble to acquire would be acceptable; but OTOH a bag of chips isn't good enough. Even/especially if it's gift-wrapped.
posted by Rash at 12:28 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
NOBODY WILL ANSWER ME ON THIS.
I can relate, it's terrible, for I am one of these people. Something random and surprising that you weren't forced to go to a lot of trouble to acquire would be acceptable; but OTOH a bag of chips isn't good enough. Even/especially if it's gift-wrapped.
posted by Rash at 12:28 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
My family doesn't do gifts, unless it's some kind of White Elephant/Dirty Santa activity. It's great.
(Exceptions: weddings, new babies, young kids at Christmas, elders)
I like to think my grandmother, who both gave terrible gifts and blatantly favored certain people over others, cured us all of any desire to try to gift each other individually anymore.
posted by emjaybee at 12:32 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
(Exceptions: weddings, new babies, young kids at Christmas, elders)
I like to think my grandmother, who both gave terrible gifts and blatantly favored certain people over others, cured us all of any desire to try to gift each other individually anymore.
posted by emjaybee at 12:32 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think, for better or worse, this is part of the process of growing up--and on the other side, as a parent, letting your kids go. I've definitely experienced the first and and am mildly dreading the second, if we're not there already. In a weird way it's almost sad that Amazon wish lists and gift cards have made it obsolete.
posted by gottabefunky at 12:34 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 12:34 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Mrs 43rd and I fit together rather well here. I don't like being bought presents, no real idea why, it just makes me feel uncomfortable, and she's cool with that. I, on the other hand, love buying presents for her and she is the most gracious and joyful recipient. And so we're all good!
Grownup children can be a problem, though, especially when they're earning and have probably already bought anything they've had their eye on.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:35 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Grownup children can be a problem, though, especially when they're earning and have probably already bought anything they've had their eye on.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:35 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have a parent whose gifts I call "cursed gifts" or "monkeyspaws gifts" because EVERY. TIME. there is some string attached, and it's never intentional, but there's always a hitch. Either it's a gift card to a great restaurant, but it's a 50 mile drive away, or she gets me a very expensive kitchen gadget that I already have one of and she's fine with me returning it but when I go to do so the company is going to charge me $90 to do so, or she goes and buys the gift and Amazon cancels the purchase before it can get here, or she'll say she got me that Le Creuset pan I was looking for and then it shows up and it turns out it wasn't the enameled cast iron it was one of the stoneware pieces and it's like good lord what is happening and why.
And I swear it happens every time! Every time! Not even always her fault, but I have learned to brace myself now. The Le Creuset one still makes me laugh because I was so excited for it, and then oh no, it's the stoneware, which is nice, don't get me wrong, but if you're a cook you know why it's not the same. Irony of ironies: my husband one day was making chili, reached for a pot to cook it in, and grabbed that stoneware pot. Not realizing it couldn't be used on the stove, he cooked the chili start to finish in it...and completely shattered the pot. I later won a gift card from Sur La Table at a company pie-off that (mostly) covered the cost of an identical replacement, and used it to finally buy the Le Creuset 3.5 qt enameled dutch oven of my dreams, in the exact same color she'd bought the bean pot in, so in a very very roundabout way, I finally got it.
As for the article: I think I reached this stage at some point with my mom, and we got past it and moved on. She's now well aware that she raised a fussy child who likes things in a precise and specific way. I think keeping gifts just because someone gave them to you is wasteful, and I've said as much to her. It helps that she grew up with a father who was similar and she respects that I take after him. So when I say, "I want the Le Creuset 3.5 qt enameled dutch oven in Marseille blue" she knows I mean it. She also knows I don't expect anyone to pay for that. It's ridiculous and expensive and I can do it on my own with my own savings, thanks.
I will always appreciate being thought of, though. I will happily and effusively honor the thoughtfulness, which is what I try to do, even with my cursed gift-giver. They are trying, and they are doing their best across long distances and limited facetime, and it would be easier, to be honest, to just forget we exist. We muddle through somehow.
But I refuse to just hold on to a gift to hold on to a gift. There's already too much junk in my house, and I see that stuff to be clutter of the mind. I refuse to give it space.
posted by offalark at 12:51 PM on December 26, 2021 [16 favorites]
And I swear it happens every time! Every time! Not even always her fault, but I have learned to brace myself now. The Le Creuset one still makes me laugh because I was so excited for it, and then oh no, it's the stoneware, which is nice, don't get me wrong, but if you're a cook you know why it's not the same. Irony of ironies: my husband one day was making chili, reached for a pot to cook it in, and grabbed that stoneware pot. Not realizing it couldn't be used on the stove, he cooked the chili start to finish in it...and completely shattered the pot. I later won a gift card from Sur La Table at a company pie-off that (mostly) covered the cost of an identical replacement, and used it to finally buy the Le Creuset 3.5 qt enameled dutch oven of my dreams, in the exact same color she'd bought the bean pot in, so in a very very roundabout way, I finally got it.
As for the article: I think I reached this stage at some point with my mom, and we got past it and moved on. She's now well aware that she raised a fussy child who likes things in a precise and specific way. I think keeping gifts just because someone gave them to you is wasteful, and I've said as much to her. It helps that she grew up with a father who was similar and she respects that I take after him. So when I say, "I want the Le Creuset 3.5 qt enameled dutch oven in Marseille blue" she knows I mean it. She also knows I don't expect anyone to pay for that. It's ridiculous and expensive and I can do it on my own with my own savings, thanks.
I will always appreciate being thought of, though. I will happily and effusively honor the thoughtfulness, which is what I try to do, even with my cursed gift-giver. They are trying, and they are doing their best across long distances and limited facetime, and it would be easier, to be honest, to just forget we exist. We muddle through somehow.
But I refuse to just hold on to a gift to hold on to a gift. There's already too much junk in my house, and I see that stuff to be clutter of the mind. I refuse to give it space.
posted by offalark at 12:51 PM on December 26, 2021 [16 favorites]
Right now my best friend is feeling that he "blew it" in giving me a gift that requires the use of alcohol and a blow torch to set stuff on fire and infuse the taste of the stuff into a drink or ???
As someone whose two primary non-water drinks are Diet Coke and gin and tonic, I told him that I don't see either one being improved by the infusion of hickory wood shavings or smoked dried basil. I didn't want to lie because when he visits, he would expect me to be drinking applewood-infused gin and tonics and having a blowtorch on the kitchen counter like some 1980's free-baser.
Not coincidently, he is someone who would greatly, greatly, greatly enjoy drinking alcohol while using a blowtorch in the house to set things on fire to see if they now taste different.
I am uncertain whether to return the gift to Amazon or re-gift it to him for his birthday in April.
posted by ITravelMontana at 1:07 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
As someone whose two primary non-water drinks are Diet Coke and gin and tonic, I told him that I don't see either one being improved by the infusion of hickory wood shavings or smoked dried basil. I didn't want to lie because when he visits, he would expect me to be drinking applewood-infused gin and tonics and having a blowtorch on the kitchen counter like some 1980's free-baser.
Not coincidently, he is someone who would greatly, greatly, greatly enjoy drinking alcohol while using a blowtorch in the house to set things on fire to see if they now taste different.
I am uncertain whether to return the gift to Amazon or re-gift it to him for his birthday in April.
posted by ITravelMontana at 1:07 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Ah! The years I was unhappily single and received a series of cat-themed gifts, based on my mother hearing me grump about turning into a cat lady. I refuse to ponder her motivations too deeply.
The move that heralded my transition from guess-culture to ask-culture was when I began the yearly, shared, family Christmas-gift spreadsheet. Each member of the family has a tab. Everyone spends the last weeks of November linking to their Christmas wishes on their tab. We then go in and purchase things for each other. We have now really gotten the hang of crossing off items we have purchased, and it is only rarely that someone receives 3 spatulas.
As a bonus, I can go to the spreadsheet edit history and figure out which family member bought what, which helps with attribution when wrapping the gifts that show up at the house.
I feel it is important to note that my side of the family became so completely bored with getting each other gifts we genuinely wanted and asked for, that they all opted to stop gifting to the adult members of the family. Shrug.
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 1:28 PM on December 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
The move that heralded my transition from guess-culture to ask-culture was when I began the yearly, shared, family Christmas-gift spreadsheet. Each member of the family has a tab. Everyone spends the last weeks of November linking to their Christmas wishes on their tab. We then go in and purchase things for each other. We have now really gotten the hang of crossing off items we have purchased, and it is only rarely that someone receives 3 spatulas.
As a bonus, I can go to the spreadsheet edit history and figure out which family member bought what, which helps with attribution when wrapping the gifts that show up at the house.
I feel it is important to note that my side of the family became so completely bored with getting each other gifts we genuinely wanted and asked for, that they all opted to stop gifting to the adult members of the family. Shrug.
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 1:28 PM on December 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
stick with socks and restaurant gift cards, and you won't go wrong, or be known by your parents.
posted by eustatic at 1:30 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by eustatic at 1:30 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
GIFTING SEASON SUCKS, WHY CAN'T WE JUST SPONTANEOUSLY GIFT THINGS ON A WHIM ONCE IN AWHILE WITH NO BAGGAGE?
These are always the best gifts, in my experience.
Gift-giving was very fraught in my family of origin. In her whole life, I never managed to give my mother anything she was satisfied by, and she liked to give me clothes that were just one step nicer than my lifestyle. Though, at other random times, she really hit it out of the park—I still think fondly of the time when I was away at college and very lonely and depressed, and out of the blue she sent me a pair of red shoes, because, she said, it's hard to be sad when wearing red shoes. Her best gifts were always these spontaneous things she'd spot on sale while she was shopping, rather than the shopping leading up to Christmas.
posted by Well I never at 1:44 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
These are always the best gifts, in my experience.
Gift-giving was very fraught in my family of origin. In her whole life, I never managed to give my mother anything she was satisfied by, and she liked to give me clothes that were just one step nicer than my lifestyle. Though, at other random times, she really hit it out of the park—I still think fondly of the time when I was away at college and very lonely and depressed, and out of the blue she sent me a pair of red shoes, because, she said, it's hard to be sad when wearing red shoes. Her best gifts were always these spontaneous things she'd spot on sale while she was shopping, rather than the shopping leading up to Christmas.
posted by Well I never at 1:44 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Several years ago I created a tradition in which members of my immediate family just tell each other what we want for Christmas, and we collaborate to make sure we don't all get Dad the latest John Grisham novel or whatever.
I actually did well this year - gift cards and items related to my hobbies. But I also got some hobby items that were almost certainly inspired by my wishlist but off-brand, cheap things. It was sweet and well-intentioned and the buyer didn't know where to go to buy the better stuff, I'm sure. I could just use them anyway, and I probably will.
posted by bunderful at 1:45 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
I actually did well this year - gift cards and items related to my hobbies. But I also got some hobby items that were almost certainly inspired by my wishlist but off-brand, cheap things. It was sweet and well-intentioned and the buyer didn't know where to go to buy the better stuff, I'm sure. I could just use them anyway, and I probably will.
posted by bunderful at 1:45 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think the way we view gifts could be envisioned as being on an axis of the amount of work the recipient is expected to do.
On one end of the axis is the recipient who does NO work whatsoever, and only reacts to the gift given to us with ourselves and our own needs at the center of our minds. Gifts are supposed to satisfy our deep wordless desire that the giver has magically divined. We take the accurate gift as proof of their love and their understanding of us.
The further we move away from 0 on this axis, the more work we take on as recipients. We may take on the extra work of telling the giver what we want, or sending out a wish list. We may do a little extra work by ensuring the wish list is well within the giver's budget. We might take on even more work by making sure we're communicating our wish list to them in a way that is not offensive to them. And we expect them to stick to the list or else be judged if their off-list gift fails to satisfy. All this is appropriate for relationships between equals.
Note that this point on the axis, we're still viewing a gift as something which is supposed to satisfy our desire. IMO we cross a significant threshold when we decide to walk that extra mile over into the territory of considering a gift a communication from the giver instead.
This is a lot of work for a recipient to be doing, but imo it's absolutely the appropriate way to react in relationships where we have greater or increasing power wrt the giver, such as adult children who would like to maintain a good relationship with their parents as they grow older. It's sort of like how we react to gifts from 5 year olds: we don't judge it on the basis of whether our desires are fulfilled by it, we try to understand what the 5 yr old is trying to say, and making room for them to express themselves, and being gratified by what they are communicating rather than what they give.
So for me, that's where this writer fails. They seem to be stuck in an earlier developmental stage, so to speak, because they haven't moved on from wanting their parent to satisfy their wordless desires through gifts. They don't want to do much (or any!) work as the recipient. They still have expectations of their mom being the same omniscient caregiver as in the writer's infancy.
This is sad! Imagine if this writer had done a bit more work... So when they get a grey and white sweater from mom, they express curiosity and gratitude, to try and understand where this gift came from. Why did mom pick out this gift? What were mom's wishes and thoughts and daydreams about how the adult child will use this gift? They'd ask, and try to decipher, what is mom trying to communicate by giving this gift?
The answer might be genuinely emotionally gratifying and that becomes the gift. This writer doesn't have to feign gratitude and pretend that the sweater is just what his wardrobe was missing. He can express authentic gratitude for the thought behind the gift.
But maybe mom's answer will show thoughtlessness - like the commenter upthread whose in-laws just want to check a box of "Yes, $20-$40 item purchased and sent, done". Which is truly sad and disheartening, and well worth lamenting. I think I would have felt more sympathetic towards this writer in that case - that, and if the writer had mentioned anything at all about his own gifts to mom and how much thought he put into them.
posted by MiraK at 1:48 PM on December 26, 2021 [27 favorites]
On one end of the axis is the recipient who does NO work whatsoever, and only reacts to the gift given to us with ourselves and our own needs at the center of our minds. Gifts are supposed to satisfy our deep wordless desire that the giver has magically divined. We take the accurate gift as proof of their love and their understanding of us.
The further we move away from 0 on this axis, the more work we take on as recipients. We may take on the extra work of telling the giver what we want, or sending out a wish list. We may do a little extra work by ensuring the wish list is well within the giver's budget. We might take on even more work by making sure we're communicating our wish list to them in a way that is not offensive to them. And we expect them to stick to the list or else be judged if their off-list gift fails to satisfy. All this is appropriate for relationships between equals.
Note that this point on the axis, we're still viewing a gift as something which is supposed to satisfy our desire. IMO we cross a significant threshold when we decide to walk that extra mile over into the territory of considering a gift a communication from the giver instead.
This is a lot of work for a recipient to be doing, but imo it's absolutely the appropriate way to react in relationships where we have greater or increasing power wrt the giver, such as adult children who would like to maintain a good relationship with their parents as they grow older. It's sort of like how we react to gifts from 5 year olds: we don't judge it on the basis of whether our desires are fulfilled by it, we try to understand what the 5 yr old is trying to say, and making room for them to express themselves, and being gratified by what they are communicating rather than what they give.
So for me, that's where this writer fails. They seem to be stuck in an earlier developmental stage, so to speak, because they haven't moved on from wanting their parent to satisfy their wordless desires through gifts. They don't want to do much (or any!) work as the recipient. They still have expectations of their mom being the same omniscient caregiver as in the writer's infancy.
This is sad! Imagine if this writer had done a bit more work... So when they get a grey and white sweater from mom, they express curiosity and gratitude, to try and understand where this gift came from. Why did mom pick out this gift? What were mom's wishes and thoughts and daydreams about how the adult child will use this gift? They'd ask, and try to decipher, what is mom trying to communicate by giving this gift?
The answer might be genuinely emotionally gratifying and that becomes the gift. This writer doesn't have to feign gratitude and pretend that the sweater is just what his wardrobe was missing. He can express authentic gratitude for the thought behind the gift.
But maybe mom's answer will show thoughtlessness - like the commenter upthread whose in-laws just want to check a box of "Yes, $20-$40 item purchased and sent, done". Which is truly sad and disheartening, and well worth lamenting. I think I would have felt more sympathetic towards this writer in that case - that, and if the writer had mentioned anything at all about his own gifts to mom and how much thought he put into them.
posted by MiraK at 1:48 PM on December 26, 2021 [27 favorites]
Particularly poignant is the fact that this writer's mother and father BOTH repeatedly gave him the same gift over the years: that's the behavior of someone who is repeating themselves because they have not been heard.
posted by MiraK at 1:55 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 1:55 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
My mom gave me a Bee Gee's Greatest Hits double LP when I was a teenager. I laughed and she said "What? I think they're great". The next day I slipped it into her record collection and she loved that album until her record player died. I sort of replaced it and the rest of her record collection one xmas by napstering every top 30 song from 1955 until 1970 and burning her CDs and she thought it was the greatest gift she had ever gotten and she played those CDs in her car until she died. My opinion is that mom's deserve both the gifts they give you that they actually want and the gifts you give them.
posted by srboisvert at 1:59 PM on December 26, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 1:59 PM on December 26, 2021 [24 favorites]
Absolutely floored this christmas day when my mother, notorious now for years for incredibly misguided nay borderline inappropriate gift giving, turned to her mother in-law with the first of the paper barely removed from a gift and said "Oh Susan, what have you saddled me with this time?"
At least it made us all feel better about our own unspoken ingratitude...
posted by ominous_paws at 2:59 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
At least it made us all feel better about our own unspoken ingratitude...
posted by ominous_paws at 2:59 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Got my FiL a signed copy of Denis Compton's 1958 book.
Winner, winner, double turkey dinner.
posted by biffa at 3:59 PM on December 26, 2021
Winner, winner, double turkey dinner.
posted by biffa at 3:59 PM on December 26, 2021
Honorable Youngest Daughter got a five-hour repair job on her garage door opener, courtesy of her dad, on Christmas Day. And a check.
Honorable Eldest Daughter is getting a queen-size crochet blanket, courtesy of me, (she's seen parts of it) because it will wrap her in love. And a check.
My sweet husband and I scored Fitbit wristwatches on Black Friday sales. We've already found some new trails to explore.
The adults in the extended family do not exchange gifts. The kids get the bounty. It's all about seeing the wrapping paper and empty boxes and bows piling up under the grandparents' Christmas tree.
Gag gifts are acceptable all year long.
Birthdays are dinner and a check.
Share experiences, make memories, take all the photos. Give the boxes to the cats.
Maybe the cats have it figured out.
posted by TrishaU at 4:42 PM on December 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
Honorable Eldest Daughter is getting a queen-size crochet blanket, courtesy of me, (she's seen parts of it) because it will wrap her in love. And a check.
My sweet husband and I scored Fitbit wristwatches on Black Friday sales. We've already found some new trails to explore.
The adults in the extended family do not exchange gifts. The kids get the bounty. It's all about seeing the wrapping paper and empty boxes and bows piling up under the grandparents' Christmas tree.
Gag gifts are acceptable all year long.
Birthdays are dinner and a check.
Share experiences, make memories, take all the photos. Give the boxes to the cats.
Maybe the cats have it figured out.
posted by TrishaU at 4:42 PM on December 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
When I was a kid, my dad spent the better part of a year asking if I wanted a scooter (they were big at the time). I had a bike and I didn't see the point. But he had a vision of me riding it with the kids around the neighborhood. The scooter was not what was preventing that fantasy, but he couldn't see that. When I ripped away the wrapping paper and saw that scooter I felt as disappointed as he did in me. Fair's fair I guess.
I spent one summer at a camp where I was just unbearably sad. It was just so clear that I did not belong. I knew other people there on an acquaintance level, and they did great. But I did not and I didn't know how to change it. I got bullied a little as well. My mom wouldn't listen, even after she had to pick me up and take me to the hospital for a concussion. I got one big gift that year. I had no idea what it was. I was so excited for some reason. It was a picture of me from that camp blown up a giant wall-sized photo. I burst out crying. She still didn't understand. But at least she hung it up in the laundry room instead of my bedroom.
posted by Garm at 4:56 PM on December 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
I spent one summer at a camp where I was just unbearably sad. It was just so clear that I did not belong. I knew other people there on an acquaintance level, and they did great. But I did not and I didn't know how to change it. I got bullied a little as well. My mom wouldn't listen, even after she had to pick me up and take me to the hospital for a concussion. I got one big gift that year. I had no idea what it was. I was so excited for some reason. It was a picture of me from that camp blown up a giant wall-sized photo. I burst out crying. She still didn't understand. But at least she hung it up in the laundry room instead of my bedroom.
posted by Garm at 4:56 PM on December 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
One year some decades ago my mother asked me if I'd like a sweater, and I said yes but not from Gap as they used sweatshop labour in their factories. On Christmas day I duly received a large oblong package containing a Gap sweater in a Gap box, so I couldn't escape its essential Gapness even if I'd wanted to, which I didn't. I asked her why she had given me the very object I had asked her specifically not to give me.
"Well," she said, "it was in the sale..."
posted by Hogshead at 5:09 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
"Well," she said, "it was in the sale..."
posted by Hogshead at 5:09 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
My wife pointed out that my mom gave her all size S clothes and her mom gave her size L. She’s a medium.
So on average, everything fits perfectly?
posted by theorique at 5:32 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
So on average, everything fits perfectly?
posted by theorique at 5:32 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
My parents just give checks to us adult kids, which suits everyone fine.
I actually really like giving gifts, and making things for people, but I’m terrible at doing so in a way that lines up with birthdays or holidays. But if my mom wants a necklace to match the earrings I made her last year, or my sister wants a particular style of silver band cocktail glasses, I am fucking On It.
My actual love language is texting my friends and family from the flea market with a picture of something I found that I think they would like. I am right more often that I’m not!
(as for receiving gifts — well. I have hyperspecific taste and I’m objectively the best at finding the incredibly niche things I want for myself, and I know this, and it’s fine. Once in a blue moon someone knocks it out of the park, though, and that’s a nice feeling.)
posted by nonasuch at 5:45 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
I actually really like giving gifts, and making things for people, but I’m terrible at doing so in a way that lines up with birthdays or holidays. But if my mom wants a necklace to match the earrings I made her last year, or my sister wants a particular style of silver band cocktail glasses, I am fucking On It.
My actual love language is texting my friends and family from the flea market with a picture of something I found that I think they would like. I am right more often that I’m not!
(as for receiving gifts — well. I have hyperspecific taste and I’m objectively the best at finding the incredibly niche things I want for myself, and I know this, and it’s fine. Once in a blue moon someone knocks it out of the park, though, and that’s a nice feeling.)
posted by nonasuch at 5:45 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
Hogshead, this reminds me of the time I mentioned on the social medias that I was looking for a new deodorant. My parameters were that the container be compostable, but that I didn't want one that was "natural" or "aluminum free" because they never, ever work and have even caused me to break out in rashes. I'm a stinky person, I'm quite comfortable with the science, and I don't have a problem with any of the "conventional" deodorants (aside from the packaging), and so I was lamenting that all of the compostable/refillable deodorant brands seem to trend toward "natural" solutions, which never work for me. Or they end up being poorly implemented and a failure in other ways.
A week later, in the mail from Amazon, comes a gift from my mom: three plastic containers with "Thai crystal" "natural" deodorants in them, all shrink-wrapped in more plastic.
"Mom," I said. "This...fits none of the parameters. Also I've tried this before and it didn't work."
"Oh, but it's worked for me and your stepdad!"
(sound of me thunking my head against a wall)
"I'll find a woman's shelter to donate it to," I mumbled.
"Oh, all right, honey," she said.
I love her to pieces, but I don't want to know what she spent on those chunks of rocks in plastic tubes.
posted by offalark at 5:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
A week later, in the mail from Amazon, comes a gift from my mom: three plastic containers with "Thai crystal" "natural" deodorants in them, all shrink-wrapped in more plastic.
"Mom," I said. "This...fits none of the parameters. Also I've tried this before and it didn't work."
"Oh, but it's worked for me and your stepdad!"
(sound of me thunking my head against a wall)
"I'll find a woman's shelter to donate it to," I mumbled.
"Oh, all right, honey," she said.
I love her to pieces, but I don't want to know what she spent on those chunks of rocks in plastic tubes.
posted by offalark at 5:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
It’s virtually impossible to buy an adult a successful present—they probably have the resources to buy themselves precisely what they want, and they are vastly better positioned to know what that is than anyone else. You can only at best send them an inferior version of what they actually wanted.
We bought our first house in 2000, and my parents very kindly bought us a knife block as a housewarming gift. We had just bought one, and rather than say so we just returned it and spent the credit on something else. That worked great until we happened to send them a photo of the kitchen with the other knife block on the counter.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
We bought our first house in 2000, and my parents very kindly bought us a knife block as a housewarming gift. We had just bought one, and rather than say so we just returned it and spent the credit on something else. That worked great until we happened to send them a photo of the kitchen with the other knife block on the counter.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
I get why children write wishlists - they don't have any money of their own and rely on you to buy them the stuff they want. But as adults with disposable income, I figure we might as well just buy the stuff we want ourselves and skip the middleman. Accordingly, I don't really do gifts anymore with my friends and family. I guess it's a social bonding exercise, like when you get a round of drinks for your friends?
The best gifts are surprises, when the giver gets you something you didn't ask for but end up loving, but I recognize they're a lot of work and don't expect them (and if I get someone else such a gift, I don't expect it to be reciprocated).
posted by airmail at 5:49 PM on December 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
The best gifts are surprises, when the giver gets you something you didn't ask for but end up loving, but I recognize they're a lot of work and don't expect them (and if I get someone else such a gift, I don't expect it to be reciprocated).
posted by airmail at 5:49 PM on December 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
BTW I've always thought Chinese gift-giving practices around Lunar New Year are the best way to do it: it's all cash, so the recipient can get whatever they want, and you only gift people if a) you're married and the person is single and from a younger generation or b) they're an employee/in a service role to you - so generally, the wealth trickles down.
posted by airmail at 5:58 PM on December 26, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by airmail at 5:58 PM on December 26, 2021 [17 favorites]
My parents have always given me good gifts, which makes me sad because I am not so good at giving them things and once they're gone there's no one else who will give me anything. It probably helps that my tastes have not changed since I donned my first black turtleneck at age 12.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:50 PM on December 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 6:50 PM on December 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I am the good gifter in my family, and most of the rest of them try but they mostly just check something off a list. I got everything on my Christmas list, which is great, but it’s nice when someone sees something that shows they get you. My mom even said “oh, bunglegirl always gives such thoughtful gifts” this year and that recognition was probably the best gift she gave me (because I didn’t ask for it). I don’t hold it against anyone really but I don’t find listening to my family in conversation and adding an idea to a “presents” note on my phone for later a big chore.
My boyfriend is definitely an “ask” and I’m a “guess” person. I’ve had to learn that, yes really he just wants things off his Amazon even if I think it’s thoughtless and impersonal. I try to limit myself to one surprise present that he didn’t ask for. He started bugging me for a Christmas list in August so he could “finish the chore” and be ready for the holiday. But he does go out of his way to find little surprises like candy in only my favorite color.
When I think about passive aggressive gifters there was nobody worse/better than my aunt. As kids we had Christmas with my extended family but picked one person out of a hat. Every time she got me I received very feminine, dowdy clothes and was told “I know you don’t like this but just take one picture in it so I can see you in a nice outfit.” She bought my younger cousins, who were into D&D and stuff like that hand weights so they could Look better. She knew we wouldn’t like or use any of these presents and did it on purpose.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:09 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
My boyfriend is definitely an “ask” and I’m a “guess” person. I’ve had to learn that, yes really he just wants things off his Amazon even if I think it’s thoughtless and impersonal. I try to limit myself to one surprise present that he didn’t ask for. He started bugging me for a Christmas list in August so he could “finish the chore” and be ready for the holiday. But he does go out of his way to find little surprises like candy in only my favorite color.
When I think about passive aggressive gifters there was nobody worse/better than my aunt. As kids we had Christmas with my extended family but picked one person out of a hat. Every time she got me I received very feminine, dowdy clothes and was told “I know you don’t like this but just take one picture in it so I can see you in a nice outfit.” She bought my younger cousins, who were into D&D and stuff like that hand weights so they could Look better. She knew we wouldn’t like or use any of these presents and did it on purpose.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:09 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
jenfullmoon: What am I supposed to do for the people who don't want anything, don't need anything, say they don't want or need anything, but they still want a gift? And they don't approve of money/gift cards? NOBODY WILL ANSWER ME ON THIS.
Reminds me of the classic guess culture.
In my family, gifts are for kids. Kids want stuff that they can't afford, which makes them the perfect people to give gifts too.
posted by clawsoon at 7:17 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Reminds me of the classic guess culture.
In my family, gifts are for kids. Kids want stuff that they can't afford, which makes them the perfect people to give gifts too.
posted by clawsoon at 7:17 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Gift giving is big in my family and I think most of us really enjoy both the giving and receiving. I think it’s successful both because it’s the norm to send wish lists to each other, but also because because no one feels bound by the list. My dad always asked for donations to the local food bank where he was an active volunteer, for instance, and also good port and some specific blues CDs. And then I think there’s some paying attention to each other that has to happen-we are hopefully heading to Italy in March, for instance, and my youn g adult daughter who is a hair stylist made me a gift basket of travel items-like a pier converter and a jewelry case-and then travel size items if a bunch of hair products for my crazy hair. We make good money-yeah, I could buy myself all that stuff. But that feeling of receiving something that was so perfectly thought of for me and where I am-that’s so different than buying for myself.
posted by purenitrous at 7:20 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by purenitrous at 7:20 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
My mother bought me a bright orange brand new basketball hoop, with net. I had no basketball. I hated basketball. We had no drive-way to set it up in.
Another year she gave me ice skates. They didn't fit, they were cheapo kmart shit (or whatever cheapo store was around lo those long years gone by), they were the cheapo kind that would not fit any foot, for any reason. I did not know how to skate.
It was almost always pathetic. In the true sense of that word -- pathos. I know that's not the best word, not the correct word but it's the closest I can get. There was so much love in that family but so many missed connections, plus so much that was called love but was in fact gravity, which held close close close.
Gravity is what makes it so hard to leave some relationships, and it seems the worse that they are the more gravity there can be in them -- painful relationships force us to expose so much of ourselves to one another, and to ourselves, it brings forth a tremendous intimacy. Not a healthy intimacy, mind, but ever so much gravity -- have you ever watched a friend (or brother, or sister, what-evs) call the person that it was so hard to get away from, the look on their face is one of ache and confusion, sometimes tears.
Anyways. There was so much love and so much gravity and so many missed connections and so much warmth that holidays, most particularly Christmas and birthdays, were often just gruesome. I kept those fucking ice skates until I hit the road, god only knows what happened to them next, same with that basketball net. (No shit, I truly hated basketball. The shortest I've ever been is Tall For My Age so I heard all of my life that "Hey, how about some round ball?" and once more, explain, no, basketball is not where it's at, 12 inch softball, or tackle football no equipment with all the guys in the neighborhood, whatever, pretty much anything but basketball.
The one true winner, no way to miss? Bow and arrows. BB guns, pellet guns. Even a shitty BB gun is fun, on my 14th birthday I got the best BB gun you could get. How I wish I still had that today. What a great thing. I suspect I left it also when I hit the bricks, probably my little brother got it -- he got all of my albums and has thanked me for a lot of the music he loves, and he ought to.
Anyways. Pathos. Sadness. Yet, unspoken -- I didn't get to say "Hey, what the fuck did you buy me a basketball hoop for? It blows!" The unspoken part is probably what turned it so damn sad.
I learned from one girlfriend to be straight-up "Hey, I don't like this sweater." and it was remarkably refreshing, though a real shock to ppl who were not in on it. I've backed off of it some, not totally but some -- it really was a great lesson to learn, but at the depth Ann lived it, it would seem rude. She was a great teacher, on this piece.
Families are bloody places. It's the meat and the bones and the gristle of humanity. Connections are often missed. Sometimes it's to weep.
I hope anyone reading this got at least one good present today, and/or has fine memories of presents in years gone by.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:18 PM on December 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
Another year she gave me ice skates. They didn't fit, they were cheapo kmart shit (or whatever cheapo store was around lo those long years gone by), they were the cheapo kind that would not fit any foot, for any reason. I did not know how to skate.
It was almost always pathetic. In the true sense of that word -- pathos. I know that's not the best word, not the correct word but it's the closest I can get. There was so much love in that family but so many missed connections, plus so much that was called love but was in fact gravity, which held close close close.
Gravity is what makes it so hard to leave some relationships, and it seems the worse that they are the more gravity there can be in them -- painful relationships force us to expose so much of ourselves to one another, and to ourselves, it brings forth a tremendous intimacy. Not a healthy intimacy, mind, but ever so much gravity -- have you ever watched a friend (or brother, or sister, what-evs) call the person that it was so hard to get away from, the look on their face is one of ache and confusion, sometimes tears.
Anyways. There was so much love and so much gravity and so many missed connections and so much warmth that holidays, most particularly Christmas and birthdays, were often just gruesome. I kept those fucking ice skates until I hit the road, god only knows what happened to them next, same with that basketball net. (No shit, I truly hated basketball. The shortest I've ever been is Tall For My Age so I heard all of my life that "Hey, how about some round ball?" and once more, explain, no, basketball is not where it's at, 12 inch softball, or tackle football no equipment with all the guys in the neighborhood, whatever, pretty much anything but basketball.
The one true winner, no way to miss? Bow and arrows. BB guns, pellet guns. Even a shitty BB gun is fun, on my 14th birthday I got the best BB gun you could get. How I wish I still had that today. What a great thing. I suspect I left it also when I hit the bricks, probably my little brother got it -- he got all of my albums and has thanked me for a lot of the music he loves, and he ought to.
Anyways. Pathos. Sadness. Yet, unspoken -- I didn't get to say "Hey, what the fuck did you buy me a basketball hoop for? It blows!" The unspoken part is probably what turned it so damn sad.
I learned from one girlfriend to be straight-up "Hey, I don't like this sweater." and it was remarkably refreshing, though a real shock to ppl who were not in on it. I've backed off of it some, not totally but some -- it really was a great lesson to learn, but at the depth Ann lived it, it would seem rude. She was a great teacher, on this piece.
Families are bloody places. It's the meat and the bones and the gristle of humanity. Connections are often missed. Sometimes it's to weep.
I hope anyone reading this got at least one good present today, and/or has fine memories of presents in years gone by.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:18 PM on December 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
My mother in law has historically given us piles of just ....stuff.... in past years, mostly kitchen items and decorations that she gathered over the year. There's some stuff that's worked out, our current steak knives are a present from her but we finally had to tell her to stop. She gave it with the intention that we donate it if we didn't like it, but then it's just piles of stuff that we have to take to Goodwill every year. Opening it in front of her is exhausting because it's like a 45 minute stretch of looking excited while opening 20-30 wrapped gifts.
She's been to our house enough at this point that she knows that everything we have is pretty intentionally selected so she gets it. This year's box was full of things that my wife was sentimental for and it's great.
I'm a terrible person to shop for since I buy anything I want as soon as I want it and I'm extremely particular about which something I want. My wife has figured this out and gets me stuff that I sort of collect, weird art, pocket knives, etc.
My parents feel the need to get us something so we're victims of the boxes of random stuff tangentially related to our interests. They do pretty well with gifts at random non holiday times, but I don't have the heart to tell them not to send the random stuff around Christmas.
As far as what to get the random people who aren't super close relatives, won't tell you what they want, and who you can't just give nothing? Consumables are great. We find a local bakery that we love every year and have treats shipped to friends and family. They're always appreciated and it coming from someplace local to you adds a personal touch if you're sending them to people outside the area.
posted by mikesch at 10:02 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
She's been to our house enough at this point that she knows that everything we have is pretty intentionally selected so she gets it. This year's box was full of things that my wife was sentimental for and it's great.
I'm a terrible person to shop for since I buy anything I want as soon as I want it and I'm extremely particular about which something I want. My wife has figured this out and gets me stuff that I sort of collect, weird art, pocket knives, etc.
My parents feel the need to get us something so we're victims of the boxes of random stuff tangentially related to our interests. They do pretty well with gifts at random non holiday times, but I don't have the heart to tell them not to send the random stuff around Christmas.
As far as what to get the random people who aren't super close relatives, won't tell you what they want, and who you can't just give nothing? Consumables are great. We find a local bakery that we love every year and have treats shipped to friends and family. They're always appreciated and it coming from someplace local to you adds a personal touch if you're sending them to people outside the area.
posted by mikesch at 10:02 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is really relevant to my interests. On one hand my family is big on lists and sending those around so you'll generally get something you'll be interested in. That said every year I say look all I really want are nice Hawaiian shirts I haven't seen before or funky liquor I wouldn't think to but for myself. And every year I get told, no really, what's your real list. It's frustrating, the gift to me is they I'm getting someone else's perspective, I love within certain parameters getting something new, I hate that that's never accepted and I get pressured to provide my real list. It's not hard but even something simple is ignored if it's not in the "proper" format.
posted by Carillon at 11:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 11:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
And every year I get told, no really, what's your real list.
Absolutely feel this - I'm sure wishlists can be a big help, but every year for both Christmas and before each of our households birthdays we are chided that our amazon wishlists "aren't up to date" (as if amazon is the whole of commerce, and a wishlist is something any normal person would review weekly), how everything on it is the same as last year, how something on there is a bit dear and wouldn't this other (actually very different, usually terrible) thing be better, why do we always only want cookbooks, and so on to the point of stress and exhaustion.
This year in mid November I removed every item from mine and then added four books about how to choose christmas gifts for people. My mother, completely straightfaced, contacted me to tell me that by the time I'd received them it would be too late for me to use them for my own gift shopping. No idea if she was screwing with me or taking it absolutely seriously, but she won that round handily.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:26 AM on December 27, 2021 [12 favorites]
Absolutely feel this - I'm sure wishlists can be a big help, but every year for both Christmas and before each of our households birthdays we are chided that our amazon wishlists "aren't up to date" (as if amazon is the whole of commerce, and a wishlist is something any normal person would review weekly), how everything on it is the same as last year, how something on there is a bit dear and wouldn't this other (actually very different, usually terrible) thing be better, why do we always only want cookbooks, and so on to the point of stress and exhaustion.
This year in mid November I removed every item from mine and then added four books about how to choose christmas gifts for people. My mother, completely straightfaced, contacted me to tell me that by the time I'd received them it would be too late for me to use them for my own gift shopping. No idea if she was screwing with me or taking it absolutely seriously, but she won that round handily.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:26 AM on December 27, 2021 [12 favorites]
On Xmas 1984, my parents were gifting me kitchen stuff for my first unfurnished apartment. After tearing open the final, huge box enough to see TOSHIBA on the cardboard, I looked up at my folks, really excited and they looked back at me the same way. I strained to keep the excitement frozen on my face as I realized it was a giant microwave and not a TV.
They (meaning my mum) were pretty darn good over the years otherwise.
posted by brachiopod at 5:21 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
They (meaning my mum) were pretty darn good over the years otherwise.
posted by brachiopod at 5:21 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Unless you are buying something that the recipient cannot afford (or would not have the opportunity to buy for themself), gifts are bad.
Seriously.
From a purely economic point of view, gifts cause $25 billion in harm every year.
But the economic view actually understates the damage, because everything in life has a non-monetary cost. Physical objects reduce the amount of free space the owner has. Experiences use up time.
When I acquire an object or seek out an experience, I am deciding for myself that it's worth the cost. When you give me a gift, you are making that decision for me. I must pay the space cost of keeping an object, or the time cost of an experience. Or, even worse, I must pay the emotional cost of not using the gift, thereby wasting the money you spent on it.
There is, quite literally, no way for me to avoid paying one of those costs. The instant you offer me a gift, I am on the hook for something. You have unilaterally decided that your gift is worth whatever it is going to cost me. And as this thread shows, you are very likely wrong.
I know I sound like a horrible curmudgeon, but it is genuinely baffling to me that so few people see it the way I do. Imagine for a moment that you live in a culture with no gift-giving tradition. Re-read this thread and ask yourself: "Does gift-giving increase or decrease happiness?"
At the very least, I hope you'll believe me on one thing: if somebody in your life says they don't want a gift, the most loving and empathetic thing you can possibly do is to believe them.
posted by yankeefog at 5:31 AM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
Seriously.
From a purely economic point of view, gifts cause $25 billion in harm every year.
But the economic view actually understates the damage, because everything in life has a non-monetary cost. Physical objects reduce the amount of free space the owner has. Experiences use up time.
When I acquire an object or seek out an experience, I am deciding for myself that it's worth the cost. When you give me a gift, you are making that decision for me. I must pay the space cost of keeping an object, or the time cost of an experience. Or, even worse, I must pay the emotional cost of not using the gift, thereby wasting the money you spent on it.
There is, quite literally, no way for me to avoid paying one of those costs. The instant you offer me a gift, I am on the hook for something. You have unilaterally decided that your gift is worth whatever it is going to cost me. And as this thread shows, you are very likely wrong.
I know I sound like a horrible curmudgeon, but it is genuinely baffling to me that so few people see it the way I do. Imagine for a moment that you live in a culture with no gift-giving tradition. Re-read this thread and ask yourself: "Does gift-giving increase or decrease happiness?"
At the very least, I hope you'll believe me on one thing: if somebody in your life says they don't want a gift, the most loving and empathetic thing you can possibly do is to believe them.
posted by yankeefog at 5:31 AM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
Consumables are great. We find a local bakery that we love every year and have treats shipped to friends and family. They're always appreciated and it coming from someplace local to you adds a personal touch if you're sending them to people outside the area.
This is really one of the better approaches. Lower cost, no big strings attached, basically disposes of itself, doesn't take up room indefinitely, and best of all, you can keep doing it year after year.
posted by gimonca at 5:45 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
This is really one of the better approaches. Lower cost, no big strings attached, basically disposes of itself, doesn't take up room indefinitely, and best of all, you can keep doing it year after year.
posted by gimonca at 5:45 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I had one grandmother who always gave me cash and went so far as to not even buy a card so she could pass the savings along to me. I'd literally get four or five twenty dollar bills along with a couple extra bucks and some change that represented the "Hallmark tax" she wasn't about to pay. (Do you know how much cards cost? I'd rather give you the money.) The gift always formed the bulk of whatever post-Christmas items I wanted to buy (video games, computer parts, etc).
My other grandmother always bought me a bunch of things which I didn't really know I wanted but always looked forward to because they were fun to unwrap and I always tried my best to find a use for, no matter how ridiculous and obviously-bought-at-Marshalls they were. I got so many trifold wallets, coin boxes, and Yankee Magazine How-To-Repair-Anything books.
I miss them both.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:59 AM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
My other grandmother always bought me a bunch of things which I didn't really know I wanted but always looked forward to because they were fun to unwrap and I always tried my best to find a use for, no matter how ridiculous and obviously-bought-at-Marshalls they were. I got so many trifold wallets, coin boxes, and Yankee Magazine How-To-Repair-Anything books.
I miss them both.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:59 AM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
In retrospect, one of the saddest parental gifts I've ever gotten was a set of rubber bases that my dad got for my 9th birthday. I was legitimately happy when I opened them because the neighborhood kids played a lot of wiffle ball/kickball with makeshift bases and I was fussy about rules and excited to end the arguments about which part of the crack in the asphalt counted as second base. I brought them out maybe twice before my dad "borrowed" them for my brother's T-ball practice and left them on the field. He didn't replace them and looking back it's clear that they were a gift for him thinly disguised as a gift for me. This stung worse than other gifts that he wound up taking that I wasn't actually interested in -- probably the let down of almost having a good gift.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 6:59 AM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 6:59 AM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
It’s virtually impossible to buy an adult a successful present—they probably have the resources to buy themselves precisely what they want
Unless you are buying something that the recipient cannot afford (or would not have the opportunity to buy for themself), gifts are bad.
LOL I guess this is where I once again realize how incredibly well-off, generally, metafilter is relative to my meatspace world. In my circles there is little trouble finding something for someone that they cannot afford, or at any rate would not permit themselves to purchase due to Thrift or Responsibility.
I've been on both sides of that exchange over the years and there is not only the remembered delight of receiving the (desperately needed, dared-not-hope-for) thing, but also the delight on someone's face of "oh my god, I can finally afford to buy my mother the television she wants" or "I can't believe I could just pay the silly shipping costs on this fun, wild thing, without worrying."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:11 AM on December 27, 2021 [23 favorites]
Unless you are buying something that the recipient cannot afford (or would not have the opportunity to buy for themself), gifts are bad.
LOL I guess this is where I once again realize how incredibly well-off, generally, metafilter is relative to my meatspace world. In my circles there is little trouble finding something for someone that they cannot afford, or at any rate would not permit themselves to purchase due to Thrift or Responsibility.
I've been on both sides of that exchange over the years and there is not only the remembered delight of receiving the (desperately needed, dared-not-hope-for) thing, but also the delight on someone's face of "oh my god, I can finally afford to buy my mother the television she wants" or "I can't believe I could just pay the silly shipping costs on this fun, wild thing, without worrying."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:11 AM on December 27, 2021 [23 favorites]
economic view actually understates the damage, because everything in life has a non-monetary cost. Physical objects reduce the amount of free space the owner has. Experiences use up time.
Maybe, but you cannot count those costs as though they are equally as real and valuable as the space, money, or time as they are for someone paying you for them. So unless you are an on-call ER doctor or some other really important profession, your spare time for an experience is worth basically $0. If you had not gone on the experience, you would have wasted it in some other way. Space costs also equal $0 in real money terms, unless they gave you a gift that only fits in a very specific place, and you have to construct space to sit it in. The space in the back of your closet is worth $0. The time it takes to take it to the dumpster is worth $0 in real economic terms.
When I acquire an object or seek out an experience, I am deciding for myself that it's worth the cost.
Hey man, if under economic theory, your time is all finitely valuable, then the time you expended deciding if that thing you purchased for yourself was spent and cost equally as much, so someone making that decision for you saved you 'economic money'. You can't have it both ways.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:02 AM on December 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
Maybe, but you cannot count those costs as though they are equally as real and valuable as the space, money, or time as they are for someone paying you for them. So unless you are an on-call ER doctor or some other really important profession, your spare time for an experience is worth basically $0. If you had not gone on the experience, you would have wasted it in some other way. Space costs also equal $0 in real money terms, unless they gave you a gift that only fits in a very specific place, and you have to construct space to sit it in. The space in the back of your closet is worth $0. The time it takes to take it to the dumpster is worth $0 in real economic terms.
When I acquire an object or seek out an experience, I am deciding for myself that it's worth the cost.
Hey man, if under economic theory, your time is all finitely valuable, then the time you expended deciding if that thing you purchased for yourself was spent and cost equally as much, so someone making that decision for you saved you 'economic money'. You can't have it both ways.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:02 AM on December 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
I come from a family of thoughtful gift-givers (well, in her old age my mother devolved to LL Bean sweaters and books she would enjoy herself) who took pride and delight in finding perfect presents. However, my husband’s family prepares highly specific lists for each other: think PowerPoint shows complete with links. I hate the transactional approach to the gift-giving experience, which makes me feel used; the economist in me feels that we might as well just give each other cash.
We are fortunate to have the means to buy most things we want or need. This year, based on certain questions, I thought that my step-daughter was implementing a gift idea that would have been really outstanding, so I didn’t make the purchase myself. But I suspect she discovered that it was too spendy as she defaulted to beavers and coffee, which seems to be the extent of how she perceives my interests. Similarly, every year my husband receives logo wear from his alma mater. We smile gamely and remind ourselves that it’s the symbology that counts.
Closer to home, a few years ago I ‘d had enough and told my husband I would rather receive nothing than make him a shopping list, so that’s what happened. The unintended result is that his gifts have been exceptionally thoughtful the past few years and it’s done a lot to raise my Christmas spirits. He says he’s enjoying the gift-giving, while I’ve been paying more attention to his lists, so seemingly we’re meeting in the middle.
posted by carmicha at 8:30 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
We are fortunate to have the means to buy most things we want or need. This year, based on certain questions, I thought that my step-daughter was implementing a gift idea that would have been really outstanding, so I didn’t make the purchase myself. But I suspect she discovered that it was too spendy as she defaulted to beavers and coffee, which seems to be the extent of how she perceives my interests. Similarly, every year my husband receives logo wear from his alma mater. We smile gamely and remind ourselves that it’s the symbology that counts.
Closer to home, a few years ago I ‘d had enough and told my husband I would rather receive nothing than make him a shopping list, so that’s what happened. The unintended result is that his gifts have been exceptionally thoughtful the past few years and it’s done a lot to raise my Christmas spirits. He says he’s enjoying the gift-giving, while I’ve been paying more attention to his lists, so seemingly we’re meeting in the middle.
posted by carmicha at 8:30 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
It is also possible, of course, to buy a broke person something useless or wasteful or disliked--I have a few pieces of very expensive jewelry given to me when I was broke enough to wonder whether my mother secretly meant for me to pawn them. It was that dreadful thing of "diamonds = objectively good, so any diamond is better than NONE DIAMONDS," but of course she couldn't actually afford ethical stones or jewelry in my actual taste (what can I say, I'm a broke snob) so then I would be like, low-key making donations I couldn't afford to try and offset the conflict diamonds in the large, showy ring that turned my fingers green and itchy.
Lately, her big thing is buying her children gift cards for restaurants, which is actually deeply sweet, since we all love restaurants more than anything. The choices are sometimes a bit odd, and often a bit inconvenient (she is choosing restaurants in cities she doesn't know well), but man, it beats the conflict diamonds any day.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:55 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Lately, her big thing is buying her children gift cards for restaurants, which is actually deeply sweet, since we all love restaurants more than anything. The choices are sometimes a bit odd, and often a bit inconvenient (she is choosing restaurants in cities she doesn't know well), but man, it beats the conflict diamonds any day.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:55 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'll admit, I've become a bit selfish in my gift-giving.
Even though my immediate, adult family always decides that we don't want to do gifts, I always get them anyway because I just want to briefly revisit those memories of having the tree surrounded by presents which get unwrapped on Christmas morning. If there was some way to just wrap empty boxes and make it feel "real" I'd do it, but in the meantime I try very hard to at least get thoughtful gifts so my selfish act will go over a little better.
Christmas is just such a weird time to navigate as an adult. It's like concentrated nostalgia, and this is how I try to cope.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:56 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Even though my immediate, adult family always decides that we don't want to do gifts, I always get them anyway because I just want to briefly revisit those memories of having the tree surrounded by presents which get unwrapped on Christmas morning. If there was some way to just wrap empty boxes and make it feel "real" I'd do it, but in the meantime I try very hard to at least get thoughtful gifts so my selfish act will go over a little better.
Christmas is just such a weird time to navigate as an adult. It's like concentrated nostalgia, and this is how I try to cope.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:56 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
This year, among other things, my little sister gave me a framed watercolor she did of an alligator in a fez dancing around a fountain and my father* gave me a copy of Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad inside a deck cooler that looks like an footstool--"Buddy, I figured that's the kind of book that would need to stay cold." We're good at "let's take this to the next level of weird and awesome" with presents , which makes the whole present thing easier. I say this knowing that the real gift is having a family with a sense of humor when it comes to gift-giving.
*Famously wrapped my own DVD copy of "Raising Arizona" for me about fifteen years ago and put it under the tree. When I unwrapped it he was like, "Bud! It's your own thing so the ultimate regift!"
posted by thivaia at 9:32 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
*Famously wrapped my own DVD copy of "Raising Arizona" for me about fifteen years ago and put it under the tree. When I unwrapped it he was like, "Bud! It's your own thing so the ultimate regift!"
posted by thivaia at 9:32 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Consumables is a good idea, but can run into some issues if someone is allergic, or starts going on about being fat.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
When I was maybe 15 or 16, and thus still living at home and wearing clothes in front of my parents every day, my mother gave me a yellow sweater vest and a coordinating necktie. I get the whole thing about how our adult tastes become unknown to our parents as we live alone and don't visit them very often, but that doesn't explain how my mother could get a gift idea so incredibly wrong when she still had me to look at every day. I didn't ever wear yellow (still don't, because it's not flattering on me), never wore sweater vests (actually still don't, for no specific reason), and literally only wore ties when attending an event where they were required (usually at her behest).
I can still recall how shocked I was that she thought this was a good gift. It was weirdly hurtful to be so unrecognized and I think I lashed out. In hindsight I got all my worst "ungracious gift recipient" behaviors from her so maybe she learned what that felt like for a change, but that doesn't make it OK.
posted by fedward at 10:25 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I can still recall how shocked I was that she thought this was a good gift. It was weirdly hurtful to be so unrecognized and I think I lashed out. In hindsight I got all my worst "ungracious gift recipient" behaviors from her so maybe she learned what that felt like for a change, but that doesn't make it OK.
posted by fedward at 10:25 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
My late grandmother asked me once if I liked mystery novels, and I said "sure" and she sent me copies of mysteries she had read until the day she died.
posted by mecran01 at 10:38 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by mecran01 at 10:38 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Meh. When in doubt my wife checks people’s Facebook feeds to see where they like to eat or drink, then we send gift cards for those places. Especially when it’s a local business. A free night out or $25 worth of free coffee at your favorite spot is always appreciated and very seldom returned.
On the flip side it is impossible to shop for my wife, because she generally buys herself what she needs clothing-wise, is not into jewelry, and right now with COVID going out to eat is her idea of hell. I thought I had hit the jackpot with the gift my son and I finally selected, an electric fireplace - something she has wanted for a while, but it was delivered when she was home, in a huge box with “ELECTRIC FIREPLACE” in 8 inch tall letters on the outside. So yeah, she got to open that one a week and a half early. On the plus side she really liked it…
posted by caution live frogs at 10:45 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
On the flip side it is impossible to shop for my wife, because she generally buys herself what she needs clothing-wise, is not into jewelry, and right now with COVID going out to eat is her idea of hell. I thought I had hit the jackpot with the gift my son and I finally selected, an electric fireplace - something she has wanted for a while, but it was delivered when she was home, in a huge box with “ELECTRIC FIREPLACE” in 8 inch tall letters on the outside. So yeah, she got to open that one a week and a half early. On the plus side she really liked it…
posted by caution live frogs at 10:45 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
When I was young my dad's union was on strike for a good part of one year and there was little extra money for Christmas gifts. My only present was one of those red mesh stockings full of cheap toys. I was an ungrateful little shit about it. The memories of how awful I was haunt me to this day. I will never do anything but gracefully and gratefully accept a gift from anyone no matter what. Even if that means it hangs in the closet unworn for decades.
posted by tommasz at 10:52 AM on December 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 10:52 AM on December 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
Weirdly gendered gifts have always bothered me. I’m cis and female but not very feminine and sometimes feel judged for doing my gender “wrong”.
It used to really hurt when my mom would give me something overly girly, or when people who didn’t know me would get me an obligatory “you’re female you must like soaps and lotions” type gift. And definitely the time my mom wouldn’t let my dad give me the “uses for duct tape” calendar, which I would have loved.
Thankfully my parents have decided that cash is the correct solution for gifts. I haven’t figured out what to give *them* though, as some of my old standbys become unworkable as they age. And I don’t think I can switch to cash.
Unfortunately my well-meaning mother-in-law has occasionally picked up the habit of gendered gifts, so I haven’t escaped. Nice alpaca sweaters with flowers or other feminine patterns on it (I don’t like the pattern, and can’t wear it for more than few minutes since I am allergic to it anyhow); handbags of some sort on three different occasions (they are very nice. But I object to the idea that a woman needs a handbag; I’ve got my daily carry figured out already, thanks— my lack of a handbag isn’t because I haven’t found the right one). Shirts whose arms are made for very thin people; clothes that require hand washing or other delicate treatment. I know she really means well, and she isn’t my mother, but I’ve been with her son for 10 years and been about as feminine as your average rock in that time. I am not so much frustrated with her as frustrated with the confines of the box labeled female that I’ve somehow got to fit in. It’s roughly the right box but why the hell must there be a box at all!
Don’t get me started about pink toy aisles and vendors that want to know the gender of a recipient before suggesting a gift. Grrr…
posted by nat at 11:16 AM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
It used to really hurt when my mom would give me something overly girly, or when people who didn’t know me would get me an obligatory “you’re female you must like soaps and lotions” type gift. And definitely the time my mom wouldn’t let my dad give me the “uses for duct tape” calendar, which I would have loved.
Thankfully my parents have decided that cash is the correct solution for gifts. I haven’t figured out what to give *them* though, as some of my old standbys become unworkable as they age. And I don’t think I can switch to cash.
Unfortunately my well-meaning mother-in-law has occasionally picked up the habit of gendered gifts, so I haven’t escaped. Nice alpaca sweaters with flowers or other feminine patterns on it (I don’t like the pattern, and can’t wear it for more than few minutes since I am allergic to it anyhow); handbags of some sort on three different occasions (they are very nice. But I object to the idea that a woman needs a handbag; I’ve got my daily carry figured out already, thanks— my lack of a handbag isn’t because I haven’t found the right one). Shirts whose arms are made for very thin people; clothes that require hand washing or other delicate treatment. I know she really means well, and she isn’t my mother, but I’ve been with her son for 10 years and been about as feminine as your average rock in that time. I am not so much frustrated with her as frustrated with the confines of the box labeled female that I’ve somehow got to fit in. It’s roughly the right box but why the hell must there be a box at all!
Don’t get me started about pink toy aisles and vendors that want to know the gender of a recipient before suggesting a gift. Grrr…
posted by nat at 11:16 AM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
It said right on the package that it wouldn’t fly without the figure in the cockpit, Mom. Right there on the front in big red capital letters.
Fifty years later, I still can see exactly how it failed to fly. Fluttering to the ground in the back yard like a frightened wounded bird.
posted by Naberius at 3:43 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Fifty years later, I still can see exactly how it failed to fly. Fluttering to the ground in the back yard like a frightened wounded bird.
posted by Naberius at 3:43 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I am a weird person, in that I can be oddly specific with things I'd like, but also love to be surprised by things I never knew I wanted.
Years ago, in my first marriage, money was tight as he was under-employed and not in a hurry to change that. Kmart was having jewelry sales. There was this gold bracelet for $49, on the front page of their Sunday flyer for the whole month of December. I circled it; I put it front and center on the fridge. Every new flyer and I'd repeat. Meanwhile, I made sure I bought every little thing my husband wanted (because if I didn't remember ONE item, I'd never hear the end of it).
Christmas Day came. He opened his four or five gifts, each one exactly what he wanted. He handed me a small box. My heart pounded. He then said, "It's not exactly what you wanted." I opened the box... and my pretty gold bracelet was.... an enameled bead on an adjustable leather cord.
Other Christmas gifts from that husband included a t-shirt bought from a street vendor after a professional football game he attended on Christmas Eve.
I'd much rather get and give wishlists, with a couple of "just for you" little fun gifts, than ever, ever be that disappointed (and feeling like I just wasn't important enough) ever again.
posted by annieb at 4:43 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Years ago, in my first marriage, money was tight as he was under-employed and not in a hurry to change that. Kmart was having jewelry sales. There was this gold bracelet for $49, on the front page of their Sunday flyer for the whole month of December. I circled it; I put it front and center on the fridge. Every new flyer and I'd repeat. Meanwhile, I made sure I bought every little thing my husband wanted (because if I didn't remember ONE item, I'd never hear the end of it).
Christmas Day came. He opened his four or five gifts, each one exactly what he wanted. He handed me a small box. My heart pounded. He then said, "It's not exactly what you wanted." I opened the box... and my pretty gold bracelet was.... an enameled bead on an adjustable leather cord.
Other Christmas gifts from that husband included a t-shirt bought from a street vendor after a professional football game he attended on Christmas Eve.
I'd much rather get and give wishlists, with a couple of "just for you" little fun gifts, than ever, ever be that disappointed (and feeling like I just wasn't important enough) ever again.
posted by annieb at 4:43 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
It’s virtually impossible to buy an adult a successful present—they probably have the resources to buy themselves precisely what they want
it's important to tailor your own personal social rules to your own personal social circle, but don't think I have ever been close to an adult who has the bountiful financial resources you dream for us all. a lot of people say the same thing you do, though. I must imagine them all very happy
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:09 PM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
it's important to tailor your own personal social rules to your own personal social circle, but don't think I have ever been close to an adult who has the bountiful financial resources you dream for us all. a lot of people say the same thing you do, though. I must imagine them all very happy
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:09 PM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
I think I misread read the room with my earlier anti-gift post, and I apologize sincerely. I hate it when I'm in a thread of, say, pizza lovers, and some jerk comes in and says "Pizza sucks and you're dumb for liking it."
Admittedly, if we were talking about how pizza makes us sick but we keep eating it, it would be reasonable for somebody to come in and say, "With respect, maybe you should stop eating pizza?" I thought that's what I was doing with my post.
But I think this thread is more like a bunch of pizza lovers sitting around talking about the one bad pizza they ate, because it sticks out in their memory from the hundreds of pizzas they adored. And I was being the clueless guy who bursts in and says, "Yeah! Pizza sucks! Let's never eat it again!"
So: my genuine apologies. If you and your loved ones find meaning and joy in exchanging gifts, I am genuinely happy for you. I am in favor of meaning and joy!
All that said... without impinging on your own joy and meaning... I do stand by one thing:
If somebody insists they don't want a gift, please take them at their word. If it's a trap and they are going to resent you for not giving a gift-- well, they were probably looking for an excuse to resent you no matter what. But if they're sincere, then not giving them a gift will make them feel seen and understood.
One of the best gifts I ever got was last father's day, when my kids gave me an empty paper bag, because they know I don't like getting presents. Silly as it might sound, I felt like my kids really understood and appreciated me in all my eccentricities and quirks, and it was genuinely moving.
posted by yankeefog at 2:38 AM on December 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
Admittedly, if we were talking about how pizza makes us sick but we keep eating it, it would be reasonable for somebody to come in and say, "With respect, maybe you should stop eating pizza?" I thought that's what I was doing with my post.
But I think this thread is more like a bunch of pizza lovers sitting around talking about the one bad pizza they ate, because it sticks out in their memory from the hundreds of pizzas they adored. And I was being the clueless guy who bursts in and says, "Yeah! Pizza sucks! Let's never eat it again!"
So: my genuine apologies. If you and your loved ones find meaning and joy in exchanging gifts, I am genuinely happy for you. I am in favor of meaning and joy!
All that said... without impinging on your own joy and meaning... I do stand by one thing:
If somebody insists they don't want a gift, please take them at their word. If it's a trap and they are going to resent you for not giving a gift-- well, they were probably looking for an excuse to resent you no matter what. But if they're sincere, then not giving them a gift will make them feel seen and understood.
One of the best gifts I ever got was last father's day, when my kids gave me an empty paper bag, because they know I don't like getting presents. Silly as it might sound, I felt like my kids really understood and appreciated me in all my eccentricities and quirks, and it was genuinely moving.
posted by yankeefog at 2:38 AM on December 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
My sister has tapped into a rich seam of gifts for me - I really like a brand of hand-wash that costs about $10 a bottle but am too cheap to buy it for myself as my "set point" price is $5 a bottle. So she buys me a bottle of that and some chocolates or something each year and I'm happy. Just because I want something and could buy it for myself doesn't mean I'm going to - don't most people except the very well-off have things like that and it's just a question of finding out what they are?
posted by hazyjane at 12:38 PM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by hazyjane at 12:38 PM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
IDK, y'all, I kinda want to persuade you that gifts are *easy*. Apologies in advance!
Yes, it's impossible to give someone a useful present that's also thoughtful and magical and guaranteed to bring joy, unless you know them very well indeed, and even then it's not guaranteed.
But can you show me any person anywhere whose face doesn't light the fuck up when they get flowers sent to their door? (And if you can, I'll show you a person whosesoul is dead face would light up if they got, say, a box of chocolate covered fresh fruit.)
I can always make someone's day with an extravagant home-delivered consumable treat, if I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it. When I can't, I bake or cook little boxes of consumables at home and mail them with a handwritten letter. This is a lot harder, I admit, but considering the number of times I've been told it was the letter that brought the greatest joy to the recipient, maybe it doesn't have to be.
posted by MiraK at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yes, it's impossible to give someone a useful present that's also thoughtful and magical and guaranteed to bring joy, unless you know them very well indeed, and even then it's not guaranteed.
But can you show me any person anywhere whose face doesn't light the fuck up when they get flowers sent to their door? (And if you can, I'll show you a person whose
I can always make someone's day with an extravagant home-delivered consumable treat, if I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it. When I can't, I bake or cook little boxes of consumables at home and mail them with a handwritten letter. This is a lot harder, I admit, but considering the number of times I've been told it was the letter that brought the greatest joy to the recipient, maybe it doesn't have to be.
posted by MiraK at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I can always make someone's day with an extravagant home-delivered consumable treat, if I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it.
Zingerman's is like a magic power.
posted by praemunire at 3:17 PM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
Zingerman's is like a magic power.
posted by praemunire at 3:17 PM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
But can you show me any person anywhere whose face doesn't light the fuck up when they get flowers sent to their door?
This is a tangent, but it is related and is probably the only chance I will ever get to tell this story: for the first couple years after they retired, my parents had odd jobs at the florists' shop in their town, with my father doing all the deliveries. He said he loved the job "because everywhere you go, people are always happy to see you."
But he said that there was one exception - once, for some unknown reason, he was asked to deliver flowers to G. Gordon Liddy, who was staying at a hotel a few towns over. Reportedly, Liddy answered the door to his room with a scowl, and that scowl did not leave his face even after he took the flowers Dad handed him and was shutting the door, throwing in a bit of a dirty look at Dad for good measure.
And something tells me that Liddy would also have scowled at chocolate covered fresh fruit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:38 PM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is a tangent, but it is related and is probably the only chance I will ever get to tell this story: for the first couple years after they retired, my parents had odd jobs at the florists' shop in their town, with my father doing all the deliveries. He said he loved the job "because everywhere you go, people are always happy to see you."
But he said that there was one exception - once, for some unknown reason, he was asked to deliver flowers to G. Gordon Liddy, who was staying at a hotel a few towns over. Reportedly, Liddy answered the door to his room with a scowl, and that scowl did not leave his face even after he took the flowers Dad handed him and was shutting the door, throwing in a bit of a dirty look at Dad for good measure.
And something tells me that Liddy would also have scowled at chocolate covered fresh fruit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:38 PM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
You guys were putting me in an alternate "Berenstein Bears" universe with your O'Henry. I actually believed I had been wrong for the last 50 years.
Gifts are a way of connecting. I was just given something I wouldn't have gotten myself in a trillion years, but I'm going to give it a try because I might like it.
posted by acrasis at 4:50 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Gifts are a way of connecting. I was just given something I wouldn't have gotten myself in a trillion years, but I'm going to give it a try because I might like it.
posted by acrasis at 4:50 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Some people are easy to gift, or aren't super picky. It's just the other ones who aren't easy to, or are super picky, that stress me the hell out. For them it's more crucial to get it right and not to fail, and your odds of failing are pretty good.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:09 PM on December 28, 2021
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:09 PM on December 28, 2021
I suspect that people who are difficult to give gifts to don't have "Gifts" as one of their love languages.
I suspect this because I am difficult to give gifts to mostly because it's literally on the bottom of the list of things that are important to me. I'm a little bit more worried about pressing things like oncoming Climate Change or rising Fascism and how in both cases I'll probably be one of the first against the wall simply because I'm poor.
Also: Anyone can give a gift. Rich people can even give extravagant gifts. Most gifts are thoughtless things that I could do without.
It makes it very hard to give a flying fuck about a pez dispenser someone bought you or any other myriad of cheap plastic crap. I'm poor, give me money, and I'll spend it more wisely than you think.
Also, that's the best gift of all: Autonomy.
On the other hand, if a friend makes me a piece of art, or knits me a hat, those things have much more meaning because a friend put in labor, physical and emotional, to produce something specifically for me. Those kind of gifts mean everything.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:24 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
I suspect this because I am difficult to give gifts to mostly because it's literally on the bottom of the list of things that are important to me. I'm a little bit more worried about pressing things like oncoming Climate Change or rising Fascism and how in both cases I'll probably be one of the first against the wall simply because I'm poor.
Also: Anyone can give a gift. Rich people can even give extravagant gifts. Most gifts are thoughtless things that I could do without.
It makes it very hard to give a flying fuck about a pez dispenser someone bought you or any other myriad of cheap plastic crap. I'm poor, give me money, and I'll spend it more wisely than you think.
Also, that's the best gift of all: Autonomy.
On the other hand, if a friend makes me a piece of art, or knits me a hat, those things have much more meaning because a friend put in labor, physical and emotional, to produce something specifically for me. Those kind of gifts mean everything.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:24 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
« Older Big Bada Boom | Tangled in each other's arms in Room 229 Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by xedrik at 8:12 AM on December 26, 2021 [7 favorites]