400 presents

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

One of my oldest friends is totally freakin’ nuts. She lives in a different state, so we have a standing arrangement to get together every month with our families. This month she called me to cancel it, she’s too busy with the holidays. I can understand that, but she goes WAY overboard.

She’s a class mom, she doesn’t ask any of the other mom’s to help. No sending in cookies, no candy bags, grab bag gifts, no cupcakes, no paper plates, cups or napkins. She does it all herself. She bakes the cookies, buys all the gifts, makes all the candy and brings everything else for three separate classes, altoghther it’s a little over 90 kids.

If that makes her happy, great ! The thing that makes me think she’s crazy are the 400 presents she bought this year. She’s on a wrapping schedual, beginning on the 1st, she plans to wrap 20 gifts every night.

Now, there are some people that you buy gifts for, but she’s got gifts for people that most don’t buy for. She’s got presents for her sister and their family, she threw this family out of her house for trashing it while she was on vacation this summer. They never apologized and she still won’t let them back in the house. Why would you buy presents for them ?

She bought 8 iPods for her husband to give to his co-workers. They can afford it, but what would make someone spend this kind of money on people that you never associate with outside of work ?

She bought gifts for the mailman, hairdresser and neighbors. OK, I get that. But she also bought for her OB/GYN and his entire staff, the pediatrician and his staff, the neurologist and his staff, and the psycologist and his staff. She also bought for all of the kids teachers including the gym teachers, the music teachers, the art teachers and the librarians at school.

Anyone else think she’s a lunitic ?

2

I think I passed out at the part where she wraps 20 presents a night. dragongirl I’m sure your friend is a lovely, sweet, kind and caring person. However, she is, in fact, a total freakin’ loon! A nice one though.

3

This is why I wrap my presents in paper grocery bags. Just as tearable without having to use scotchtape!

4

Well, as you said, she can afford it, and if she isn’t losing potential friends by excluding the other class mothers from a school function, and doesn’t have a pathologically unhealthy attitude toward money and gifts (how does she react to gifts *she * receives, by the way?), what remains is this: she is celebrating Christmas in an extravagant (to many of us) way that pleases her, generously distributes things to numerous people, and, loony or not, that should be enough reason to let her alone. Not every lunacy needs to be cured: some, in fact, could do with some encouragement.

5

Armchair psychologist here - I suspect, however, that not only is she making some people uncomfortable by her over-generosity (for instance, I work in a clinic and would be taken aback by a patient giving me a present), but that it’s quite likely that no, she isn’t satisfied or happy with what she does. On a smaller level, I used to near-pathologically overdo it for gatherings that I hosted at my house. I started making food days in advance. I made too much food even though others were bringing items, because I didn’t even want to risk anyone going without and because I knew I could make good food. I ran around like a maniac at the party being sure every detail was right. I washed emptied dishes on the spot (during the party) because I didn’t want guests to see a pile of dirty stuff in the kitchen, and so on - and I ended up collapsing from exhaustion hours before the party was done, and sleeping the rest of the night after being put in bed. After seeing friends become less eager to attend parties at our place, I realized what I was doing and loosened up dramatically (I still tend toward perfectionistic when hosting but have learned to split up tasks, accept help when asked, and relax), and things have improved. People who overdo stuff and refuse help make others uncomfortable - the others see this person being anxious, perfectionistic, refusing help, and generally going overboard.

She wraps 20 presents a night as merely one of her holiday chores - how does that leave someone any time to relax or spend any quality time with their family? She might be having a grand old time controlling the show, but does her family enjoy it? She buys gifts for family members who trash her property without even an apology, as well as the staff of physicians who she might see rarely, but had to cancel a visit with an old friend due to having to wrap mounds of these presents?

6

She does seem to be going a bit overboard but if she enjoys it and they can afford it - there’s no problem. I would love to be able to buy gifts for all the people I think deserve them. I’m glad she takes the time to thank the teachers and mail carriers.

If you want to see her for Christmas, why don’t you offer to help her with wrapping? I’m sure she’d love the help and you’d get to see your friend.

7

If a coworker did this for me, I would feel highly uncomfortable about the situation. I would try to refuse the gift on the grounds that it’s just too extravagant coming from someone who didn’t give birth to me.

8

:eek:

9

Oh…my…god. That is a

How could anyone possibly be able to afford 400 presents, ever? That’s thousands of dollars! Spent solely on Christmas! It boggles the mind.

10

Oh, there’s people who can afford it. We live in an area where there are a lot of well-to-do people, and my husband, who is an 8th grade teacher, was just given a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant by the parents of one of his students. Each kid in the school has 4 core-course teachers, plus several others, so you can see the expense they went to just for this group of people. Every year there are a few families that do this sort of thing, plus lots more that buy less expensive gifts for all the teachers (when I was growing up, I don’t remember anyone giving gifts to the teachers, probably because they couldn’t afford to).

Personally, I think that kind of thing is rather extravagant (though very nice, of course), but they can afford it and want to do it.

I just hope they don’t they think can buy their kid an A ;).

11

Can I be her friend?
I would like an iPod.

12

Shouldn’t the husband be intervening somehow? Something along the lines of: “You bought my coworkers WHAT?!?!?”

13

I’ve gotta admit that my first thought was “wow, she must really desperately want people to like her”. This doesn’t seem like the behavior of a healthy person.

Is this what you mean by loony?

14

Hmm.

Well, she can afford it, so in my book that makes her less loony than someone who is doing this by putting it all on credit cards.

OTOH, sounds like she’s got some issues. Desperate to be liked, perhaps?

That said, if I had the money I’d buy really nice stuff for friends and family for Christmas.

I’d stick to people I liked, though.

15

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.

Also, who has that much goddamn money??? I mean, the cheapest style of iPod is at least $250 new. $250 x eight coworkers = two thousand dollars!!! For people you only work with! I don’t think I’ve received two thousand dollars’ worth of gifts cumulatively over the last ten years of my life.

Now this is why we should tax the rich.

16

That’s what I was thinking. Presents for all the docs and their staff? That’s more that a bit much; it’s overboard. A nice platter of cookies or something for the office would be nice, but individual gifts for all of them?

You’re supposed to tip your mailcarrier, and a small gift for your kid’s teacher is nice, but it sounds like this woman just goes nuts, especially with the gifts for the people who trashed her house. No freaking way would those people get gifts from me.

17

I’m a gifts person. I love to give gifts to friends and family that I know they will like and be able to use. However, I also know what my budget is and how to stick to it.
I work for a small company with just 9 other people and we have actually been discouraged from buying presents for each other so we don’t make anyone feel bad if they can’t afford to do it. We usually exchange cards and the company buys us a gift which is given to us at the christmas lunch/dinner.
I think it’s great to give gifts for your kids teachers, but I would probably buy in bulk and make little gift packs or do some baking. People really do appreciate that you thought of them and usually are very appreciative of small, thoughtful gifts. I think many people would be uncomfortable receiving an expensive present from someone they barely know.

I’m sorry, but it sounds like this woman is trying to buy appreciation. Yes, she is thanking people that perform a service for her but she is being extremely extravagant.

That’s my two cents.

18

Maybe she feels guilty over being wealthy.
Or maybe she is just really wealthy and really nice.

19

We do tax the rich. At a higher rate than lower income folk.

That has nothing to do with what IMHO is some psychological problems. It would make me extremely uncomfortable to receive an expensive gift from the wife of my co-worker, much less my co-worker.

Is she like this all the time, or just at Christmas?

And I think Ferret Herder had a very good point…

She seems to be more interested in appearances than actual substance. Have you confronted her with this?