On message boards all over the Internet, in threads discussing hirrible or inappropriate Christmas gifts, there seems to be one common theme - the vast majority of these stories involve aunts.
Why does it seem like aunts have a tendancy to send terrible Christmas gifts to children, like tissue box cozies, paperweights, lightbulbs, Zamfir CDs, and the like?
I know this has the potential of turning into a “terrible Christmas gift” thread, which is why it’s not posted in GQ. Anyhow, there’s other bad gift threads on the SDMB. Let’s try to figure out what the deal is with aunts, and why it seems like the worst gifts usually come from them.
Let me make an attempt. Aunts don’t see you very often, as do your parents, and some may not have children. Thus, they are out of touch with what children would really enjoy as a present.
Hmm, maybe it’s even more specified, it was always my Great-Aunts that were the horrible gift-givers when I was a kid. My Aunts were the same generation as my folks, raising their own brood, and very current on what was cool. I always looked forward to Aunt Helen’s present every year, it was the coolest toy and then when I was older, the designer purse or cashmere sweater that Mom and Dad would never spend the big bucks on.
Similarly, I am the cool gifting Aunt now. Adding friends kids into the Neicephew count I come up with 25 kids to buy for and I work much harder on their gifts than any of the adults. Last night my teenaged nephews got hoodies with their favorite rock bands on them and Fly Wheels that they immediately ripped open and began playing with. The girls got things like Happy Bunny merchandise and jewelry, not a tea cozy or bunny suit in the bunch.
But in the case of couples giving gifts, the gift is often percieved to have come from the woman, who, in many families, is the gift selector/buyer. So a lot of those bad gifting aunts are probably part of a couple, but hte woman gets the credit/blame
Personally, my family doesn’t do holiday or occasion gifts, especally outside of the nuclear family, thank you god. Much simpler.
I’m thinking it’s more great-aunts. That’s what I’ve always heard. But my own great-aunts never gave me presents. My own aunt gave great presents, but then she works for JPL, so she is inherently cool.
My kids’ aunts give better presents than I do. They are very cool aunts.
My aunt just gave me a mint-green cardigan sweater.
This, obviously, wasn’t one of the years that a daughter or granddaughter went shopping with her. If you’ve ever met me even once, you’d know mint green isn’t a color I’d be caught dead in.
Maybe some aunts give from a sense of obligation – basically, what GoodEgg said. They don’t know you well enough to make good choices.
I had five aunts and don’t recall ever receiving any kind of gift from any of them. Only one of them got along very well with my mom. They were a passive-aggressive bunch, and I can imagine that any of their gifts would have reflected that. “Here’s a pamphlet on birth control for Pam – I heard she had a real good time at the prom.” Stuff like that.
Maybe, but certainly they would know what gifts would be appropriate for children or members of the appropriate sex. To give little Johnny a compact, hotel soaps or a knit Comet cleanser cozy with googlie eyes just seems odd.
Here’s some strange aunt gifts I saw on another message board:
Two cans of water chestnuts (to a child)
Scented candles (to a male child)
Video about shapes and sounds (to a teenager)
Lottery tickets (to a child)
NASCAR Christmas ornaments
Underwear
Coloring books (to a teenager)
Kippers
One candy cane
Mickey Mouse throw pillow (to a teenager)
Garment bag (to a teenager)
Plastic cheese grater (to a teenager)
Job application to a distant dollar store (for a teenager)
Jiffy Pop
Expired pudding
One plain white t-shirt
Fuzzy pink journal (for a young adult male)
“The World’s Largest Condom” (to an adolescent boy)
Victoria’s Secret gift card (to a man)
One expired one-serving box of Kelloggs Frosted Flakes
Dollar store toothbrush with the name “Greg” printed on it (for a woman)
Now see, the one great-aunt that gives me gifts tends to give really nice ones. Every year she gives my sister and I money and a Christmas ornament, and my parents get a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream.
My youngest niece (a teenager) got horrible gifts from one of her aunts and from her paternal grandmother this year. The one aunt gave her a almost certainly used pair of earrings, in her own (extremely flashy) style. I wish this particular aunt had decided to not buy us some of the mess of chocolate she gave us (my husband/her brother and I are watching what we eat) and put a little more effort into getting her a proper gift instead. Her paternal grandmother gave her a lovely gift of opal earrings. Sadly, my niece and her dad had bought those for the grandmother the prior year. Then when she and her dad arrived for their planned-ahead Christmas visit yesterday, this woman informed them that she only had an hour because her boyfriend was coming to pick her up, and spent the whole time putting on her makeup and otherwise getting ready.
I gave her a great gift - gift certificate to Best Buy so she could go buy some CDs or whatever else she wanted, plus earlier this month I gave her our “spare” computer (perfectly functional, if 2 years old) after cleaning it up completely, as hers had just died and her mom couldn’t afford to replace it.
Damn, hit return too early. I meant to add that these women are pretty self-centered, which I think screws with their perception of what’s right/what’s a good pressent. The aunt has a horribly tacky sense of style, and probably bought the earrings many years ago and thus thinks that giving a used gift might not “count” if it hasn’t been used for a while. The grandmother doesn’t care about much of anything unless it benefits her, so she passed off a regifted gift without caring that she was giving it right back, and concentrated on her visit from her boyfriend.
Putting aside being self-centered, I agree with the others who think that in general, aunts think that they have to get something but don’t know the recipient well enough, and perhaps - especially as they get older - they are limited by income and mobility and thus go to the nearest dollar store or regift out of their own possessions.
One of my aunts is a very sweet lady but she’s totally clueless. She shops using that cheap mail order company…not sure of the name but they sell fuzzy kitten sweaters, lampshade covers and various sizes of “personal massagers”.
We always get odd things from her like key covers, measuring cups shaped like cows, or pill sorters (even though none of us take pills on a daily basis). She means well, and I appreciate what she gives me. Hey, one day I might need a set of plastic shoe bags!
The other one I haven’t had any contact with in years, but when we were all a Big Happy Family she was the one aunt I could count on for ugly sweaters/sweatshirts. When I was older my cousin told me I was regifted every single year and the choice was always what my cousin got and didn’t like on her birthday earlier in the month. This really didn’t bother me so much but I did decide to quit worrying about buying her a gift anymore. Last year we did Christmas I purposely saved the green and purple striped sweater from the year before and gave it back to her. I don’t even think she realized what I’d done though. She was not the type to be amused and send it back to me on my birthday.
My Wife just gave her nephew a laptop carryall. It was a BIG hit. His Dad went and bought him a laptop the next day. I told him next year I’d buy him four tires
Seriously, we knew he was getting a laptop. He’ leaving for college in just a few days.
I only have my wife’s family down here. She has no aunts or uncles who live closer than several hundred miles, so we never see them or get gifts from them. In her family, the person who has no concept of gift-giving is her paternal grandmother. In past years, we have been given a pair of books of inspirational sayings, some candles, a cheap-ass car emergency kit that must have cost $5 at the dollar store. This year, I got a 3-ring binder address book, which, incredibly, she was showing us at her new apartment at Thanksgiving, saying she didn’t know what to do with it. But the worst gift we got from her was a two-foot high plastic angel in a display box, with fiber-optic wings. Don’t know what it is about grandma, she’s mesmerized by fiber optics. We never brought it home.
However, bad taste aside, I think this might be the last year she’s lucid. I was scanning family pictures to show her when she arrived. One was her sisters, brother and mother. She looked at it real hard, and said she recognized her sisters, but who was the old lady?
