My parents have this problem; they have way more stuff than they need, so unless something specific comes up, no one has any idea what to get them. For my mother, the situation resolved itself when I started getting her gift certificates for a good local day spa, so she can get a facial or a massage or something. She’s turned into a spa junkie, so that’s now a go-to gift for her. For Dad, I’ve started getting him tickets for things (risky at first, but I’ve gotten better at picking things out) like bluegrass festivals and beer events.
For my husband, we often “exchange” gifts by getting something we both want that is too expensive for one gift (we got ourselves a new TV for Christmas, for example), or I get him tickets to something. Even though they can be more work to research, tickets have provided the best bang for the buck that I’ve come across so far- they’re consumable so they don’t clutter up the house, they feel like a treat, they provide nice memories, and I can put a lot of thought into finding an event that the recipient will enjoy. The only problem with tickets is that it’s difficult to come up with something if you don’t live in a reasonably densely populated area.
I get my wife the gift that she doesn’t know she wants until about a month later. iPod? Got her the Creative Zen:Vision M. She really wanted the ipod…until she was on a 9 hour flight and was able to watch movies that I loaded on there, share some music with her sisters, and load up on pictures for the return. I got her this out-of-print book on orchids that took me a few months to find. She likes orchids anyway, but it came in really handy 3 months later for her plant biology class and its horrid non-descriptive book. This year, I upgraded the RAM and installed a DVD burner in her laptop. It took 6 months to realize how good the gift was, when she was able to burn home movies instead of mailing them out later.
Her gifts to me? Gift cards. She’s stopped trying. I told her to get me Netflix or make a payment on my student loan or dive equipment. None have appeared, although one year she did give me a really cool adult education class to learn about stained glass. I’ve kept that up for years, and wish she’d give me another class.
Definitely a problem for me also. Unless someone figures out how to give me an extra hour a day as a gift, that is. I’ve already got such a backlog of fun things to do, getting more is almost depressing. The best gifts are those you don’t know you want, or never thought about, or never saw. My wife and I look for stuff like that all year long.
It gets even worse as you age, since my father in law, at 93, wants almost nothing.
Definitely. I don’t need gifts, I don’t want to buy them for others, lol. Except my daughter, I enjoy buying for her. I do keep an Amazon wish list for the benefit of those that need to buy me gifts, at least I’ll get something I’ll use.
I started asking for gift cards, from certain people at least. From iTunes is my favorite, then I can go on a guilt-free song buying spree and buy tons of Indian songs. Or JoAnne’s - I love crafty stuff but I am not good at much of it so that way I can try new things.
