It’s hard to explain. I do cherish a lot of things which I’ve been given over the years, but somehow it always feels awkward to me to receive something.
I would like going out to eat much better. But I especially wouldn’t like a spa treatment. I hate to have someone fussing over me. I remember the one time I got a manicure. When the lady started rubbing lotion all over my hands I wanted to scream and run out of there!
Thanks for the input, Dangermom. I’ve wondered what other people thought of that.
While I do like buying gifts for people, I hate when I’m given a list. My 37 year old sister sends a list every year, and I make it a point to NOT buy anything on it. She also sends a list for each of her 3 kids, and has my mom call me to remind me to only buy off the list. Which, again, I never do. I know I’m being a total bitch about it, but it annoys me to no end.
This year I’m just sending gift cards and treat bags for the nephews, a gift card for my mom and money for my girls. Two of my bosses have kids, and I’ll do treat bags for them. THAT I actually enjoy.
I’d be perfectly happy to leave gift exchanges to just the children.
I hate it. I’d gladly do without receiving any if it meant I could not have to worry about giving gifts. It’s not the money either. When I shop for myself I am very picky and agonize over minute differences between similar items. When I shop for others it’s even worse. I get way too bogged down with worrying whether I’m getting the right thing.
Everyone on my list gets gift cards but it’s kind of weird handing someone a gift card and they hand you one back, sometimes to the same store.
I like buying gifts for those with whom I’ll be spending the holidays with in person.
Most of my family is not local, so trying to guess what people I don’t see very often want or need is problematic. Several years ago, my sibs and I made an agreement that any gifts exchanged by the adults must be made by the giver. This seems to work well, as I’ve been known to do the family calendar (complete w/ all of the birthdays and anniverseries and pics), a family cookbook and handmade ornaments. My sibs have made sugar free baked goods and chocolates, compilations of their kids’ artwork and this year, one sis is making me a couple of flannel nightgowns (nearly impossible to buy here in Tennessee).
The kids are given gifts according to the whims of the giver. As they’ve gotten older, I’ve switched from toys to gift cards but still buy them a book each.
No. I don’t like shopping, so everyone gets cash or a gift certificate from me.
And I don’t care if I get gifts. I prefer cash or a gift certificate, and I’m quite okay with no gifts at all.
I would like to be the sort of person who revels in gift giving and who manages to buy thoughtful, clever gifts that make the recipient happy.
But if I’m honest, I have to admit that I’m not thoughtful and clever with my gifts. I’m occasionally lucky but more often just predictable and bland or overly whimsical. I don’t give gifts that people cherish.
On the receiving end, I end up feeling sad and depressed about gifts a lot of the time, which makes me feel ungrateful and horrible. I’ve received many more brilliant gifts than I’ve given, but honestly if I didn’t buy it for myself it’s usually because I didn’t really need it. And so the thoughtful lovely gifts get dusty just as soon as the last-minute desperation ones.
It’s not that gifts aren’t neat and special and fun, it’s that I suck.
Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Power of a thousand blazing suns and all that. Hate giving them, hate getting them, hate that they have to ruin most of an otherwise perfectly good time of year with all of it.
Hate the ritual of asking someone what they want, hate trying to guess even more. Hate someone asking me what I want, hate trying to work out why my mother thought that buying me an handbag was a good idea more.
Asking for cash shows an awful level of presumption (“I wouldn’t have thought I could put a price on what your friendship means to me, but I guess I was wrong”), hoping that someone knows you well enough to get you something you would have spent half as much money as they did on it is frustratingly futile.
All gift exchange rituals should be accompanied by face-stabbings. It’s more honest that way, and it lets you get your catharsis out of the way quickly and easily.
I love the holidays but I hate the present exchanging. We are poor. Very poor. I ask family either to not buy or to only buy for my girls. I can’t buy anyone anything and I’d prefer not to receive if I can’t give. I can’t even buy for their kids!
Nobody ever listens.
I’m just glad I don’t have a job where my daughter works. They do a secret pal thing where they’re supposed to buy gifts all year long and then they reveal who the pals are at Christmas. They do that plus some ornament exchange. You’re also expected to pitch in for the bosses.
Oh my. I was thinking about breaking out my chocolate stout cake recipe anyway, but I have to know how to make this! Recipe please?
Yes please! Recipe please- PM me if you have to…I need Irish carbomb cupcakes in my life!
This is a big part of it. It’s kind of tough when you open up your Christmas gifts with your family and get 3 pairs of slippers and 5 bottles of perfume - leaving you to believe that people think you hang around the house a lot and stink. 
(I shouldn’t complain, that year one of my brothers had asked for argyle socks. And that’s all he got. Every one of us got him pairs of argyle socks. I don’t think he ever asked for anything in particular again.)
I know that I confound my family when it comes to gift-giving. And even though I have suggested that they either not get me anything or just give me gift cards, they insist on buying me stuff that is their tastes, and not mine. And I hate to appear ungrateful. I appreciate the thought, but not the lack of effort to actually get to know me. I think it just underscores other more deep-seated issues between all of us.
Absolute best case with adults trading gifts - you spend about the same amount of money on each other buying crap you both want. Great - only you could have just bought it for yourself a month ago and had it already, and not had to worry about braving the crowds to try and search for that one perfect thing for the recipient.
More realistically things don’t always go so well, and someone ends up feeling bad for some reason or another (got a crappy gift, recipient didn’t like their gift, spent way too little/much compared to everyone else, etc etc etc).
Waste of goddamn time and effort all around. I hate it.
I have a brother-in-law who basically lives out of motels and the back of his truck for 9 months out of the year due to his job, which involves a lot of work in forests and woods. Everyone in the family still insists on getting him gifts for Christmas; I have no idea why, because it’s not like he has anywhere to store this stuff. I usually either get him a replacement quilted jacket or take him out to dinner or something. Anyway, a few years ago he finally caved in to pressure and told everyone, fine, if you MUST get me something, I can always use 100% wool socks. He now has approximately 25 pairs of 100% wool socks, and every Christmas brings a fresh deluge of more. It turns out you really CAN have too many of those things.
I don’t mind lists too much, as long as there’s a good variety of stuff on them, and they’re clear and specific if the person cares about that specificity.
My husband exchanges lists with one of his sisters, and she manages to do “good enough” (in her mind) with those items. One year she got the pan-and-scan version of a DVD when the list said ‘widescreen if you get a DVD’. (Her teenager told us later that even with emphatic reminders from her family, she picked up the pan-and-scan and just wouldn’t swap it for the widescreen, so fortunately the gift receipt was kept and brought along.) Another year, when a specific pair of shoes was one of the possibilities on his list, she got him a half-size too small. That might work for some people, but not on his feet. We’ve learned to not be specific with her. Name some vague category that probably can’t be rendered unusable if she picks something odd, and all is well, and the gift is awesome.
(Meanwhile when she told us she wanted “Particular Expensive Only At High-End Store Day Cream” and I bought her that, she was mad that we didn’t assume she meant “Particular Expensive Only At High-End Store Day Soft Creme.” Hey, they only had the one kind there, it looked right by what she’d told me.)
Heh, my sisters-in-law and I seemed to default to “bath products” whenever we were stuck for something else for the holiday. Nice if you ask for it, annoying if that’s almost all you get from people.
I love exchanging gifts. My husband’s family almost cancelled it this year, but we decided to do a Secret Santa thing with a $25 limit. You can get a lot of really good gifts for under $25. Gifting is the best part of the holidays. Without it,(IMO) the day really isn’t any different than any other day.
Bump. Recipe! Please? With whisky ganache on top?
Yes, among family but definitley not among friends and co-workers, which seems more like throwing away money for something not wanted.
Whereas, simple but meaningful gifts among family seems very worthwhile.
i love giving presents that I have carefully picked out for someone, wrapping them (make my own bows too) and seeing them open it. I used to do most of the shopping for my parents at Christmas time except for my present. We did the only buying for the children thing too. I still love the shopping and planning and wrapping except I have less time and somehow less money.
What I hate is office/club name swapping/ secret Santa/ dirty Santa. I would rather and have stayed in my cubicle working instead of partcipating. The last year that I actually participated. We had a $10.00 limit, my giftee was a new grandfather who was the photographer for our company and having some financial issues as well, and I bought him $10.00 worth of his favorite film. Me? I got my third copy of the Chipmunks Christmas tape with the cut bin label still on it. I had three other gift exchanges that year as well of the grab bag type. I admit that it is small of me to compare what I spent to the return I received but in every case I spent the maximum and sometimes a little over and received something that cost a forth of what I spent and nothing I needed or wanted nor did it have a special meaning because someone tried to find something they thought I would like. I resolved then that spending my time and money to have my feelings hurt was foolish and I was not going to particpate any more. I have noticed that the practise has died out for the most part. I buy presents for people as the whim strikes me without the onus on anyone else to have buy something. I am now 10 years free of the Chipmunks.
This I totally agree with. You don’t know co-workers well enough to get them good gifts, usually, and it adds up to a lot of money, and you always get stiffed somehow. Happily for me, my workplace’s party (well, I got laid off this year, but before that) is a simple potluck/white elephant exchange. You bring a plate of goodies, eat lots of yummy stuff (we have many foodies), and then collapse in helpless laughter at the cans of Scrapple, acrylic cardigans from the 80’s, and other random and free entertainment. Good cheap fun.
My church’s women’s group has a random gift exchange, limit $5, preferably something handmade but not required. I always sew something cute and stylish, like a wallet out of nice fabric. For two years now I have gotten plastic snapware–the throw-away kind you put your leftovers in. This time it was worth the laugh, once I recovered from the shock. Everyone else got scarves or candy or something!
Sorry for the delay, I’ve been in and out and didn’t see the thread was still up. Here is the recipe for the cupcakes. Helpful hint, the easiest way by far to core out the cupcakes for the filling is to use the little plastic sheath that comes on a cheap candy thermometer. You just twist it about 3/4 of the way down, and you get a clean, neat, perfectly-sized hole. The cut-out cake even stays in the tube, so you don’t have to dig it out.