There was a decent, variable list given - various books/CDs/DVDs, clothing items, etc. But when certain items on the list have particular caveats - like “widescreen only” or “shoe size 11.5 because 11 doesn’t fit, not in brown because I have that”* and someone disregards that topped with a comment of “close enough” upon handing over the gift, then one tends to start giving gift lists that are more like “coffee beans” and “gift cards.” Lesson learned, indeed.
This was a shoe from a particular seller that has an outlet store near the giver, ostensibly for her convenience in shopping. My husband has oddly-shaped feet and tends to buy up multiple pairs of a shoe once he finds one that feels good. He learned his lesson and now gets his own or asks me to.
I’m a Gift Returner, but only with stuff my SIL buys for me. She’s good at getting stuff for my husband (her brother) and our kids, but me? Not so much.
She gives me things like sweatshirts with cartoon characters or cutsey-wutsey kitty-cats or teddy bears on them, in sizes like 3XL. First off, I am not that big. Second, I do not wear stuff like that.
Last year she gave me an old lady purse - one of those huge purses with a slot for everything, including the kitchen sink. I rarely carry a purse, and I prefer a simple backpack style, anyway.
So, yeah, I return stuff she gives me. I usually get a store credit, and then buy something I like. It all works out in the end.
It sounds like we’re talking about my ex-wife. She didn’t want gift certificates, because that would mean you didn’t put any thought into the gift, but any gift you did put thought into would be wrong. My mother stopped giving her Christmas gifts. That was wrong too, but it didn’t cost any money.
I think my mother thought she had bought me the wide screen version. She’s heard my father and me rant about pan and scan versus the full picture. I figured by exchanging the DVD, I was allowing her to get me the gift she had intended to get me.
I’m undecided on this issue. Obviously, returning or exchanging something because it’s the wrong size or a full-screen instead of wide-screen DVD is alright, because as said, the receiver is still getting the gift the giver intended them to get. And, in theory, it’s rude to not be grateful for a gift. I mean, after all, this person went out of their way to get you something, shouldn’t you just be thankful for it? Even if you never use it, you shouldn’t do something as rude as return it. Give it to charity, or put it in a closet, or something.
But at some point there comes a time when you just get sick of getting gifts you can’t use and want to do sometihng with them. If you know that every year Aunt Milly gets you a sweater from The Sweater Barn on route 12b next to Crazy Al’s Discount Guns and Stereos, and you never wear sweaters, and the Salvation Army has told you to stop giving them sweaters, what should you do? Yes, ask Aunt Milly not to give you any more, sicne she has given you one every year you’ve been alive and you have enough, but she’s old, and says pish posh and gets you more anyway. So, you return them and go over and get a gun from Crazy Al, or what have you. Because in the end, you know your aunt got you the sweater to make you happy, which makes her happy. But since the sweater didn’t make you happy, the spirit of the gift is gone, so you might as well do something with it that will make you happy, because in the end, that’s all Aunt MIlly wants.
That’s why I’m asking who we’re talking about. I figured not people who don’t want any gifts (and have said so) but people who fully expect a big pile and fully expect to turn them in for cash. Which does seem rude but I don’t know who does this.
My MIL prefers to get cash to replace what she spent on gifts. I think. She’s never specifically said that, but she makes a point of letting people know she wants cash gifts. I just put two and two together.
Anyway speaking for myself I don’t the “precise list of exactly what you want” thing. Or the return thing.
If you’re telling them what you want how is that a gift? That is, if you’re eliminating all thought on their part. Between adults anyway (who can buy their own stuff) gifts are a token of the relationship between you. And the fact that you’ve taken some time to think about them. Otherwise what do they mean? If you don’t know someone well enough to know where they might like a gift certificate from or if they’d appreciate a bottle of Scotch, why are you exchanging gifts?
As for returning things, well I kept the Snoopy earrings. I didn’t wear them but I kept them. My grandmother gave them to me.
I never gave my mother a physical present she liked.
And I really, really tried. She’d ask for a ‘brown leather purse’ and I’d buy her one, but it would be a) the wrong leather b) have too few compartments c) have too many compartments d) have straps that were too long e) straps that were… Well, you can round out the list. Whatever I gave her, I always gpt “Oh thank you, how lovely.” Pause. “If only the inner pocket didn’t have a zipper…”
And then she’d ask me to exchange it for her. Of course, there would be no guarantee that while getting another purse with, say, longer straps, it wouldn’t turn out that the new one had the wrong shaped rivets. (No kidding, I once exchanged a purse because she didn’t like the squared off rivets that held the straps on.) I think the record was the time I returned three sweaters before she was happy. :mad:
Finally, finally, I got wise. We now have a standing date to go shopping on the first Saturday after Christmas. I drive her around to the stores until she finds EXACTLY the right sweater or whatever.
It actually works out great: I don’t have to go shopping for a whatever to begin with, I don’t have to wrap it, I don’t have to deliver it, I don’t have to stand in line to return it. We skip right along to the ‘buy the replacement’ stage!
And, as bonuses, often whatever she picks out is on after-Holiday sale and we spend some semi-quality time together.
I’ve never returned a gift unless it was the wrong size or I couldn’t use it for some reason. Think something like getting a video game for a console I don’t have, or a copy of a DVD I already own.
About the only stinker gifts I ever get are the default ladies’ gift of “smelly things in a basket/bag”. Body lotions and body sprays or cheap perfumes. About half of which make me sneeze, and there’s no way of knowing if it will or won’t until I actually try it. Usually I just find someone who will actually appreciate those, though, and give it away. It’s consumable anyway so it’s not exactly like the giver expected me to keep it forever.
I hate asking for things specifically. If someone asks I might say “I could use a new shirt and I prefer Mediums” or something like that. My friends and family are pretty good at picking out stuff for me. Maybe I’m just easy to please.
I hope no one is returning the gifts I got them… I’m one of those types that will notice when you mention you want something in July, then having forgotten about it, suddenly get it for Christmas and are surprised. I try to make sure I get stuff people want.
My mother still tells the tale of her cousin’s mother-in-law who simply could NOT be pleased with a gift from her DIL, who she clearly hated (but who, I might add, was the nicest woman I have ever met in my entire life, her MIL’s opinion notwithstanding). One year the cousin sent her MIL a lovely pair of gloves for Christmas – tthis was back in the day when women still wore gloves, of course – right size, right color, etc., carefully selected to be exactly what she could wear and enjoy – and her MIL sent them back to her with a note, “I already HAVE gloves.” Which is pretty damn cold, if you ask me.
My grandmother (father’s mother) was just the opposite – she disliked my mother for many years, too. My mom sent her various small purses for gift-giving occasions for a number of years, and she’d always express enjoyment, but she wouldn’t give them away or anything – no, she waited till my sister, who was about 14 at the time, was visiting, then opened a drawer FULL of ALL the purses my mom had sent her over the years and said, “Here, you can have any of these you’d like – I don’t want them.” Knowing full well my sister knew that our mother had sent them to her. That was pretty damn cold, too, but Grandmither could definitely be that way when she wanted to be.
I’m so big on re-gifting I actually enjoy getting stuff I don’t want…saves me a trip to the store in the future! I’m okay with people re-gifting my stuff too, although I do try hard to think of something they’ll want to keep.
I would love, *love, * to stop with the gift-giving among us adults, especially my in-laws (my siblings and I already stopped). But my MIL would --honest-to-god-- consider Christmas ruined without the opening of presents on Christmas morning. So we’re stuck exchanging gifts with people who never pay any attention to anything we say, let alone what we like. Even with the lists, my MIL (who dislikes me greatly) buys me shitty things, many of which aren’t even fit for the charity box, let alone being returned. (She once regifted to me some silly gag gift that she’d had sitting out in her living room. She regifted a used gag gift to her only daughter-in-law. Part of it did turn into a favorite cat toy in the end, however.)
There is some value to working from a list. My mom always asks for a list, but works off of it as well. She and I were talking, and she was saying that she was going to stick with the list more for my sister & her family, and my brother and his wife, because their lists were more need-based than mine. Honestly, I’m beginning to get a bit edgy on the lists thing myself. I can afford most things, so I feel kind of funny asking for anything.
I went through a catalog with my niece so I could get a feel for what she likes. Then I went to a store and got her a gift card. I’m afraid she’ll grow out of whatever I buy her by Christmas. She’s 12 and sprouting like a cornstalk at the moment.
I always get these from my grandfather and it makes me feel so guilty, because those baskets cost at least $15 (he leaves tags on, whether it’s out of forgetfulness or rudeness I don’t know), and that just goes to waste because I hate smelly stuff. I’ve even asked my mom to ask him not to buy them because it makes me feel awful. But she said it made him happy to give them. Now tell me, how is giving me a basket of lotions* going to make him any happier than giving me a $15 gift card to a bookstore? But he’s old, and you just can’t win with the old.
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