Just chiming in to add my name to the list of people whose mother thinks they are fatter than they are. My mother insists that I wear a large shirt, when in reality I don’t fit in anything bigger than an XS or S. She also believes my size 0-3 legs are no smaller than a 7. I had to stop shopping with her because of the embarrassment when she would screech, “OH HONEY! YOU’RE MUCH TOO FAT TO WEAR THAT!” :rolleyes:
This is also the same woman who thought I was stuffing my bra every freaking day (even if I wasnt wearing a bra, or even if I was just walking out of the shower with only a towel on).
accidentally pressed “Submit Reply” instead of Preview.
She thought I was stuffing my bra every day in high school (which I was not), and I was lucky if I even had an A cup on my chest. Insane, that woman is.
To this day, she insists on buying me stuff from the “Petite” section.
I haven’t eaten pork for about 15 years. Every year she asks if I would like ham for my birthday.
I hate carnations. Every year, she sends me an arrangement of carnations for X-mas.
Really - I think it’s just a parent thing - lots of them have trouble seperating their children from themselves, and will just buy something that THEY like.
Oh well. I have lots of lovely shirts and pants about 4 inches too short…
gasps Oh my God, thank you. I thought I was the only one.
The thing is, my mother used to buy me tiny little shirts that made me look like a hooker; I could barely button them…so before this Christmas I made a joke about it. Mom, I Have Breasts Now kind of thing.
So this year I got a box of seven massive sweaters. So large that my SO can comfortably wear them. Seriously. Yards and yards of hideous, old-lady, flower-embroidered fabric…and a coat with sleeves that hang below my knuckles. Nothing cute, no blouses, nothing clingy, nothing even remotely funky or fashionable or fun. Just these massive, curtain-sized sweaters…to hide the supposedly massive breasts I sprouted overnight.
So basically, in my mother’s mind, I went from being a petite wood-nymph to a Dolly Parton Lookalike Winner. Within the space of one holiday season. WTF??? It’s not like she hasn’t seen me recently! When did I gain eighty pounds? All in my chest? TELL ME WHEN?
Actually, diabetics CAN eat chocolates/sweets. We just have to be careful about our portions. When I eat chocolate, I make very sure that I eat high quality chocolate, so that taste is worth the sugar I take in. I find that eating a small amount of good chocolate is far more satisfying than pigging out on a big pile of cheap stuff.
There were 35 participants. Everyone brought a wrapped gift. I believe the price limit was $15.00, although we were encouraged to bring stuff that was just lying around the house. I regifted a calculator/clock that my Mom had picked up at a convention and given to me for Chanukah.
Numbers from 1-35 were written on slips of paper and put into a bowl. Each of us drew a number to determine the order of gift selection. When your number was drawn you were allowed to examine the wrapped gifts (including lifting and shaking) and then select one.
Everyone with a number higher than 1 had the option of either selecting from the wrapped gifts, or “stealing” an already opened gift from someone else. If your gift was stolen, you had to select from the wrapped gifts (you couldn’t steal – I believe this rule was to help shorten the length of the game, as there would be 35 picks in 35 turns). There was also a rule that no gift could be stolen more than 3 times.
For some reason, there was an abundance of picture frames, vases, and food items among the gifts. The most sought-after gift was one crystal bud vase, which was the only item to hit the three steals limit. On my turn I stole a really nice photo album that matches my living room decor. I was surprised that no one stole it from me.
The biggest problem I have with my parents giving gifts is that they tend to think that if one kid wants it, all the kids will want it. Also, my Mom recently sent me a sweater in her size, telling me that if it didn’t fit, I should just send it back to her, as she could use it.
When we went to Christmas dinner with the neighbors (there were 3 in our family, and 25 in theirs, so they adopted us), the adults did what they called a “Yankee Swap”:
Each person draws a number.
Person #1 chooses a gift and opens it.
Person #2 chooses a gift and opens it, then:
.3a. decides to keep it
.3b. swaps gifts with person #1 (person #1 has no say in this)
Each person then takes their turn, opening gifts and choosing to keep or swap them.
After everyone has opened a gift, person #1 gets a chance to swap if s/he wants.
As you can see, #1 is the best position to be in, while #2 is the worst. We usually agreed on a $25 limit for the gift value, so that the swapping stayed friendly
I don’t drink. I just don’t like alcohol. Every single year - EVERY YEAR, without an exception - I get a bottle of booze in the secret Santa exchange at work. Every year. It absolutely never fails.
That’s not as bad as a doddering grandmother’s highly inappropriate gifts, but it’s always good for a laugh at the company Christmas lunch.
If worn by a man of sufficient hotness, I can think of at least one use for a short-sleeve flannel shirt…
When I graduated college, my brother gave me a beautiful leather briefcase. A perfect, thoughtful gift for the recent graduate. Except at that time I’d been vegetarian for two years. I thanked him for the gift but said that I couldn’t accept it. He was slightly embarrassed but took it back saying he’d replace it with a non-leather alternative. Later that day my father yelled at me in a restaurant for being inconsiderate.
This year for Christmas my mother gave my father a “bridge hand a day” calendar. He opened it up and said “I told you I didn’t want another one of these.” Unfortunately we didn’t go out to eat so I didn’t have the chance to yell at him in public.
A guy I know was going out with a girl who had serious issues with food and about her weight.
She was about 5 foot 11 and wighed about 6 stone. She was bulimic and her teeth were in a dreadful state.
He gave her a box of Thornton’s Toffee.
Sensitive on so many levels
I’m glad you refused the gift politely. My understanding has always been that “vegetarian” encompasses several level of people who simply do not eat various levels of animal-based foods: meat, eggs, dairy, fish, whatever – whereas “vegans” will go further and not use any products derived from animals: leather, fur, wool, down, etc. I know vegetarians who use animal-based products but just don’t eat them.
Granted, it would have been smart for your brother to ask about your preferences, but I don’t think he made an unreasonable assumption – unless you had previously been vocal about avoiding leather.
I’m not the only one who’s mom does that? Wow. Every Christmas and birthday, I get a bunch of clothes and when I open them, she always says, “If you don’t like it, I’ll take it!”
Every year I make homemade jams and preserves (strawberry, apple butter, peach…yum!) which I then lovingly distribute to friends and family at the holidays. One recent holiday my Dad gave me a jar of store-bought jam! Did he think it was better than my own?
A vanity search? Why, I would never . . . my modesty forbids . . . it’s a good thing I did that search on “livin dj” to try to find others who may have a similar lifestyle . . .[/bold-faced lie]:
Anyway, what I got was like this, except it was a knife. A 9/11 commemorative knife with explosions on it. And a picture, looking cut from a magazine, of the same explosion pasted on the inside of the case. It’s a nicely made knife, but the design, well, let’s just say it’s a tad indelicate.
I was one of the thousands working in the financial district that beautiful summer day. One of the thousands who ended up running through the dust clouds. Once free of the smoke and dust, I turned, watching the icons tumble behind me while they crushed the life out of thousands of people and changed the world forever. The images in my mind are vivid, personal, and painful. To put these images onto something like a knife or a lighter is crass commercialism at its absolute worst, and what’s really upsetting is that it probably represents the nature of supply and demand. No one would make these things if no one bought em. Oh well. People will always let you down if you give em a chance.
The gift-giver’s intentions were good, and they really just wanted to make me happy. My family is southern on my dad’s side and guns and knives are not uncommon gifts. I honestly do not know what it must feel like for the rest of the world to see those images. I live here, eat here, sleep here. I know and love this city. That love is shared. I can tell that people who don’t live here sensed that town pride coming through. After watching on television, and wanting to express empathy, I’m sure the gift was to try to show me that they cared too. I still love em anyway, even if that is a fuckin’ tacky thing to put on a knife, and a bizarre gift for anyone, but especially for someone who was there that terrible day.
Methinks I’ve got just about everyone (other than dalovinDJ beat. Been a vegetarian for four years. Entire family has known it for a while, knows a lot of it is for medical reasons.
Christmas day. Supposedly, only immediate family exchanges gifts, but…doesn’t happen that way. My aunt who truly does mean well, but just DOESN’T get it, gave me a case of beef jerky. A case. It was like, a year’s worth of beef jerky. In the same package was a few packets of steak marinade. This, mind you, was this past Christmas. I open the next gift from her - it’s a huge makeover kit. Nail polish, more varieties of nail tools I knew existed, all these bizarre facial things that seemed to be more food-product than face-product…This, mind you, is what she gave the girl who has truly never worn make up. Ever. Wore nail polish ONCE. She knows this, because the previous summer, she’d lectured me about how important it was to be true to myself, and the topic came up.
I’ll live. But it definately counts as an inappropriate gift. The upside has been seeing the looks on Doper’s faces at the NYC Megadopefest when they opened the case. People didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or just point and mock. The presentation really is mind-blowing with this thing.
I can empathize, francesca. My dad’s parents were notoriously bad gifters. When I was in the fourth grade they gave my sister and me umbrellas with off-brand Transformers (remember the robots that urned into something else? Except these were generic ones) and second-quality leg warmers, with tags cut in half and everything, looong after Flashdance was no longer hip. My grandmother was well-known for picking up junk out of the house and throwing it in a grocery bag for birthdays. My dad still laughs about the time they bought him two pairs of jeans for Christmas and his sister a PIANO. One year when I was a kid they brought him one of those all-purpose “thinking of you” type greeting cards signed “The Brooks” (their last name) with a $5 bill inside, and literally threw it to him across the living room into his lap. My grandfather kind of lost his mind as he got older, but I think my grandmother did it just to be mean.
I know you are not talking about Go-Bots. They came out BEFORE transformers and anyone who is hip was down with them when they came out. What’s not to love about transforming die-cast toys? Why, where I’m from, a Go-Bots umbrella would be considered cool as hell . . .
Maybe we can have a terrible gift trade. I’ll give you my explosion knife for your Go-Bot umbrella. Hmmmm. Or maybe I should go for the jerky. . . .
