I’ll take that jerky offa your hands, there, NinjaChick. I loooove that stuff (I’ll thumb-wrestle you for it, dj) :D.
My family is absolutely great for gift-giving. We ask what the other person wants, and then we buy it for them. Nice and simple. We’re just a pragmatic bunch, I guess.
dalovindj, the gift you received is truly shocking! Oh, my goodness! I am a former NY gal myself, so I can understand how chilling it must have been to open your gift.
It is to your credit that you have been so big about everything…good for you.
Peace.
One year my granny gave me a gift that I was not able to understand for years. It was a little Santa on top of what appeared to be a socket or washer of some sort. The package said nothing but “Santa Finial”. As I was still living with my parents at the time and had little exposure to hardware or interior design, I had no idea what a finial was. Since the Santa was cute, I broke off the socket part of it and kept the Santa as a little figurine. A few years later I learned that a finial is something that goes on top of the lamp where the shade is screwed in. Now that I have my own house, I wish I hadn’t broken the socket part off – I would love to attach it to one of my lamps at Christmas.
featherlou, that’s an awesome concept!
Since I’m reading this thread, I may as well contribute an anecdote about this past Xmas. FIL asked Mr. Rilch and myself what we wanted in the way of gifts. I sent him an e-mail listing eight possibles for myself: four books, all best-sellers, none of them expensive; four DVDs, also recent, popular, inexpensive, and all of them available at any Target, Circuit City or other variety store. (I figured I’d get one, maybe two from the list; this was just to give them a range of choices.) Mr. Rilch listed two Playstation games (also not hard to find) and three different brands of cigars (also not expensive, and only naming three for the same reason I named four books and four DVDs).
FIL requested a particular kind of a particular brand of golf balls. We got those for him. His wife* requested a particular kind of a particular brand of video cassettes. No problem; we got those for her.
Christmas Eve, we had our gift exchange.
For Mr. Rilch: A box of handkerchiefs, a package of socks, and three shirts in a style he’d never wear.
For me: A bag full of kitchen utensils. All stuff I either already have, like a pizza cutter and a pancake turner, or stuff I’d never use, like cheap wooden spoons. Four cheap wineglasses wrapped in dish towels (“Part of the gift!” I was told). And a Betty Crocker cookbook, with the CostCo price tag still on.
Not one bloody thing either of us had asked for. But, ha-ha! Mr. Rilch’s “gifts” were converted into a fleece sweatshirt and new sheets. My stuff became utensils I needed and wanted, like a lemon zester and a garlic press**; the cookbook became 1 1/2 of two of the books on my list.
*For other reasons besides this, FIL’s wife is now known as “Jenny the Hutt”.
**I kept the wineglasses and the dish towels. I CAN always use more dish towels, and expendable wineglasses are A Good Thing.
Well, Rilch, that doesn’t even make sense. Why bother asking if you’re just going to ignore the list provided? I don’t suppose you and your husband are going to waste much time making an actual list in the future. I would probably be responding with, “Oh, whatever you want to get me is just fine” if they pulled this stunt. (Isn’t there some kind of etiquette about actually buying a gift from the list if you asked and they provided one? Seems like there should be.)
I worked in a movie theatre and one of my co-workers was a 15 year old girl. (dumb as a post but nice and really cute) Anyway she got in trouble and almost had to quit her job because her parents found her birth controll pills. They were pretty upset with her.
About three weeks later it was her 16th birthday and her PARENTS gave her a $200 Victoria’s Secret gift certificate.
featherlou: No, we won’t make a list next year or thereafter. Mr. Rilch talked to his dad, and the agreement is gift certificates from now on.
See, we know that at our ages, our parents don’t have to give us Xmas gifts at all. What irked Mr. Rilch was the fact that they were so specific about what they wanted, and we made sure to get exactly that, but they didn’t extend the same thoughtfulness to us. :dubious:
Married ladies, try this one on for size:
My mother got my wife 1 (one) place setting of a different china pattern than the one we picked out for our wedding. We have never needed nor asked for more place settings than what we received at the time as wedding gifts.
Her words: “I’ve always liked this china pattern better than yours.”
A little odd, wouldn’t you say? Especially since we’ve been married seven years.
You are my people.
My bedridden mother in law, for whom I am the primary caregiver. And who weighs in at twice my 110lbs at least.
Her relatives all gave her chocolates for Christmas. Now I appreciate it’s not easy to buy for a person in this circumstance.
But chocolates? Are you kidding me? My back is breaking and now I have to argue with her because she wants chocolate morning noon and night. And I get to be the one saying no? That bites.
And her daughter bought her a lovely and expensive blouse. Which left me wondering. Even this womans nightgowns have to be altered so we can get them on her, as I contemplated taking my sissors to this expensive garment to cut it entirely down the back. And for what? Am I supposed to dress her just so you can see her in this? I still don’t understand the intent.
I kept my mouth shop but was dying to ask. What are you people thinking?
My favorite weird gift story happened about 20 years ago.
My parents’ house was struck by lightning in December that year, so Christmas was cancelled, what with the cleanup and remodeling.
During that next year, my father was diagnosed with cancer and underwent chemotherapy and radiation.
The next Christmas, the whole family gathered together for Christmas, to see the changes to the house and help cheer my father up. My mother brought out the Christmas gifts from the prior year; after the fire they had been packed away in a storage locker and she had only recently found them again. She apologized and explained that, although most of the tags were still affixed, she didn’t remember what was in the boxes anymore.
We got a good laugh when my father, who had lost all of the hair on his body from the cancer treatments, opened a fancy hairbrush and hairdryer set.