Its not just family, my well meaning friends sometimes drive me nuts with this. It is true that I don’t have a lot of “extra” cash, but if I really want/need something, I will budget and get what I want.
I don’t have a TV. I don’t want one. I don’t have curio cabinets because I don’t have a bunch of knicknaks and I don’t want any of them. cuts self off in mid rant.
Its much easier to say something like “oh, its so sweet of you to think about me, but no thank you” to a friend.
(for the record, I don’t have blood family anymore. I do know people who have constant problems with family giving them stuff.)
Well, as far as unwanted gifts go, gold is inoffensive. Unlike “stuff”, it doesn’t depreciate (yeah, gold prices go up and down, but the gold is still the same gold - it doesn’t wear out, it doesn’t get “old”, it still has whatever qualities it had when it was new after centuries) and it’s just about the easiest thing in the world to get rid of for money.
Gads, my mother, MIL, and FIL are the same. Mom seems to think that we bought a larger home so that we could have more stuff, when we really just wanted more SPACE, for pity’s sake! And our storage space is large, large enough that it is currently occupied by my niece, her Sweet Baboo, and their two kitties, and completely useless to me! (Those kids have Got to get serious about finding jobs, incidentally, but that’s another rant for another time.) And the in-laws are showering us with “heirlooms,” which is sweet, but… Tony is going to think I’m a bitch when I ask him to apply the same criteria to his family’s stuff that I use: does it mean something to me personally? Can I pass it to my kids along with a family story? Because, really, it’s not sacred just because your sainted grandmother once owned it. I have no problem with the German WWII helmet your granddad picked up from a battlefield in Africa, or the painting your grandmother made of her housekeeper. Random butter churns and some ugly silver plate tray that wound up in a cupboard, though? We can’t keep all of it! (And yes, the service for 20 in Christmas dishes is headed to the next yard sale, and on to the charity shop if it doesn’t sell, regardless of the fact that it was a “gift” from my mom. And I put gift in quotes advisedly: Mom bought it because it was "a bargain,"and then she realized she had nowhere to store it. She just assumes that I have that space, and that I want to allocate that space to this crap.)
Heh, I got a George Foreman Grill as a gift several years ago and sold it, unopened, on eBay. I got a Keurig from my parents this year, and told them, politely, that I’d never need it, so they decided to keep it. I like my kitchen as uncluttered as possible, and even resent having to keep a set of Corelle plates and bowls on hand for when my parents visit, because me stoneware is “too heavy”.
You have to keep a special set of plates for your parents?!? I can see keeping a set of plastic ware for your 3-year-old niece or a tea mug for your mother because you never drink tea yourself, but a special set of plates? Good Lord. I’d resent it to. A plate is a frikkin’ plate! Eat off of it for a week, it won’t kill you!
My mother whines about my “heavy” dishware as well. I refuse to keep a separate set in the house because she only visits about once a year. But when she does, and she whines about it, I ask why the weight of the plates bother her. I’m the one who plates the food and sets the plate down in front of her on the table. I’m the one who picks up the plate with the rest of the dirty dishes. She said, “It’s hard to hang onto when you’re doing the dishes!” I have a dishwasher mom, you’re not going to do dishes anyway. (She always threatens to, and has even brought her own rubber gloves for the dishwashing operations. I roll my eyes and load the dishwasher and she acts like she’s “helped.”)
Bizarro on hating the stoneware - I loathe Corelle (despite having had several pieces, a legacy of when I lived in a small apartment during the work week and only needed 2 place settings).
Regarding the Keurig and expensive coffee: Friends who own one have told me there are reusable K-cups available that you can fill with your own grounds. I actually occasionally think about getting the Keurig - we don’t drink coffee, but it’s convenient to have something on hand for when we have guests, and if we buy a full can of coffee it either goes to waste, or we wind up making the guests take it home with them afterward :D.