I’m not married but thanks to my brother Christmas is completely zero stress now. Two years ago he suggested to our mother that giving gifts to each other is kind of silly since we all make our own income and can buy what we want anytime we want. I’m surprised my mother didn’t veto the idea immediately. She ran the idea past me, I tried not to sound too excited and repressed the urge to do a back flip. No more adult gift giving!
The only people I get gifts for now is for my daughter and my niece and nephew, yay.
My wife snoops on me here so I can’t join in on the discussion, but I can tell her 20 things I want and she’ll still say I’m tough to buy for. I always get something I want, which is good, but I may as well have gone to the store and bought it myself, which is bad. I’d like to be surprised once in a while.
She’ll tell you all day and night that I’m an excellent gift giver. This year she didn’t really get a surprise because she dictated what she wanted.
She did get me the double bass pedal I wanted this year so I’m happy about that!
I was all set to feel sorry for your wife - Walter Lang has trouble buying for me because I’M REALLY HARD TO BUY FOR! I’m super picky, I know exactly what I like and don’t like, etc. All of the stuff that people generally buy for each other (clothes, bath products, jewelry, etc) I’m stupidly picky about. So, to combat this, he and I will go out together, I’ll point out things that I like and he’ll go and pick them up. I make lists with options (e.g. Ugly Doll, any style, nail polish - you choose a colour you think would look good, etc) and I get surprises. He feels bad at X-mas and birthdays because I don’t really get surprises.
However, that’s not really what’s going on with your wife. I mean, I’ve bought Walter pants that didn’t fit him before. I returned them to the store. I bought him a game for the Wii and it wasn’t one he was interested in - we went and exchanged it. Why in god’s name would someone insist that you wear a stupid ass robe in the wrong size? That’s absurd. Is your wife not confident about your whole realationship, or just the gift thing, because her behaviour is very, very odd.
However, if you’re picky about clothes, just tell her you’re picky about clothes. Frankly, it sounds like you are - if you only have one type or style thing in your wardrobe, that mean’s your picky. Nothing wrong with that, but you should at least admit it.
My Mother and Father sound a little like you and your wife.
A couple years ago, he bought her a unisex nightshirt. A massively oversized with a tacky penguin pattern unisex nightshirt. She was horrified - apparently this thing is big enough that she can wrap it around herself without actually putting it on.
So…now he wears it. I think that’s supposed to be a joke - either way the rest of us find it funny.
This year, I came across a bin of bargain sleep pants. We ended up getting him the penguin patterned ones, although I wanted to go with a far more tacky pattern. My Mom wouldn’t let me since in her words: “he’ll actually wear those and I’ll have to look it them.”
My dad finally turned over all gift-buying responsibilities for our family to my mom after he came back from Mexico with t-shirts printed with black-velvet paintings of kittens on them covering the entire chest, for his grown sons. I have no idea what he was thinking (well, OK, I guess “hey, they like cats”, but still).
Why go through this torment? Why do grown up people get themselves in a swivet over stuff like this?
You’re married, right? Why don’t you suggest - and this is only a suggestion - that instead of wasting your time and money buying crap for each other and then spending days if not weeks if not months in simmering resentment - put your gift-giving money together with your wife’s and go out for a fabulous dinner, or a weekend in a nifty boutique-type hotel?
Do something as a couple that you both enjoy, in other words. So there’s no prezzy under the tree? So? You have almost a year to work on this, and it might make next Christmas memorable.
Christmas should be, if nothing else, fun. If you’re not having fun, why on earth would you bother?
As for buying gifts for adults other than your spouse? Why?
Sounds like you should take the gift cards and be happy. If gift cards are for people who don’t know what to get, your wife sounds like the perfect candidate for gift-card giving. With all due respect, she’s clueless. At some point, you may just have to accept that and enjoy license to shop for yourself. I do.
Also, why would anyone want anyone else to pick out their clothes for them? That seems way to personal. I despise getting clothes for gifts…other than really comfy pajamas or socks. Other than that, blech; give me a gift card instead to Store A or B.
I wonder if my family’s gift giving solution would work for you. For the last few years, since my son was born, my husband and I each buy ourselves gifts. We wrap them and open them when we are together, and the other person gets the surprise of seeing what we each bought for ourselves. So instead of me telling my husband exactly what I want and vice versa, I just buy it and then at least one of us is surprised.
We also buy a few things for the other person if we see them while we are shopping. But this really takes the pressure off. The first 10 years we were together, we spent a lot of time finding presents for one another, but we (actually, mostly I) have a lot less time now, so this is a fun alternative. It’s just kind of hard to explain to friends and family when they ask what we got.
The only Christmas gift my husband and I could afford was a hug.
We had no tree, no lights, no stockings.
Please, just stop and think about what’s important.
My husband LOVES getting gift cards. It means he can buy things for himself that he normally couldn’t (or wouldn’t) afford. Cash goes toward serious things. Gift cards go for frivolous things.
I agree. I mean, assuming it’s obvious that the person gave some thought to where I like to shop (Lowe’s or Best Buy? Bleh. Crate & Barrel or Anthropologie? Wheeeeeee!), it seems better to me than just giving me cash, because the person did put some thought into what I might like and tried to make the gift somewhat personal. However, it would probably be dangerous to try to pick something out for me in one of my favorite stores, because I’m often horrified by things that people point out to me and say, "That looks like something you’d like . . . "
So really, I’d much rather have the “limitation” of a gift card (even one to Lowe’s, because, hell, I can always stock up on cleaning supplies or something) than get a sweater that I know I’ll never wear in the light of day.
Please note, though, that either way, it’s a gift, IMHO; it’s something someone didn’t have to do, but wanted to, presumably with the idea of making me happy, and as corny as it sounds, that’s what counts.
Exactly. If somebody gives me a $50 bill, I’ll go to the grocery store. If somebody gives me a $50 check, it goes directly to the bank and towards bills. But if somebody gives me a $50 to Best Buy, or B&N, or Amazon, I can buy something I really want, like a new game, or a handful of DVDs, or something that’s not groceries/bills. That’s why gift cards are superior to cash.
Having said that, I would be really furious if my husband gave me a gift card anywhere. We don’t have separate finances, so it’d basically be “Here’s $50 of your money! Merry Christmas!” That’d be pretty shitty.
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help busting out laughing at this part. Really? What does she say when you ask her why she gets you these kinds of shirts? I mean, that would be my first question if someone gave me something that totally out of character: "Why?"
Personally, if I were getting such totally bizarre and inappropriate gifts, I’d be much happier with the gift cards instead.
However, if you really consider it a big deal to have something to unwrap, I agree with the advice to give her a wish list next time. That’s what my boyfriend and I did. If you list a lot of different options, it still makes it a bit of a surprise to find out what the other person picked off the list.
Though, of course, material goods aren’t everything.
Yeah, I agree. Granted, I don’t celebrate it, but getting each other gifts just because you have to and then bitching about them seems pointless. All of this hinting about what you want and then hoping the other person will pick up on it and get it for you. I mean, you’re married and adults…if you want a book or a pair of jeans, why do you have to hope someone will realize that? You could just buy it for yourself.
Plus, it seems kind of unintentionally funny that you bitched about her getting bad gifts but also hate gift certificates.
Buy a crapload of things you want. Give them, along with the receipts, to your wife. Tell her to wrap up what she wants to give you, and return the rest to the stores.
I agree that you should read this book, since I’d bet one of your love languages is receiving gifts (as is mine). But DON’T LAUGH IT OFF. The point of the book is that each partner should learn the other’s love language, and then work at “speaking” that language. If you get the book, you should BOTH read it, learn each other’s language, and try and improve your ability to act in that language.
I thought the point was that if you buy a bunch of things and tell her to pick a couple, wrap them, and return the rest, at least what you end up with will be something of a surprise, if not a complete one.
