Y’know, gallows, I swear to God/Og/whatever that when I was in Secret Santa at work a few years ago, I asked for a mortar and pestle. It was for grinding fresh spices, actually. I got one, too…but I’m not happy with it (wood? who makes these out of wood?). It did not have a clearance sticker on it, though. Did your parents grow up during the Great Depression, by any chance?
Oh god, I’m rolling on the floor over here.
Don’t be an ass!
For all of you who ask for something specific and get something else completely different- ask your relatives to write it down! My mother completely owns up to her bad memory and will have a pad of paper in hand to take down the exact details of what I want for Christmas or birthday.
I do occasionally run into trouble when my mother buys me clothes. She knows my style, but she is so thrifty that she will never buy anything over $20. So I end up with a shirt that looks about like what I would wear, but poorly cut, made of cheap fabric, and slightly off in color.
Ha, no way! 
Mine was made of green pottery of some kind.
It’s funny that you mention the Great Depression… My mom was born in 1947 and grew up comfortably middle class, but my dad was born in Italy during WWII and grew up literally starving poor (I was with him when he saw Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, interviewed on TV, and he laughed at what McCourt called poverty), and he’s the most generous person I know. (Although he himself lives very frugally. Also, he doesn’t do Christmas gifts – he just gives money.) So I wouldn’t/couldn’t blame childhood deprivation for my mother’s case even if it were true.
Larry, since your wife is great in all other areas and you have decided not to try to talk to her about this, I think the only option left to you is creative destruction. The bathrobe needs to go into a hot washer and hot dryer as many times as it takes to shrink to fit you, and the moisturizing kit needs to get used up really fast (as in, one squirt in your hands, one squirt down the sink). Things like pink and burgundy scarves with tassels need to accidentally get dropped on the road and driven over by your car when it’s muddy out. I’d make it my new hobby, to get rid of the bad gifts without getting her upset. 
I sometimes wonder if my mother forgets my age too. I haven’t had a huge blast from the past like you describe, but I make beaded jewelry as a hobby and one year for Christmas my mother gave me a kit from the craft store for making bead fairies. A kit clearly marked for ages 7+. This was really obviously something for children, with big plastic beads, and the fairies shown on the box were pretty tacky looking. It was kind of like the ones for sale on this page, but I remember it as being even simpler looking. More to the point, I was a senior in college, I didn’t want to be making little bead fairies!
For a second I thought I was actually going to cry. I thought, “Is this what she thinks about my hobby, that I make cheap, tacky things that a 7 year old could do?” I’d been beading for about six years at that time, and IMHO had made some very beautiful things. But I really think my mother is just clueless and doesn’t mean anything by it. I returned the kit to the craft store, and thankfully she never asked me about it.
It was a relief to me when I realized that I could just take this sort of unwanted gift back to the store. That year I returned a LOT. Just after Christmas many places don’t even care if you have a receipt. Although I have to say that I’d rather just get a gift card to begin with than have to stand in the return line at Wal-Mart or Target right after Christmas.
I was thinking a bleach accident for the robe…
I’m fortunate in that my wife chooses to go to one of my sisters for advice, as the sister in question has mutant gift-giving powers. She always gives perfect gifits.
My boyfriend was born on New Year’s Day. He doesn’t particularly like being born on a holiday, mostly because people forget to say happy birthday in all the new year’s excitement.
Also because of his parents.
Last year his parents gave him a New Year’s beanie baby bear; it looked a bit like this, and that was all they got him. Boyfriend is not a beanie baby collector; the only stuffed animal I’ve seen him show an iota of fondness for is a monkey I found when I was moving and gave him.
This year I was with him when he opened his one birthday present from his parents. He looked in the bag, looked at me, rolled his eyes, and pulled out a birthday beanie baby bear. His mother looked so pleased. Maybe she thinks of them as collector’s items, I don’t know, but I do know boyfriend would have been happy with just about anything else, including nothing.
I sympathize…
It is my opinion that most women are very easy to buy gifts for…I do not understand other mens’ problem with this.
At the very least…go to a quality clothing store that sells very soft clothes (like Martin & Osa) and knock yourself out. My wife noticed the other day that nearly all the winter shirts and sweaters she has is from there…and was grinning when she said it
I haven’t met a woman yet (though I’m sure there is 1 out there) that wouldn’t like a Coach purse.
It’s not that hard!
If your convinced you HAVE to give jewelry (rethink this…but if you insist) don’t go to jewelry stores but to some more exotic jewelry place (like Local Charm in the Mall of America)
Not to be mean…but I think this is the main problem with bad gift givers. The first line summarizes it nicely.
Take all the horrible clothes she has given you (including the robe) and have them turned into a quilt. Then show it to her and tell her that, while you would never wear such things, you love that she tries so hard to find you gifts and this way you can be wrapped up in symbols of her love and affection all winter long. This should show her that you appreciate her and you love her and all but also show her that you are NEVER going to wear the crap she buys you either. Then take her shopping with you one day and show her exactly how to pick out what you want if you don’t want to give her a list.
I don’t think I’ve ever given my husband a gift he liked. Yes, I’ve even been guilty of giving the giant bathrobe! (We couldn’t return it; now the kids sometimes use it as a spare bedspread.)
This year I asked him what he wanted for Christmas and all he could come up with was a table saw. Well, I don’t know anything about tools, but I started looking into it and found that table saws cost at least two hundred dollars and (surprise!) come with various options. When we discuss it further, he starts researching table saws and decides that the ones he likes cost a whole lot more than two hundred. Out of the expensive ones, he isn’t sure which is the best. Finally, he wonders if a table saw is really the tool he needs.
“Okay, what shall I get you for Christmas then?”
“Umm…I don’t know…satellite radio maybe?”
“I got you that last Christmas and you made me return it.”
“Oh yeah. Well, I don’t know. Don’t get me anything.”
This is not acceptable, since he is still getting me something. (I got him two sweaters. He wound up returning one and getting some pants instead.)
We have problems when he buys for me too. On my last birthday, he asked me what I wanted. I had been thinking it would be nice to have a couple pairs of earrings. Now, this is very unusual for me because I ordinarily don’t wear jewelry. We even struggled when he wanted to buy me a wedding ring, so he knows I have definite opinions on this subject. I explained that I thought some costume jewelry might be fun to have, and suggested he could find the earrings at a place like Target for less than twenty dollars.
He brought home two pairs of gold and diamond earrings. I was deeply upset, to say the least. I know, boo hoo, my husband bought me expensive jewelry, right? The best analogy I can think of is if you asked someone to cut you a little slice of cake and they handed you a great big chunk, saying, “Oh, go ahead!” They probably mean well, but it’s really not what you wanted.
I never did get him to understand what was wrong, and we had to compromise by returning one pair and agreeing that he will never buy me jewelry again. But I’d have been happier still if he could have just followed directions and gotten me a piece of goldtone crap.
I need to pick out my own accessories, and status symbols don’t excite me. You can just send me a nice gift card. 
From the other end. Some of us are really, really terrible at finding and giving gifts. I put a lot of thought into finding the perfect gift, taking into account likes and dislikes and whether the person already had it, but I usually miss. Completely.
My entire family sighed relief when Mrs. Magill and I got married. She give good gifts. She puts a lot of thought into finding the perfect gift, taking into account likes and dislikes and whether the person already had it, and she nails it.
This Christmas, I got her three gifts (one from me, and one from each kid), I could tell she liked one. She’ll never tell me that two were duds, but I could see it in her face. She had the same look that I’ve seen on face after face. I give bad gifts. I accept that. I still try to give good gifts.
This does lead into an amusing story, though. I had gotten a hold of some gag-boxes, so I could disguise the books I had found for her (I think she had read them years ago.), as even worse gifts. We packed[sup]1[/sup] my sister’s gift into one of these. It was a box for an automatic cat feeder/iPod docking station. My parents came down at New Years, and took my Bother’s and Sister’s gifts back to Raleigh, and distributed them. January second was a red letter day for my sister. Apparently all the crazy people were wanting her to do things at her school. She went over to my parents’ house after work, and Mom gave her her gift. She opened her gift, and saw a box for this… thing. She was crestfallen. “Why would he give me something like this?” She asked, tears welling up. “Why would Mrs. Magill let him?” Mother was flabbergasted, and set about comforting her daughter. “You know how your brother is.” Our Father came upstairs to see what the fuss was about, and saw the box[sup]2[/sup]. He asked whether Sis had opened the box. She did, saw the yarn, and everyone had a good laugh. She then went to the yarn store, and bought a pattern for a shawl. After she got home, she called to let me know that my parents had, in fact never been married.
1 - Some really cool yarn. My sister is a knitter. I would have never thought about it, but four months ago, Mrs. Magill had heard about this place and said, “Maus’ sister would love something like this.” and picked it up and put it into The Closet Where I Am Not To Tread Else I See My Gift.
2 - His autographed Steve Wozniak book and “Science - It works, Bitches” xkcd shirt were in a Rear View Mirror Power Strip box.
Me. I don’t want an expensive purse, because I’d be too afraid of losing it or ruining it.
I guess I’m hard to shop for. I try to make it easy- Mr. Neville must know by now that I want a hundred solar masses of antimatter. Maybe I’m going to get it for my birthday later this month.
raises hand
What’s the big deal about Coach-are they really, really good quality? Or is it just the label? Because if someone’s going to spend that kind of money on me, don’t do it just for the sake of having a label or whatever. :rolleyes:
If you’re going to get me something expensive like that, get me some vintage jewelry or something like that. Or a VINTAGE bag.
Like this. It’s a little evening bag from the 1950s and it’s about roughly the same price you’d pay for a Coach bag. But sooo much prettier!
Or, I REALLY want one of those little Chinese take-out box purses. They’re so cute! (Yeah, I know you can’t use them all the time because they’re so small, but they’d be great for going out and stuff like that)
They are really, really good quality, and they are guaranteed for life. I brought a five-year-old one in for a repair, without a receipt, and they fixed it no questions asked. (I had carried so much crap in it while allowing it to swing freely from my shoulder that I had worn a groove in the brass clip securing the strap to the purse. After five years of this treatment, it wore all the way through. They replaced all the metal hardware, not just the piece that had broken.)
Well, I guess then it makes sense…but most of them I think are kind of ugly-and I just can’t see paying all that money for a purse when there are other things I need a lot more. (A good quality pair of boots, for one.)