Wait, you’re calling Coach logo purses butt-ugly*, but then go on to say you’d rather have a Vera Bradley bag? That is completely bizarre to me.**
I got a twelve on the physical contact section, and a one on gift receiving. So yes, I could skip people giving me presents and just have everyone I love come over for dinner a few times a year. Oddly enough, I love getting gifts for people that I really care about, specifically gifts that I know they would never think to get for themselves but will enjoy. And I’ve got no problem with gift certificates - no one in my family can keep up with my reading habits, since I burn through books like nobody’s business, so my mother will regularly just give me a hundred dollar g.c. for Chapters and tell me to go nuts, which I love.
Thankfully, my family is mostly GREAT at giving presents, and for the ones who aren’t, my mother starts nagging all of us for wishlists in late October. By the time Christmas rolls around, I’ve generally forgotten what I asked for anyways, so everything’s a surprise!
Oh, I picked up the Gary Chapman book the other day, BTW. (…and a collection of short fiction by Irvine Welsh, because I couldn’t bear the thought of going to the checkout with just a relationship book.) Raised eyebrows when I brought it home. 
Only read the first chapter, so far - but it seems good.
Thanks for the recommendation.
I have met you in person exactly once and I would know what clothing to buy for you. Flat-front pants (probably chinos) and a black mock turtleneck. With boy socks.
What can I say? I like colorful, 1960s-style stuff. Besides, a friend of mine has one, and it’s really nice.
Still, my FIRST choice would be the take-out box purse.
But that’s not my ultimate gift, anyways. Last year, my MP3 player, and my sewing machine* were, and this year, the camera and my Fast Willy jersey were.
I like old-fashioned looking costume jewelry, non-fiction history books, and um, “unusual type” stuffed animals.
*Technically, I bought this with my Christmas money-but that was because I wanted my Aunt Lu, the family seamstress, to help me pick it out.
This will probably prove why men should never buy purses for women. I think it’s a cool idea…but I’m a guy.
Too bad it’s ugly as sin and looks like you won it in a crane game in front of K*Mart. (I’m a guy, FWIW)
Disappointing gift givers could be narcissists:
The first year I remember “thinking” about giving gifts was the Elvis Christmas. I was spending it with my new stepmother. She is the kind of person that has little elf dolls on ladders decorating the tree and has a collection of ceramic Christmas pigs on the mantel. I gave my sisters framed pictures of Elvis, I gave my step brother a six foot tall poster of Elvis’s head, I gave Rags the dog a cardboard cut out of…Elvis. The final gift of the evening was a for my dad and stepmom. It was a two foot tall statue off…
Buddah!
We have since grown to like each other.
Oh Larry, I feel for you! I was so disappointed at Christmas I nearly cried about it for the next few days afterwards.
Though I have to add my vote to the pro-gift cards lobby. And I think they can be thoughtful gifts. For example, I’m keen to start a vegetable garden, so if someone had gotten me a Bunnings or Plants Plus gift voucher, I’d have been thrilled, as tomato plants are so hard to gift wrap. So context is important for gift cards.
My husband and I are both totally sucky gift givers. I’ve suggested to him that we don’t exchange gifts next Christmas, though I’ve obfuscated my reasons so as not to hurt his feelings.
First, my gifts to him. I’d already bought “Watching the Watchmen” when he made a big song and dance about how he didn’t want books, he wasn’t going to buy any more books and would I stop recommending him books as he never had time to read. Okay then, scrub that idea. His underwear was an absolute disgrace, and after I saw a pair of boxers literally rip in half as he put them on, I got him a pack of new undies as a “practical” present. As several people have mentioned, socks and underwear, not high on the thoughtful meter. So I had to get something else. He’s just started a new job which requires corporate office wear, so I got him a tie and cuff links. Stereotypical male gifts, I know, but I was running out of time and ideas. Unknown to me, his sister had also bought him cuff links for Christmas and he didn’t like the tie and didn’t want me to go with him to the store to exchange it for one he did like. So I pretty much struck out on every attempt.
I hate buying him presents. Despite anything he says, he’s so hard to buy for. Last birthday he said he didn’t want me to buy him anything as money was tight, so I hand-made him something specific to his interests. He thanked me, said it was cool and has pretty much never referred to it again.
Presents I’ve received in the past - one year I asked for an mp3 player and specified I didn’t want an iPod because they were expensive, had lots of features I wouldn’t use and were mass produced, characterless etc etc. He bought me the same iPod he bought for himself. Another year I got a bottle of Oscar perfume. At that stage I didn’t have a signature perfume I would have chosen myself. I was touched that he’d gone to the effort to find something really nice smelling until he mentioned how he had come to choose it - one of the girls at work wore it and he thought she smelled nice. He still doesn’t see this is a problem. The girl in question is a spoilt Italian princess, bleached, straightened hair, fake tan, fake nails, you know the type?
So this year, I had exactly two presents under the tree. Nothing from my parents. Not even a card. His family (who live in another state) sent money, which got placed in the joint bank account. None of my friends got me anything. So I had two presents, both from husband. The first was sexy underwear. There are several reasons this disappointed me. In no particular order: it’s hard to buy a bra that fits right without trying it on; he’d already bought me underwear for several gift-giving occasions in recent years and exactly how many sets of sexy underwear does one need?; it’s really more of a present for him than for me; it’s a bit . . . bath salts, if you know what I mean, a black bra, panties and stockings, only distinguishable from those I already own by detailed examinations. But by far my biggest issue is that I have a **huge **problem with the way I look right now. And he knows it. I’ve told him matter-of-factly several times, and the last few times we’ve had sex I’ve insisted on the lights off because I don’t feel comfortable with how I look. So a gift that was all about me dressing up and looking sexy for him made me feel just horrible. To make it worse, the bra in the set was a “cleavage-enhancing” design with some of those squidgy things to make your boobs bigger. I’m a DD, and my cleavage is one of the few parts of my body I’m confident still looks good. But no, apparently not good enough. I’ve tucked the box away in the back of a cupboard and I’m hoping he’ll forget about it.
The second gift was a gift voucher for a day spa (hmm, sounds good so far) that he’d been given as part of his Christmas gift pack at work (all his co-workers are female). So while this was in some ways a great gift, he hadn’t been thoughtful enough to seek out something I’d actually like, just re-gifted me something he wouldn’t use.
It makes me wonder why any adult bothers at Christmas. It’s just a set up for disappointment. We’re conditioned to believe there’s such a thing as a perfect gift and then feel disillusioned in our relationships when we fail others or our loved ones fail us.
Apologies for the above being so long. I guess it’s been bugging me more than I realised and I needed to get it off my chest . . .
Across, I found it engrossing. Good to know that there are other people out there who can’t manage to buy each other gifts!
Across, I don’t know you or your boyfriend, so maybe there’s more at work here than we message board readers are aware of. It seems to me, though, that your boyfriend is getting you gifts in an attempt to make you feel better about your body.
The sexy lingerie may have been meant to help make you feel sexy again. The spa gift certificate might have been to help you feel pretty and pampered.
As I’ve already said, I don’t know you or the history of your relationship, but is it possible that you’re getting upset because of your own issues, and your bf isn’t really to blame so much?
In addition, you clearly want to murder your mother and sleep with your father.
puff puff
Waah! Waaah! Waaah! I have an August birthday and I grew up lower-middle class in a big Cathlic family in the '50s–early '60s.
What that means is that ,as a child, my gifts all consisted of new school clothes. I was even expected to gush forth enthusiastic thanks for socks and underwear.
I’d have killed for a gift certificate to a department store that I could spend any way I wished; and it wouldn’t have had to be anywhere near as big as the one that allowed the little moppet in the WallyWorld ad to buy a Wii. A modest cash bequest would have been as
greatly appreciated as a certificate.
Screw that, “It’s SO IMPERSONAL!” crap. “Impersonality” beats having Kodaks taken of you holding up packages of underwear and forcing smiles any day.
This Christmas, I didn’t HAVE a Christmas. Oh, I baked goodies as gifts for a handful of friends and got a handful of pretty decent gifts back from friends and customers, but no family get-together, meal, and ceremony of The Opening Of The Gifts. My sister’s in Vermont and couldn’t come down; my older brother’s in Illinois; my younger brother, who’d normally host the gathering at his house, instead went with his family to Maryland since his mother-in-law no longer can travel up here for the holiday.
So my Christmas Day… wasn’t, really. Sushi takeout, a movie on DVD, some recreational reading… a very quiet day. Except for one thing that made it special after all:
The antics of my Christmas present to myself. I took him home from the shelter a few days before Christmas; receive frequent LOVEYOULOVEYOULOVEYOU snuggle-swarmings from him; consider him one of the best presents I ever got.
But then, when you can pick out your own gift, it’s easy to get it right.
Or that you’re still sexy to him?
(Oh, and Oscar isn’t a “fake tanned, bleached blond bimbo” perfume. It’s my Mom’s signature scent. Unless you mean that you don’t like the reason he picked it, not the perfume itself. In that case, I’m Emily Litella)
Speaking of perfume, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but that’s the ONLY thing I didn’t get that I asked for. Mom got me a CD case instead. I wanted a bottle of my “Heaven” perfume from the Gap. Oh well. I won a Visa gift card at work (for the holiday membership sales drive), so I’m going to use that to buy it. Still…
It is interesting to me that the major critique you have of his gift giving is that it was bland and generic – yet the gifts you chose for him were also extremely bland and generic. But you are seeing his actions as rude and insulting, but yours as rational & reasonable.
As far as the bimbo at work - he didn’t say she looked nice he said she smelled nice, so… yeah I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
Whoah, slow down there! I said we were BOTH sucky gift givers. I fully acknowledge that my gifts were sub-par.
Christmas can often be an emotional time - I got a bit teary when the thought occurred to me that my husband and I have been together for 12 years and still can’t get it right. What does that say about us and about our relationship? Cue seasonal angst. Since then I’ve been trying to think of it differently. As I said in my earlier post, we’re conditioned by advertising, Christmas specials and so on to think that there is such a thing as the perfect gift that makes everything right, when that’s just a load of commercial bullshit.
You’re right that the fact the bimbo at work was a personality type I abhor and widely believed to have the job because of her looks (which the guys at work commented on) is completely irrelevant. I shouldn’t have brought it up. However, I’m sure that many women here will agree with me that if their partner bought them a perfume and told them that they’d chosen it so they would smell like another woman, they would not be happy.
Scribble, the day spa gift was exactly the kind of gift I would have liked him to pick out for me . . . but he didn’t. It was a regift of something he was given and didn’t want. Passing on something he received but couldn’t use is one thing, but I think wrapping it and putting it under the tree is a bit much.
And I’m not mad at him - it’s the thought that counts, right? And and I know he cared and he tried, so I can’t be mad. But as I said above, expectations of perfect gifts, anticipation, inevitable let down, blah blah blah, which I think will lead me to boycott the commercialism of Christmas and skip gifts for adults next year. The fact that I didn’t get so much as a card from my parents has something to do with it too.
Just to be clear, I AM a woman, and I can say quite sincerely it would not make any difference to me. I don’t expect the average man has ever sniffed perfume except on another woman. I think you’re choosing to parse it as “he wants me to smell like that hobag” when it reality it was more like, “what’s that pleasant smell? I would like to enjoy that pleasant smell on my wife.” I doubt he noticed either a)the attributes of that woman or b)your emnity.
But, despite being a woman and all, I have actually been overjoyed to receive some drop in bleach tabs for the toilet one year for Christmas, so, whatever, I’m a freak.
As to what it says about your relationship… you really need “The 5 Love Languages” noted above. You are craving to feel your husbands love through gifts (which is a VALID desire) but maybe you aren’t perceiving the other ways he shows his love.