We love dogs but our lifestyle doesn’t really allow us to have one (too much traveling). A relative got us a robot dog, thinking it would bridge the gap. I can’t imagine a less wanted gift.
Kayaker, I’m stunned, what a waste.
I walk…a lot. At one time I was walking up to 8 miles a day for exercise. My husband kept telling me I should get an elliptical machine. I told him that I enjoy walking outside not on a piece of machinery in the basement. Every time we would pass one in a store, he’d say that I should get one. And every time he said that I said the same thing - no thanks, I like walking outside. It dawned on me one day that HE wanted an elliptical machine and felt he needed my permission. One Mother’s Day, guess what I got? Yep an elliptical machine. He used it every day and I used it maybe 5 times for my 2-1/2 mile morning walk because of really cold temps. I HATED it. It seemed like to use the elliptical for the same amount of time I walked outside took FOREVER. Even if I watched TV as I used it, I was bored out of my skull. He used it for years until it wore out.
Sounds like Mr. and Mrs. Sprat. 
I’m in your camp. I can walk for hours outside or for 30 seconds on a treadmill.
Isn’t there a setting for that?
I was given one of those “collapsable platformy things that folds into itself” when I went to college. The only time it was ever used was when a friend had a sibling visiting from home who needed something to sleep on. It didn’t seem comfortable.
Before we were married, I gave my wife a DVD of “Finding Nemo” when she was expecting something more along the lines of expensive jewelry. After the excitement of that incident died down, I basically gave up on giving gifts unless something is specifically asked for.
Was it engraved with “Homer” on it? 
“Hey, it’s Skipper! Honey, look, this looks just like Toxgoddess’s dog. I’m going to buy this for her!”
.
My presents were from the rich aunt who didn’t know me at all. I was all grungy in middle school, she’d give me expensive after-shave. Yes, my parents made me mail her a thank-you note. Thirty years later, it was a huge, ornate (as in, gold and rococo) door knocker… for our tiny prairie-style house. With our last name ostentatiously engraved on it, so we really couldn’t donate it to a thrift shop.
Um…thanks…
Although if your prairie house included an outhouse the knocker would look really great on that front door. Just an idea. 
“Honey, a friend of mine, well, a doper actually, had a great idea… how attached are you to that toilet we bought?”
Hah! A fellow I knew very, very slightly for work was once profiled in a major newspaper for having a massive collection of such-and-such tchotchkes. It started with someone giving him one as a gift, and others deciding he really liked them.
A few years back I was part of a gift swap at an office. The premise was 10 dollars, and unisex. Someone brought a piece of costume jewelry - the sort they sell at Hallmark stores. Definitely not unisex. Another person donated a strip of 10 scratch-off lottery tickets, which were more popular. I don’t recall what I got initially - but I was the first person to pick, so once all the others had gone, I could steal any gift I wanted. I swiped an M&M dispenser, which resulted in at least 5 thefts afterward. That dispenser featured an M&M character holding a saxophone. I named it Herbie (bad research; Herbie Hancock does not play the sax) and kept it filled with candy on a shelf available to all. IIRC, I left it behind when I moved to another project.
And at a Boy Scout secret exchange, one year a poor kid got stuck with a Disney Princess alarm clock. Another boy got a pink Snuggie.
The kimono sounds lovely - but the tablecloth does as well. Only problem would be how do you WASH such a thing??? If someone gave me one of those, I’d likely look for a way to turn it into a quilt or wall hanging.
I think your mom is weird. I think I’d have the same reaction to both presents. I don’t understand the fundamental difference between them.
present #1: an ornamental tablecloth that can’t be used for dining.
present #2: an ornamental robe that can’t be used for wearing.
I mean, if the first present was a set of pot scrubbers and the second one, a collection of edible underwear, I’d get it.
I think the difference is the “can’t be used for” part isn’t universal. I don’t see any reason why either the table cloth or the kimono can’t be used - and a tablecloth is no more a gift for me than curtains are.
I’d love either of them. It’s the silk and embroidery that would please me. Neither seems like a bad gift. In fact, I think I’d have preferred the tablecloth. It can be displayed in one’s house (if you’re afraid to use it on a dining table) to beautify it. Although a nice kimono can be used as decoration, too.
I have five gorgeous obis that I don’t use for their original purpose, but are still displayed and enjoyed.
There’s utilitarian presents, which apparently throw some women into a rage, and then there’s decorative presents, which are not for mopping the floor with. Both the presents were in the latter category. I think Anglos wearing kimono in public are in very bad taste.
ISTM the difference is that in one case the husband is rewarding / celebrating his wife as a homemaker and in the other case he’s rewarding / celebrating her as a real person. The difference is between what she does and who she is.
And yes, some women, and more back in the era we’re discussing than today, really did / do identify their persona with homemaking. But a lot don’t.
To me the real crime, if it be such, is the husband not knowing his own wife well enough to know in which camp she naturally fell.
My new wife now excels at homemaking and derives real satisfaction from it. But there’s no way in hell I’d survive making the mistake of gifting her something homemakery. No matter how much it was decorative rather than practical. And I know that.
That knowledge is the difference between that guy and me.
Why? Can you explain that?