At the risk of being pitted as an ungrateful lout*, I’m opening this thread up as sort of a anti-wish list. Here’s your chance to complain about stuff you just might get.
–I’m sure I’m in the minority when I say I hate gift cards. I either spend more than the card’s value, or have some trifling amount left over that never gets spent. Cash, please.
–One of my best friends has been giving me plush toys for the last decade. The first 2 were cute, but I’m just not a plush toy kinda guy.
*as opposed to just the run-of-the-mill-type lout, which I won’t deny
Clothes that I did not specifically pick out. My tastes are picky and only I can be sure of what I like. I feel bad when someone buys me a shirt or something and I hate it - I feel bad because I don’t like the gift and never say anything and am left with a gift I shove in the back of my closet. If you really want to buy me a sweater, let’s go shopping together. Or get a gift card to my favorite store - I’ll spend it all eventually, if not all at once. For me, a gift card of any amount is nice - if it doesn’t cover my purchase or it takes me twice to use it all, I just look at it like an awesome coupon.
Mom has learned not to get me clothes anymore unless we go together to pick them out. This year I can’t be at home before Christmas, so I’m getting DVDs and other stuff easy to pick out, plus a few surprises. Probably a Gap giftcard.
I just like a gift to have some thought behind it. I hate getting those baskets full of smelly girl stuff - lotion etc. I love perfume but do not use smelly lotion or soap or anything. I don’t want to smell like apples or freesia or whatever. Generic girl gifts are never to my liking.
Jewelry. The only jewelry I wear is my wedding ring, my engagement ring, and my promise ring. On the rare occasion I’ll wear a necklace I got from my husband. Inlaws - you see me pretty frequently, and do I ever wear jewelry around you besides those rings? No? Then why do you keep buying it? Note to a female coworker of my husband: STFU about how he’s supposed to buy me jewelry. You clearly know nothing about me if you think I would want that. He asked you which you’d prefer, diamond necklace or laptop, and you picked the necklace and scoffed at the laptop. When given that hypothetical question, I jumped at the idea of the laptop and sung a few bars of “Silicon is a girl’s best friend.”
Perfume. Please, it’s a waste. Even one bottle is more than I can wear in a year.
Bath supplies/body lotion/makeup. I’ve got this stuff coming out of my ears - or I would if I tried to use it all. Admittedly I did ask for a Lush giftcard from my sister, but I have one very specific product in mind.
Candy/cookies. Come on, I’m married to a postal worker who gets lots of this junk from his customers anyway, he’s on a semi-strict diet for his health, and I’m also developing something of a pudge on my abdomen that needs to be reined in before I can’t fit into my pants. Inlaws, why the hell would you buy us more of this stuff when you know all of this?
Anything cute and or/decorative “for our apartment.” No more picture frames, candles, bottles, knick-knacks, or what have you. My husband and I live in a tiny Brooklyn apartment and we have no “surfaces” to put such stuff on. Even if it’s something we like, we don’t have a place for it. Yes, it may be nice to look at, but it’ll end up in a box at his parents’ house in Michigan for the next several years.
Oh, I forgot about those. I used to work at a Spencer Gifts, so they’re not even funny to me for one second. I’ve seen it all–fart machines, birthday vibrators, edible bras, so there’s not even a shred of novelty left in them to “wear off” after five minutes. Novelty items are such a terrible cop-out gift. I begged NOT to get any of this crap for my bachelorette party and bridal shower.
This should also get a mention in the “gifts no sane person would ever buy for themselves” thread over here. Shudder.
T-shirts that have clever party sayings on them. The only t-shirts I wear are free ones that I got from college, free ones from high school, or blank ones. I do not want to walk around advertising that I am a “party animal” or a “panty magnet.”
Clothes, ever, from anyone. Not even my S.O. can shop for me; I’m just that picky and specific, and I’m in between sizes for both shirts and pants so every single article of clothing is a judgement call that I agonize over. I just feel really irritated and guilty when I get clothing, because it’s always something that I would not have picked for myself.
I’m graduating from college on December 20, so I expect I’m going to get quite a few gifts meant to cover both graduation and Christmas. I don’t really want the traditional pen/pencil set – I wouldn’t use it, since I already have good quality pens and pencils I like using. I also wish I could remind certain relatives that just because a tchotchke manufacturer has managed to obtain a license to print NC State’s logo, mascot, or seal on their product doesn’t mean I need it. And I’m sure I’ll still receive various day planners, same as every year. (I’ve had a PDA since August of 2000, so I haven’t touched a paper day planner since high school.)
An intangible thing I don’t want right now: career advice. I had to put my job search on hold at the end of October due to an excessively demanding course load; certain people in my family viewed this as laziness on my part, so they regularly send nice-looking little packages in the mail that are filled with want ad clippings and outdated resume tips.
I’ve finally come to the realization that I just flat out don’t like sweaters. I don’t like how they feel, and it’s rarely cold enough to warrant wearing them anyway.
Any clothes. I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last year, and anything but t-shirts would be a judgment call. Plus, I don’t have a job right now. I wear gym shorts, track pants, and t-shirts 90% of the time.
Anything stereotypically girly (except bubble bath, because we just got our whirlpool tub installed). I have enough lotion to last a lifetime. No, seriously. I have lotion in every room in the house.
Jewelry and perfume. I just flat out hate the stuff. The same for picture frames, knick knacks, and anything else that exists to be dusted.
Candles. Actually, I quite like scented candles, but we have far too many of them.
Anyone looking at my wish list should be able to ascertain with a fair degree of certainty what kind of person I am. My list this year consisted of computer games, movies, gift cards to bookstores, and ammo and targets for my handgun. (In truth, I’d rather not exchange gifts at all with the adults, but in the interest of peace and harmony, that’s not an option.)
I have enough of both. Yes, Grandma, I’m looking at you. Every year, you get me socks, and I now have enough socks to give every poor sockless child in Africa a pair and have some left over. Please, let up with the socks. And the sock-slippers. Is that some sort of weird evil joy of yours? Because socks-that-are-not-socks don’t really set off the humor button in me. Did I give you some kind of indication that I was in dire need of SOCKS? Please.
Christmas cards, unless they’re outright hilarious. I don’t want seasons greatings. Just give me a phone call. I’d rather talk on the phone for ten minutes with a relative I never get to see or a friend who lives across the country than you waste your 50 cents on postage. I don’t read the things anyway. This does not count if there’s actual stuff in it - a handwritten personal note with a brief update, like a letter, or money.
I don’t mind gift cards if they’re for a place I shop at regularly - and I’m going to be honest, the only place I shop at regularly is Wal-Mart. Oh, and the dollar store, who, coincidentally, DOES sell gift cards. I don’t mind them, and rather like them - I can use them to buy food, which allows me more money for bills. But don’t get me a gift card to Victoria’s Secret or Sephora - do I look like That Girl?
Honestly, I’d rather spend time with my relatives, whom I rarely get to see, than have them buy me shit I don’t need and will never use. A friend of mine and I play the Gift Card Trading Game after Christmas - she’s girly and likes girly things, and I’m more practical - so I trade her my Victoria’s Secrets, Sephoras, and Bed, Bath and Beyonds, for Wal-Marts, Targets, and Albertsons’.
So back in July or August my mother had an angry ephiphany, after seeing the ugly shirts she’d bought me for my birthday in my closet with the tags still on. She bitched about how I must really hate her taste in clothes since I never wear anything she buys me. So it’s taken her eleven years of me only wearing what I buy myself to catch on, but… I asked not to be bought clothes. Yep, that’s all I don’t want for Christmas (well, nothing viral or bacteria, either). Or birthdays. Or for any other reason, really.
