This is the time of the year when my dear family begins asking, “What do you want for your birthday?” For some reason I feel an inordinate amount of stress when faced with this question, as I really, really, really have every single article of consumer goods I need, or care to stuff into my overcrowded apartment.
One of the problems is that my few real needs are perhaps too esoteric for the public, such as a particular piece of HO scale model railway equipment that can only be ordered from a mail-order outfit in Estonia, or pretty much anything that can’t be found in small-town Wal-Mart.
Or too expensive. Suggestions such as “a Jaguar S series sedan” justifiably are met with guffaws or uncomfortable silence. Trying to gently hint to my relatives that I don’t really need anything material, or that they should just buy themselves something, or make a donation to a Worthy Cause, just seems to annoy this bunch.
Maybe I just have imagination of a cinder block. So, my question to the Teeming Millions is, just what the heck DO I want for my birthday, anyway?
Gift giving is a fine art, one of which I am proud to be a near master of.
I understand your concern, the storage etc. I have several people on my list who are a challenge.
Some suggestions: Tickets to events - you can buy movie tickets (or passes) to allow you to choose date, time and show, or tickets to plays or play series, museum admissions etc.
Gift certificates at restaurants same concept.
Odd or treat food items - do you like coffee, but rarely “treat” yourself to the expensive stuff? jams/jellies, esoteric stuff. Hot sauces - god there’s hundreds of 'em, marinades, pastas, rices - all a trifle different, don’t need much storage. Odd spices. One year I get all the tough folks on my list an ‘emergency kit’ which consisted of dried stuff - like dried butter, honey, spinach, tomato, vinegar -all in powdered form, and an bottle of water, plus a recipe list for actual uses for all of these.
hope these help.
I’m a firm believer in gift giving, it gives so much fun for both ends. OF course, I’ve got one friend who claims to like “Practical gifs”. For her? a case of toilet paper
I have this problem every year too. I have around a week till my birthday, and everyone is asking me what I want. I don’t want or need anything. I am a very happy person, and can’t think of a damn thing I want. This of course makes me hard to shop for. I have gotten food dehydrators, object d’art, gift certificates, or usually nothing.
I think that if you know me well, you should be able to pick out something that I would like! I can do it for you, why can’t you do that for me???
I faced this double whammy too: 1. I want esoteric stuff that a layman can’t just get at any old department store, and 2. I have a few people (namely mom and dad) who are murder to shop for because there’s nothing they really need/want that they have not gotten themselves during their past 50 years of marriage.
I used two strategies to solve these unending problems:
I make a VERY buyer-friendly wish list of stuff I want – even the esoteric stuff. I usually list at least a half dozen items ranging in price and “complexity”; I always include helpful details that might otherwise trip up the shopper. (Like: “This shaver comes in a regular and cordless version. Please get me the regular one. It’s black, not gray.”)
My techno-inept sister would not know a bike rack from a spice rack, but even she can call up a mail-order bike shop and get what I want if I specify the store and catalog number.
This system usually works great, because I usually get exactly what I want – including stuff that I’d usually never get as a gift. Also, the giver is spared the trouble of trying to figure out what to get me. Granted, the “surprise” is limited to the items on my list, but so what? It’s better than a dud or generic (“everybody likes a bottle of wine”) gift; and I always tell them – sincerely – that if they don’t want to be limited to the list, then feel free to suprise me.
The way to deal with hard gift-GETTERS is to establish a routine. Here’s how I dealt with mom & dad, two members of the WWII generation who grew up with 78s and LPs. I bought them a boom box – a gift they would NEVER, EVER have asked for. They thought I was nuts (“What’s this new-fangled contraption for?”) but it was all part of my plan to end the endless madness of thinking of gifts for them. They soon realized how easy CDs were to use and grew to love the boom box. But, of course, they had no CD’s. So now it’s my job to fill their collection. Just about every b-day, Mom Day, Dad Day, Anniversary, and Christmas I’ll get them (at least) a CD or two and I know I can’t go wrong.
Remember, you are to your family what my parents were to me, giftwise. So, you may want to position yourself as a fill-in-the-blank-category gift-getter. Choose one thing you like or start a new interest entirely: cigars, wine, CDs, mystery books, Chaplin VHS tapes, antique ashtrays, whatever. Then the only problem is to tell them what you already have so you can avoid duplicates.
My brother – another hard gift-getter – has another pretty good system. He loves gift certificates, and just mentions a few of the chains he shops at regularly. Win-win for the giver and getter.
Jeepers, I preview the posts and still manage to leave out "a"s and "the"s every time. And I call myself an editor…
Wring, Tubagirl:
Eureka. Always felt it a bit strange that I actually prefer to give out stuff rather than receive, but now see why, duh.
When someone says “what do you want for…” it basically takes the onus off them to give any thought to what the recipient might want or need. Uncaring bastards…see if they get anything for Christmas :rolleyes:
Oh, wait, maybe they just find some people’s interests too obscure to comprehend. Never mind.
OTOH, maybe sometimes its better to ask anyway. After one offhand comment about it being hard to find cheescake in France, my sainted mother began relentlessly forwarding boxes of Jiffy Cheesecake Mix at vast expense in postage. I finally had to beg her to stop, 'cause the cupboards were filling up and the stuff was just awful.
Frankly, I would LOVE a case of toilet paper. . . or paper towels . . . or some new dishtowels! Something PRACTICAL that I can really use and USE UP!
Despite asking nicely, my family insists on giving me stuff that will make me more like what they wish I was–my mother gives me a subscription to the Daily Word (into the trash immediately). I get clothes that are too small and of a style I would never wear. (They want me to lose weight).
I get bath products that I can’t use because I have become allergic to certain perfumes.
Once again, I will make the suggestion to my family to just not get me anything. Or at least please not get me anything that will clutter my house, make me sneeze, or that I cannot use. It doesn’t matter. They’ll do the exact same thing again. Once I even cancelled the subscription to the Daily Word–my mother got mad at me and gave me the same thing the next Christmas. Oh, well. I don’t bother to take the stuff out of the car anymore–I just drop it off at the nearest Salvation Army and remember to write a nice thank-you note. It’s the thought that counts, right?
My birthday is this weekend and when my Mom asked me what I wanted, I kept it simple. I said pillows and maybe some sheets. Of course, that way she can’t screw it up, it’s something I will use, it’s something she can really get me that will make her happy and it’s something I won’t throw in the closet and forget about. My Mom is the queen of buying useless gifts so I started last year by making her choices simple yet broad enough she felt she had a choice. Since we celebrated my birthday Sunday along with my son’s, I got my presents early. Sure enough there’s 2 huge king sized pillows complete with pillow cases, a new body pillow, 2 sets of sheets. 2 blankets and a little something to wear to bed. Anything else I ask her for would just get messed up somehow. Last year I was collecting dolls and told my Mom I wanted one. I told her I got myself one that was going to be from my husband and I even described it to her. On Christmas imagine my surprise when I opened two of the exact same dolls. Now I have twins.
So at least my birthday was a success. Now I only have to worry about Christmas!
BTW, just in case someone is rushing down to the local dealer to place an order, I don’t actually want a Jaguar S series sedan for my birthday. If I could just borrow one of yours occasionally, that will be fine.
