We do. Milk chocolate is for the unwashed masses. 
I seem to always end up getting either Victoria’s Secret GC’s or bookstore GC’s.
Everybody knows I love to read.
The Victoria’s Secret thing is a bit more mystifying…I guess it’s just a default “what to get a girl” gift. It’s obvious I have breasts, so obviously I need somewhere to put them.
That’s their line of thought, right? Right?? :eek:
blah, give me a milk chocolate hershey bar or symphony bar or lindt balls over that expensive dark crap any day.
Actually I recently had Guittard milk chocolate chips that were REALLY good.
The only reason I remember the name is from the Dope. A while back someone posted a thread about some of the most interesting reads on the web and there was a really long multi part article about some chocolate maker, Guittard was mentioned many times throughout the article.
Elephants. A long time ago, I got a big abstract painting of an elephant and hung it over the mantle. I also had a framed print of Dali’s Swans Reflecting Elephants in the same room. Enough people thought I was trying to make an elephant theme in the room…
…which has led me to having more Indian and African art than a culturally isolated suburban white boy really should have.
I’m really afraid it may become pigs for my husband. He loves pigs. Right now the piggy-themed gift exchange is limited to him and one friend, but I live in fear of the day when it becomes a full-blown thing and we’ll have a house full of cheap, cheesy, chintzy, porcelain porcine pals. Oh the horror.
I am always extremely happy with a giftcard to:
Target
a bookstore
Gap (have to buy their xlong jeans and they are pricey)
Band name!
I don’t think I have a “default” gift from anyone but my MIL. She gives me trinket boxes. Now, I do collect trinket boxes, but there has to be something special about them. She’ll just pick up any old trinket box she sees at a yard sale or garage sale or any damn place, because, hey, it’s a trinket box! I like those! Also, she seems to think there’s a law against having a vacant horizontal surface in your house!
As for gifts I’m always happy to get: gift cards from Target, Borders (or Walden’s), or one of my favorite coffee places. Sheetz has just started doing “specialty” coffee drinks, and their low-sugar Caramel Vanilla Latte (made with whole milk and whipped cream, please) is wonderful, and costs about 30% less than an almost identical drink at the frou-frou coffee place downtown. No one’s ever given me a Sheetz gift card, but if they did, I’d be more than happy to spend it on their very good Chef’s Salads, and some latte.
There’s a guy at work who LOVES elephants - his cube is filled with them. I sent him this link: elephants | Zyada | Flickr
For Bob, it’s books, but I tend to change things around often enough to keep people guessing.
My dad was a car nut, in the car industry all his life, so people always gave him things like car coffee mugs and car calendars. After years of this he was sick of it but only told me in cofidence, not them.
Anything with music notes, flutes, treble clefs, etc. I have three identical flute-playing angel figurines, all gifts from people who don’t know each other (so it can’t have been a conspiracy).