My ex-husband was the best gift-giver ever, so I decided to one-up him for Christmas. I bought him a Rolex watch that had been owned by a very famous rock star. (This took a great deal of maneuvering on my part, and calling in a lot of favors from various people.)
What did he buy me that year? A piano. My one-upmanship failed miserably.
I might have the winner here. These both happened to my husband this last xmas.
Gift to sister #1: 4 tickets to see the Rolling Stones at Pac Bell Park
Sister’s gift to him: A jar of colored popcorn and a video of a Mel Gibson movie. We both hate Mel Gibson and have never expressed any interest in this film or its subject matter.
Gift to sister #2: Fairly expensive San Francisco Giants World Series jersey.
Sister’s gift to him:
wait for it…
A MOUSEPAD SHAPED LIKE A LITTLE RUG!!!
It would be one thing if we were all exchanging gifts at the same time or something, but he gave his sisters the gifts well before xmas so it’s not like they were caught off guard by the “niceness” of them. This is a family of notoriously bad gift givers, but come on!
The Ultimate Book of Farting… you can imagine just how much fun I had with that. It makes noises and everything 
The first xmas wherein I was in the presence of my now fiance. It was a long time ago, and our relationship was… odd… to say the least.
I really liked her, she really liked me. But neither of us knew it about the other.
I went out and bought her a nice set or earings and a necklace.
She bought me a scarf. She still feels bad about it.
Also, count me in with the wild sex being a great present.
I think my mother has you trumped by just a bit with what was either a birthday or christmas present. My mother’s mother gave my mid 20s mother, who was married with 2 children and working like hell to maintain a 4.0 college GPA while taking very difficult math and physics courses, a set of paper dolls. Not fancy and expensive ones, just paper dolls she thought my mother, who had perhaps liked them 20 years ago, would like to have fun with. But she was always doing things like that as both me and my sister found out until senility set in. She was the opposite of Peter Pan, nobody around grew up.
this valentine’s day, my boyfriend bought me a beautiful diamond on a chain. one of his first salary’s since he started working and he really splurged out on me. dinner and candlelight and music and the very first diamond i own. sighhhh…
i got him a grand…nothing. i felt so very Ebenezer Scrooge afterwards. (blush)
(is it just me, or does the ‘embarrassment’ smiley really not look the slightest bit embarrassed?)
Thank you. I totally agree. Stupid yawning orange!
hehehe…“stupid yawning orange”…hehehe.
Hey c’mon. When my friend bought me one those mini-swiss army knives, it was probably the best gift I’ve gotten in a long while. I mean, it’s probably the only gift I use somewhat often (as a bottleopener more than anything). Just carry it around with you and you’ll run into a lot situations where you need cut or file things. Or maybe it’s a guy thing. I dunno.
My family and I have been poor for a very long time now. Very often we can’t afford presents for anyone other than the kids and our parents. We don’t even often buy anything for each other. I try and tell people not to buy for us, or even for our kids as there won’t be return presents. I’m trying to get over the emarassment of the whole thing as it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. People still buy us lots of stuff and I still feel bad. I hate Christmas.
I’ve told this in another thread, but when I got married, my mother sent me (she didn’t come to the wedding) a fridge magnet shaped like a box of mackrels on ice, and a little “card-making-kit” containing cards and shells to stick on them that was about the size of two matchboxes side by side.
That’s entirely different. I think the other posters are talking about people who should know better, have money, and are just plain clueless or in many cases were just caught off guard or misinterpreted the relationship, etc. Your friends know beforehand that they’re going to get nothing in return and so the gifts are out of the goodness of their hearts and in the true spirit of giving. Don’t feel bad about it; these people think you are worthy of receiving a gift and want to do it for you. Consider it something to be thankful for that you have some generous friends during what must be a difficult time for you. Good luck, by the way!
H’uh? I’m confused here.
That’s an inside joke based on something I told him during a phone call. It’s really funny if you know the whole story but since the story involves a third person I can’t really share it.
** Leifsmama** Last year all I could send out were crafts. I let everyone know ahead of time but still ended up getting a really large number of gifts in return. I just like to think they understand that it’s the thought that counts. Of course what the thought behind my gift of Oreos was I still don’t know
Heh, did I mention the blender I got? Very fancy, expensive blender so she could mix drinks? I drink beer, water, milk, and iced tea.
My may not win on any individual present, but I think for consistently bad judgement, she’s got y’all beat.
aasna. It is easy making up not buying a gift to a guy.
I do like that mouse pad gift though.
Leifsmama, relax. Many people enjoy buying gifts for others and expect nothing in return. True friends enjoy making friends happy. Of course, if it makes you miserable, perhaps you could tell them to give money to a favorite charity?
Leifsmama I have a friend that has something for me and/or my Hubby everytime we go down to visit, marbles (I kinda collect them), a neat bracelet she found at a yard sale, pants she found at a thrift store, candy I can’t find where I live, toys for my cat, the last was an emerald ring very similar to a sapphire ring my Hubby bought me a few years after we married. I on the other hand can never find anything for her though she collects several different things, she already has everything, however, she says the best gift she gets from me is my friendship. I’ve been know to fly across great distances to be with her when she needs me and come down to help out at the ringing of the phone.
I can’t buy presents every year for my family (parents and siblings) and some of them can’t either. We just do what we can when we can.
For great presents…A few years ago the Hubby bought me 2 pairs of chop sticks for Christmas. One of my all time favorite presents, I use them everytime we order chinese, he can’t/doesn’t use chopsticks but gets a kick out of me using them.
This year I got a watch, hadn’t had a watch in eons, but wear it everyday.
Mom had a picture of me at about 2 or 3 framed for the Hubby for Christmas. It sits beside the TV where he can see it all the time, it’s the only picture of either of us outside of box as neither of us likes to have our picture made. He loves it.
Hard to shop for Hubby if the gift is to be ‘special’, but I found something he loves when the above mentioned friend and I were headed to Kentucky to see her father in the hospital. We stopped at a diner for lunch, while paying the check we noticed they had a few gift shop items, one of them was a little pig carver out of a piece of coal, got it for him. It sits on top the monitor and he rubs/pets the top of it everytime he passes the computer. I expect soon there will be a slight dip in it’s back.
Hubby is hard to shop for, we have everything we ‘need’ and cater to our ‘wants’ when we can year-round. One thing I love to buy for him is kitchen stuff. He likes to cook and I like to buy him useful kitchen gadgets and good pots and pans. You’d be surprised at the smile you receive on giving a Calphalon skillet to someone.
Noticed spelling errors, my typing is getting better so I quit looking at the keyboard while typing now I have more mistakes, sorry.
Paragraph 5 - … outside of a box…
Paragragh 6 - …little pig carved out of…
I get a new kitchen appliance every year for Christmas.
As long as she is wearing nothing else but the fur coat, what’s the big deal?
Gifts my husband has given me:
A present under the tree that had my name on the tag. Inside the box was another present with his hame on the tag–some tennis balls. For him.
A first aid kit to take camping. (I despise camping.)
Duct tape. I am not kidding, I opened up duct tape in my Christmas stocking.
CD of highlights by Gilbert & Sullivan.
When I really want something special–a bracelet or ring–I have to promise that it counts for birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s, anniversary, etc., for several years. I promise this just to get the thing, but then I expect a present anyway. I would be happy with just a CD or something like that. One of those years, when I got a nice bracelet in May or something like tat, the following Christmas I got the duct tape and first aid kit.
I hate Christmas. I work at a church so I am there till all hours, come home feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck, still have to wrap pesents or bake a pie or something, then the next day I open a present from myu husband that is almost always lame.
But one year I got some really nice pearl earrings. He said he got them because he knew I didn’t have any pearl earrings. I had some, smaller, that I wore ALMOST EVERY DAY, but I love these earrings.
It got very complicated when we had a daughter and he didn’t want her to be anything like a girl so we had to buy her boy presents like a Tonka truck and Legos. Nothing wrong with that, but it is okay to like girl things. When she was three someone gave her a Little Mermaid dress. She didn’t wear pants or shorts for about a decade after that. He got over it.
I’ve rambled… sorry.