The list of unwanted gifts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have mostly succeeded in stopping all this insanity and I can't tell you how much more I enjoy the holidays now! I give my kids (older teens) one gift plus cash. They like to give me gifts and know I prefer items I can use up like nice soaps and fancy tea.

My mother and siblings and I contribute to a family trip as our mutual gift. My friends and I may do small gifts (cookies, hand lotion, etc.) if we happen to get together around the holidays but nothing is expected. I focus my gift efforts on birthdays, but still try to focus on consumable gifts and/or experience-based gifts. No one in my life needs or wants more stuff.

And yet there are people on here complaining about soaps, teas, cookies and lotions!

Normally I am a fan of consumable gifts but I am on Ozempic so the festively decorated oreos, the 2 pounds of chocolate bark and the other edible gifts are not going to be eaten. I will give them to a friend with teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GIANT blanket hoodies for each of the four members of our family. They are ENORMOUS and take up a whole drawer when folded. I don’t know what to do with them. We live in a small townhouse and I feel like there was malice behind giving them to us.

My whole family has one of these and wear them all the time. They are awesome. Admittedly I run COLD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my brother and SIL: every year they give my kids (ages 9 and 6) a 1000 piece puzzle. The kids aren’t interested in doing puzzles and we have never even started one. I don’t know where they got the idea we like puzzles. I wish they’d give us nothing instead of a giant puzzle every year. It also does annoy me that I buy their kids gifts that i actually put time and effort (not to mention more $$ since I’m buying each kid a gift instead of one joint gift) into thinking of something I know they ‘ll like and be excited to open, that’s personal to each kid.

My BIL gave my 6 year old daughter a packet of miso soup mix, which is not something she has ever had or would want to have. I just don’t understand…

My parents are good gift givers now because they finally got to a point after years of bad gifts where they will actually ask me what the kids and my husband and I want and get exactly what I tell them. But honestly the whole gift giving thing is so ridiculous at this point. Either you are shopping from a wish list which is a way to guarantee you’re getting something someone wants but it’s not very fun since the recipient knows what they’re getting. Or you give them useless junk. There’s no in between it seems, in my family anyway.

Wow. That is pretty bad. My husbands brother-in-law sent him a single tea bag-but at least my husband drinks tea!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A sponge.

Not a white elephant gift and the only present I got. The giver gave the rest of my family things like fancy pocketknives and books.

Now that is symbolic

[Anonymous]

Keeping it but got something called a "Ninja Creami" to make pints of ice cream or homemade blizzards. Not interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:-Hot sauce sampler set from a white elephant party
-Random Avon assortment from my Avon Aunt (Avon products don't agree with my skin, but I've never said anything to her b/c she's older & on a limited income)
-3 candles (all floral scents, which I can't handle) from the IL side of the family

Not bad, honestly. My brother ended up taking the hot sauce sampler home with him. I usually offer up the Avon products to my friend group and anything not wanted I donate. I'll probably donate the candles too.

This reminds me of the dermatologist I dated for a couple of years. He got lots and lots of tiny smaller-than-travel-sized Aveeno lotions and Cetaphil cleansers and stuff like that as samples. Instead of tipping the doormen in his building, he gave them all a plastic bag full of that stuff. It was embarrassing. That doormen did not want sample sized itch cream ffs. He thought it was the most wonderful amazing gift. What a cheapskate.

Wow, not tipping the building people is really asking for it. Maybe he sent money you didn’t know about. Sometimes there’s an organized system for collection.

Definitely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband gave me a custom family name sign. The problem is its grammatically incorrect. Our last name ends in s and he didn't make it plural. So the sign says (for example) "The Jones" instead of "The Joneses" or "The Jones Family" I don't honestly know what to do with it.

This would send me over the edge.

I’d file for separation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It wasn't for me, but 7 yo was a witch for Halloween so our au pair got her a Wiccan bible so she can learn to be a real witch. That got recycled quickly.

Ha ha. I love this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sister completely abandoned me when I moved away and hasn't kept up with anything me or my family does - she could not care less. So inevitably her gifts to me at Christmas are just really just so low effort it's hilarious. I make a very petty point of getting her something amazing and thoughtful every year, and I hope it makes her feel terrible. This year she gave me a painfully ugly, plain canvas bag. I can't even return it because she regifted it to me.

How do you know it was a regift? You really don't....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keeping it but got something called a "Ninja Creami" to make pints of ice cream or homemade blizzards. Not interested.

It’s to make healthy ice cream using fruits, etc. I don’t think it’s terrible at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keeping it but got something called a "Ninja Creami" to make pints of ice cream or homemade blizzards. Not interested.

It’s to make healthy ice cream using fruits, etc. I don’t think it’s terrible at all.

If someone is scrambling to buy me a gift and lands on a Nina Creami, that is not someone that needs to be scrambling to get me anything!

[Anonymous]

Is it wrong to regift stuff back to people next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my brother and SIL: every year they give my kids (ages 9 and 6) a 1000 piece puzzle. The kids aren’t interested in doing puzzles and we have never even started one. I don’t know where they got the idea we like puzzles. I wish they’d give us nothing instead of a giant puzzle every year. It also does annoy me that I buy their kids gifts that i actually put time and effort (not to mention more $$ since I’m buying each kid a gift instead of one joint gift) into thinking of something I know they ‘ll like and be excited to open, that’s personal to each kid.

My BIL gave my 6 year old daughter a packet of miso soup mix, which is not something she has ever had or would want to have. I just don’t understand…

My parents are good gift givers now because they finally got to a point after years of bad gifts where they will actually ask me what the kids and my husband and I want and get exactly what I tell them. But honestly the whole gift giving thing is so ridiculous at this point. Either you are shopping from a wish list which is a way to guarantee you’re getting something someone wants but it’s not very fun since the recipient knows what they’re getting. Or you give them useless junk. There’s no in between it seems, in my family anyway.

I don’t understand why you don’t just get them a puzzle every year too. They’re telling you they like puzzles.

Because their kids are 4 and 1 so it doesn’t seem like a very thoughtful gift. But maybe I should, just to be done w thinking about what to get them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my brother and SIL: every year they give my kids (ages 9 and 6) a 1000 piece puzzle. The kids aren’t interested in doing puzzles and we have never even started one. I don’t know where they got the idea we like puzzles. I wish they’d give us nothing instead of a giant puzzle every year. It also does annoy me that I buy their kids gifts that i actually put time and effort (not to mention more $$ since I’m buying each kid a gift instead of one joint gift) into thinking of something I know they ‘ll like and be excited to open, that’s personal to each kid.

My BIL gave my 6 year old daughter a packet of miso soup mix, which is not something she has ever had or would want to have. I just don’t understand…

My parents are good gift givers now because they finally got to a point after years of bad gifts where they will actually ask me what the kids and my husband and I want and get exactly what I tell them. But honestly the whole gift giving thing is so ridiculous at this point. Either you are shopping from a wish list which is a way to guarantee you’re getting something someone wants but it’s not very fun since the recipient knows what they’re getting. Or you give them useless junk. There’s no in between it seems, in my family anyway.

I don’t understand why you don’t just get them a puzzle every year too. They’re telling you they like puzzles.

Because their kids are 4 and 1 so it doesn’t seem like a very thoughtful gift. But maybe I should, just to be done w thinking about what to get them.

If you never opened the puzzles, regift the older ones back to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn't for me, but 7 yo was a witch for Halloween so our au pair got her a Wiccan bible so she can learn to be a real witch. That got recycled quickly.

Ha ha. I love this.

I love it, too! I didn't even know there was a Wiccan Bible!