OP, without getting into it … I hear you 100%. My mom has a different streak of terrible gifting but it’s the same broader idea - it’s just bizarre. Strange regifting or gifting things that she has previously said she would donate or throw out, etc.

Also strange facilitating other relatives to meddle inappropriately in what are normally gift-giving occasions (think showers, family heirlooms, etc).

Tldr she just cannot let what would be a nice uncomplicated thing - be that.

I absolutely hear you on bizarro relative gifting issues, unfortunately.

So she's spending money on garbage because she hates people. I'm sure that makes her life better.

Once you get pissed off about a person and their gifts they never can do anything without your feeling attacked.
Like J Jill a dig at getting old?! It's classic and well made clothes. Probably something she was familiar with. Guess you buy H&M and Forever21 huh?

This is all psycho. Maybe she's just cheap. Also people with kids in apartments use knives. All of you are off your rockers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I turned 40, my mom gave me a gift card to J.Jill, a store I have literally never shopped at and associate with much older women. She had never purchased anything from there for me before and I'd never mentioned I like that store or wanted anything from there. She also usually doesn't give me gift cards. It 100% felt like my mom saying "hahahaha now you're old." I wasn't even feeling worked up about turning 40 but I recall that gift really feeling like an attack.

Or maybe she is just getting older. She's always been pretty clueless about my approach to fashion/style (she's given me many clothes over the years that just have nothing to do with how I actually dress). Maybe it wasn't passive aggressive at all and she just thought I'd like something from that store. I don't know. Maybe my reaction was entirely about my ambivalence about turning 40 and the gift was actually just a nice gesture.

Maybe.

I personally wouldn't have gotten upset over this and I think you were reading waaaay too much into it.

I would bet your mother (who was in her 60s?) probably thought J.Jill was actually a store that appealed to "younger" women and was not a dig at you at all. Giving you a gift card meant she wasn't sure what you would want and was being considerate, IMO.

If she wanted to be nasty, she could have easily bought you a pair of orthopedic shoes and put a bow on them. Now that's passive-aggressive.

PP here. I think it's honestly a toss up as to whether she meant it passive aggressively. I know my mom -- she 100% has a streak in her like OP is describing with her mom and sister. Like my mom absolutely intentionally buys gifts to annoy other people, like buying loud toys for her grandkids and cackling about how it will irritate their parents (whatever I just take the batteries out of those toys). So this is an impulse she has. I also don't think she thinks J.Jill is a "young" store -- it's where she shops. She is in her 70s.

But also, yeah, she's in her 70s. Maybe she was being clueless. It's impossible to tell. Obviously my reaction had to do with negative feelings I was having about getting older that maybe I hadn't been admitting to myself. But then, isn't it funny how my mom is so good at provoking stuff like that? In a way that no one else in my life can?

I think buying your daughter orthopedic shoes with a big bow on them for her 40th birthday would not be passive aggressive. If done meanly, it would just be aggressive-aggressive. If done clearly as a joke, it could just be funny. The whole problem with passive aggressive gift givers is that there is always this possibility that they just didn't know. Like for OP's mom's neighbor, she probably can't say for certain that OP's mom is buying the ugly scarves on purpose to be mean. Like my mom, OP's mom is an older lady and the neighbor might think "well she just doesn't know what else to give me" or "maybe she forgot I said they weren't really my style." That's the hallmark of passive aggression -- it's just under the radar enough that there is plausible deniability. And in fact very passive aggressive people are very good at utilizing this out when confronted about their behavior. When you have someone like this in your family, you become very accustomed to this pattern. But it doesn't mean that didn't do it to hurt you. It just means you can never prove it.

Anonymous wrote:When I turned 40, my mom gave me a gift card to J.Jill, a store I have literally never shopped at and associate with much older women. She had never purchased anything from there for me before and I'd never mentioned I like that store or wanted anything from there. She also usually doesn't give me gift cards. It 100% felt like my mom saying "hahahaha now you're old." I wasn't even feeling worked up about turning 40 but I recall that gift really feeling like an attack.

Or maybe she is just getting older. She's always been pretty clueless about my approach to fashion/style (she's given me many clothes over the years that just have nothing to do with how I actually dress). Maybe it wasn't passive aggressive at all and she just thought I'd like something from that store. I don't know. Maybe my reaction was entirely about my ambivalence about turning 40 and the gift was actually just a nice gesture.

Maybe.

I personally wouldn't have gotten upset over this and I think you were reading waaaay too much into it.

I would bet your mother (who was in her 60s?) probably thought J.Jill was actually a store that appealed to "younger" women and was not a dig at you at all. Giving you a gift card meant she wasn't sure what you would want and was being considerate, IMO.

If she wanted to be nasty, she could have easily bought you a pair of orthopedic shoes and put a bow on them. Now that's passive-aggressive.

When I turned 40, my mom gave me a gift card to J.Jill, a store I have literally never shopped at and associate with much older women. She had never purchased anything from there for me before and I'd never mentioned I like that store or wanted anything from there. She also usually doesn't give me gift cards. It 100% felt like my mom saying "hahahaha now you're old." I wasn't even feeling worked up about turning 40 but I recall that gift really feeling like an attack.

Or maybe she is just getting older. She's always been pretty clueless about my approach to fashion/style (she's given me many clothes over the years that just have nothing to do with how I actually dress). Maybe it wasn't passive aggressive at all and she just thought I'd like something from that store. I don't know. Maybe my reaction was entirely about my ambivalence about turning 40 and the gift was actually just a nice gesture.

Maybe.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the posts. I did get therapy for other reasons with them,but shared the gift stories and the therapist was pretty stunned. I have no interest in gifts for me ever again and my husband and kids respect that, but I am happy to give gifts to others, and I do detective work make sure it's what they would want, and I give gift receipts in case it isn't. I do enjoy time with close friends and that is all the gift I need. I have distanced from the nutty part of the family. I just wondered if anyone relates and I guess they don't.

I do. I have a sibling (I refuse to use the word "sister" as she's never been one) who is exactly like this - maybe worse.

She is an evil manipulative person and I haven't had anything to do with her for years. But prior to that, she would pull this kind of so-called gift giving all the time. She'd determine if you had some sort of weakness or failing in her eyes and she would give you a gift to help you fix it. (Like the vacuum cleaner.)

I think the worst one was when she went to an industry trade show and went around collecting all the free swag, getting multiples of them. She then divided them up, put them in boxes and wrapped them up as Christmas gifts. My other sibling and I opened up these boxes and she actually got pissed off when we didn't sufficiently "thank" her for her "thoughtfulness" in going around and picking up this free crap.

She is a vindictive narcissist - has been her whole life. They do not change. She was a nasty kid, a mean teen, and an awful adult. I don't miss her negativity in my life whatsoever. If your situation is just as bad, OP, then I suggest you consider estrangement.

OP here. Thanks for the posts. I did get therapy for other reasons with them,but shared the gift stories and the therapist was pretty stunned. I have no interest in gifts for me ever again and my husband and kids respect that, but I am happy to give gifts to others, and I do detective work make sure it's what they would want, and I give gift receipts in case it isn't. I do enjoy time with close friends and that is all the gift I need. I have distanced from the nutty part of the family. I just wondered if anyone relates and I guess they don't.

Stop w the gift swapping

OP, none of this is normal or typical. Like PP said, disengage.

This is totally nutso. Next time you move, don't give them your address.

The sister sounds psycho.

No, most people don’t have this mental illness. Go to therapy so you can enjoy giving and receiving gifts with normal people. Keep these folks at arms’ distance, learn to laugh at them, or figure out how to manipulate them into thinking you don’t want something that you really do so it will show up for Christmas.

Does anyone else have a family this deranged with gifts? We have drifted from them do to far worse issues, but I had forgotten about the gift thing where before we drifted we had to set a no gift boundary. My mother who had a lot of rage used to relish passive aggressive gift giving. She bragged how for frenemies she got loud baby toys as shower gifts so they would suffer. I guess she hated me because she always gave her grandkids the loudest possible gifts and would smirk. The son of one of her "friends" had a cappuccino maker on the wedding registry. She bought a cheap coffee maker on sale to show them not to be so uppity. She used to take advantage of a neighbor's kindness and every time she and dad went on long exotic trips she'd have the neighbor take in the mail, check on the house, water plants, take in her cat, etc. Then she'd always get the same gift for her-a scarf that wasn't her taste. She would ask the neighbor why she never wore it and the neighbor the first decade of this was polite, but eventually admitted it wasn't her taste so she'd donate. So mom to punish her would keep getting her ugly scarves.I suggested a gift card, nope. I did convince her to include a gift receipt and mom would be livid to hear the neighbor returned it. Eventually the neighbor declined to help her at all probably to avoid this strange dance.

The gene got passed onto my sister, but not brother. When I had a baby, my sister, who did not have kids, bought a bunch of used, stained clothes, some with holes at a yard sale and sent them to me. (She was a partner in a law firm at the time and I had already told her we had a church near us that had consignment sales where I got new and almost new baby clothes for a few dollars each). I got a broken vase once that I cut myself on when I opened the box. Another time it was a broken tarnished necklace with fake jewels missing from the pendant. One time she got me a cookbooks with elaborate desserts. I don't bake and I avoid sugar. She wrote a long note about how now I must make a new dessert for her every time she comes to town. I declined. Every time I set a no gift boundary she would fly into dramatics and my mother just supported her. For my brother she once sent a bunch of sharp knives when they lived in a small condo with twin toddlers. When she saw how dirty their car was from toddlers she sent the wife a car vac for her birthday and said "It's clear you needed this."

Does anyone else have family like this?

I love the holidays being about seeing people we truly enjoy and creating happy memories, but gifts make me highly anxious. We get them for the kids and that is it-we have a no gift rule with friends and it works well. I don't want to wonder if someone is trying to send a message and I don't need more stuff to donate.