h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

snap! Must make me look really mean... but I just hate the idea of buying something for someone and it ends up just being wrong and something that won't please them or make them happier I guess I could just buy my Father and step mum alocol... alcohol always seems to work for most of my family TBH

For the last few years, I've tried to dissuade people from buying me Christmas presents. I'll usually buy a few boxes of candy for the few that still do. My parents are impossible to shop for, Dad usually gets what he wants in the weeks before Christmas and my mother is saint who wants nothing. And I'm hard to shop for as I have particular tastes. So a few years ago, I implemented a new standard. We buy something nice for ourselves, wrap them and open on Christmas to show what we got for each other by saving each other the cost of what we would have spent on misguided gifts.

It looks like Mom will be getting a new car this year as hers has a cracked cylinder head or piston (the last of the Saturns, so no resale value). I'm getting a new lens (Canon EF 70-200 F2 USM II). I'm not sure about dad yet. But just in case I did get him a new watch. He bought an overly complicated Citizen (digital/analog) that he has a hard time reading and can't read the instructions to set it. I could save it for Fathers day.

Guys, that's no fuuuuuuuuuuuun.......

This sort of thread is going to attract curmudgeonliness l)

Yeah... it might not be as fun, but it relieves me from a lot of stress and overspending. I've always been a bit of a Scrooge around Christmas as my birthday falls just two days before. As a child I got shafted by this in several ways. The obvious way is on presents, but what was actually worse was how I never got to have proper parties. As a kid it falls on a school break with all your friends away at their relatives. As an adult, especially one who doesn't make friends easily anyhow, your friends are just too busy with the holiday and family or are also out of town with relatives. I would overcompensate as an adult and struggle to find meaningful, and often expensive, presents for everyone. I would be paying off those Christmas credit card bills well into Spring and early Summer. And, I hate to admit, I would look at the few presents I got in return and feel bad for feeling cheated. So, now I've minimized Christmas (and as long as my family actually does treat themselves, it's nice seeing what we got ourselves) and I'm much less stressed and depressed.

This will be my 50th so I've planned a small excursion to Austin for my birthday and Xmas eve. A couple of friends with no other commitments have opted to come along. We'll see a few sites, hit a few bars, have some fun. Then I'll never bother about my birthday again.

It's only stressful because you make it stressful. Good Christmas gifts don't have to be expensive.

That's it! Rudolf skivvies for everyone!

I've had some pretty poorly pondered gifts (if there was any thought at all) . . .

The worst though was the year that I wanted a really cool, battery powered movie projector. I would guess around 1968 or so. Lo and behold, I actually got it!

The minute it was unwrapped, the mother creature cussed - - - that was supposed to be for the baby of the family. Here, you get this colouring book. SHE gets the projector.

Brutal.

Yes birthdays around Christmas have got to be a bit of a bummer. One of my housemates at Uni had his on 23rd Dec - though this seemed not to bother him.

My wife's birthday is early January and she has always found that people's skintness from Christmas to be a bone of contention. I try and make sure she gets a proper treat

Mine's the 23rd.


The worst is 1 Jan. I dated a woman once who has that birthday. She has all the problems of the holiday proximity and as an adult all her friends are hungover on her birthday.

Well you could just try celebrating at midnight I suppose. I guess that would get generally swamped though.

got it. I'm buy8ing all my family raindeer antlers this year. - little bit annoyed, I wanted mongoose costumes, but they're too expensive. so they're gettin g raindeer antlers. sorted. they'll hate them.

"Good Christmas gifts don't have to be expensive." [Mr. X]

But you do need some inkling of what the recipients want or would like. There are some relatives I don't know well -- they're not outgoing or easy to talk to. I ask their parents what they might like, and the parents aren't always sure.

Introduce them to something new.

Rudolf skivvies are new to almost everyone!

"Introduce them to something new." [Mr X]

Thank you for saying that. It makes me feel good that that's what I'm actually doing. It's also what's left once the other options have been exhausted.

Hubby and I only buy presents for each other. That might sound mean but we don't have much of a family. We only have one surviving parent, my mother, and she's in a nursing home. We haven't bought anything for her for some years, at her request. Now there's even less that we could get her. I haven't kept in touch with my sister for personal reasons, so she and her offspring aren't on the present list. (An attempted reconciliation when Mum went into the nursing home didn't last.) Hubby's brother is Hubby's responsibility. We don't see him very often, so he'll probably get a card but no present. We've lost touch with his children since they grew up and wouldn't have a clue what to get them.

My husband once got me an Eminem CD based on the fact that I quite liked "Stan" - because of the Dido bit. It made me wonder if he'd actually met me I hate rap music.

I always try to be grateful for gifts, it's the thought that counts, but sometimes it's hard to be gracious when there was obviously no thought at all put in - a calendar of something you've never expressed any interest in, a gift voucher for a shop you never use (which you know they in turn had been given).

Turning it around, though, an old boyfriend bought me a concrete cat for Christmas. It weighed 2½ stone and seemed like a really bizarre gift for someone who lived in a bedsit at the time. But, 28 years later, I still have it in the garden and it makes me smile every time I look at it

Deb

my mother in law once got me some magnets for the fridge that you can write little messages on I think it was meant to be cute and a oh look you can write each other i love you remember to buy milk messages but I just hated it