What's the worst part about giving & receiving Gifts?

[corarose]

Poll question: What's the worst part about giving & receiving Gifts?

What is the worse part about giving and receiving gifts?

If it's other tell me why?

[bratcatinok]

1. Knowing just the perfect gift

for someone and knowing it would be a perfect surprise but realizing you don't have the money to spend on it.

I'm not talking about costly gifts either. I have a friend who collects miniature rooster figurines. A week ago I was in the local mercantile store where they sell antiques, knicky knacky stuff, candles and the like. I came across a miniature rooster figurine that was identical to a rare live rooster my ex-mother-in-law had raised. It would have been perfect for me to give to my friend because the live rooster is rare, I know my friend doesn't have one and probably has never seen one. Unfortunately, it was 85.00 and since I'd already bought my friend a gift, it was beyond what I could spend. I'd either have to short my son on his gift or scrooge over Christmas dinner.

:(

[corarose]

2. A dollar gift would be better then a gift that didn't come with Love

If it's not from the person heart I don't want it.

We don't trade gifts at our house anymore because they don't give them from the heart and I don't want one unless they want to give it. I hate when someone thinks they they have to get you something.
My Sister is like that she will bum some cash off of you to buy you a gift and they she will get it in her size.

I don't want that kind of a gift. I would take a dead mouse from my Cat first because it came with love.

[bratcatinok]

5. My friend will enjoy the gift I already had

bought for her. I had fun buying it and I'll have fun watching her open it. It's just not as intuitive as the rooster one would have been.

[bleedingheart]

3. Gifting has ruined the Holidays

I hate it.

The adults in my family no longer buy for each other.

No matter what happens someone is disappointed by what they got or the way someone received the gift.

At one point my sister, who I love lots, had this rude habit of just asking for money to help pay for some home project she was currently working on since she really didn't need anything else... at that time I decided that it was just getting ridiculous..

I prefer to share in the company of friends and family and forsake the gifting...

I save loads of money this way and I have found my holidays are less stressful.

Disclaimer..I buy for my kids and my relative's kids...

[corarose]

4. I have started hating it

Dinner is perfect and that's it and one of my ancestors is famous for his work on Christmas.

[bif]

12. Totally agree.

I hate that aspect of Christmas. Especially when the retailers bitch about how they're not going to make sales projections. Ugh!

[FloridaJudy]

6. Trying to appease the relative that f***ing HATES you.

Come on, admit it. We've ALL got one of those!

Mine is "Uncle Alex". For most of us, it's the Freeper relative who cannot be satisfied. My family is a bit more eccentric. Uncle Alex is the Screaming Stalinist from Hell. Buy him an article of clothing, and he'll claim it's the wrong size. Buy him a book, and he's already read it. Buy him a piece of jewelry, or an antique treasure, and he'll denounce you for being frivolous.

Give up and write him a check, and he'll both claim you're trying to buy his approval, and that the check is insultingly small.

I gave up decades ago. I donated a few hundred dollars to a worthy organization in his name, and passed on the card from the charity, thanking him for the gift.

It didn't work. I'm still a cheap slut who is too lazy to pick out appropriate holiday gifts.

But Habitat for Humanity and Doctors Without Borders benefited.

Screw Uncle Alex, and all like him, and praise those who actually do some good.

[corarose]

7. I know the feeling

No matter what it is they are never satisfied with it.

[bleedingheart]

10. When someone is that ungrateful its fun to just mess with them

buy him deodorant with a small notecard telling him that you hope he smells better in the New Year.

[LastKnight]

8. getting a gift thats way better than what you got the other person

happens to me at least once every year from SOMONE. 'oh, thanks for the expensive watch, enjoy your cd...' or somethin to that effect every year, it just leaves me feelin like an ass. cant help my limited funds, though.

-LK

[corarose]

9. I love to give gifts

When I had money I would spend several thousand (Credit Cards) on my Mom because I loved her so much.
My ex well he got some very good gifts also but he always thought that he had to buy me something back but him being there was all that I needed.
He would buy me perfume in Paris and bring it to the States with him which was so damn sweet of him to do. I will cherish that memory the rest of my life. One time he bought me a dress in a size 4 and it was a beautiful blue dress with a big sash on the bottom of it. You looked like a gift wrapped up in it. I wore a 8 at the time but I squeezed that dress on and the sleeves were so tight that they cut the circulation off in my arms. He told the sales girl that I was her size God he must have been blind.
You know its not the giving the gift or receiving it. It's all about what comes from the heart.

I give gifts when I have the money or I have been known to make them. I use to have a kiln and everything came from my heart.

[Bertha Venation]

11. the compulsion to give and/or the expectation on the other end

We're sending a few cards. Kathy's parents & family are getting nothing. My family is getting nothing. I love to give, but this year it's been more important not to lose our house.

I wish I could blame * -- that's so popular these days -- but unless he poisoned my beloved, that's not realistic.

Maybe the reason I have no spirit this year is because my spirit is in giving.

[Bertha Venation]

13. however

No one I've ever given a gift to has ever groused about it. I read this thread and I wonder about that.

(Now, my sisters and I are very unhappy when our paternal unit gives their kids religious books, but I think that's a tad different.)

Maybe I'm just lucky. I feel bad for you who've experienced dissatisfaction as a receiver or a giver.

[corarose]

14. I can't send cards out this year

I bought some over the summer because hallmark in the Merchandise Mart had them marked down for .50 cents a box. My Dad can't figure out where he put them and I can't afford to buy another box and the postage would be another issue.

People understand and if they don't then they are not worth bothering with.

I am going to print some cards up and send a few out and that will be it.

I am not going to put a tree or lights up either.

[skypilot]

15. I love giving gifts but...

...I actually hate receiving them because I always get crappy gifts. I'd actually rather get nothing. I have pretty much everything I need anyway.