Best and worst gifts

[tracilicious]

I'm a fairly easy person to give gifts to. Give me something even slightly useful or unique and I'm a happy camper. Though I'm difficult to really impress with gifts. The flip side to that is that I'm also hard to disappoint. Did anyone else get any spectacular or spectacularly awful gifts this year?

I'll start with the awful. This was actually a gift to Michael from a coworker. It's a book called The Tao of Meow. It's supposed to be written by a cat. It's basically a book of really awful poems about or by cats that are supposed to give you direction or meaning in your life. Really really awful poems. I have you people to thank for it, too. Michael sent this coworker a few funny pics from Kitty Pics thread and I suppose she thinks we're cat freaks or something. We don't even own a cat. Not that a cat lover would like this horrible poetry though. (Of course, Michael is grateful that this coworker took the time to get him a gift, etc.)

For the wonderful I have two gifts. The first is a bunch of cards given to me by a friend. I usually hate cards. They are so lame. These, however, are fantastically unique. Each one has art on the front that is somewhat weird and almost grotesque in some cases, and the sayings are far from typical. Some are quotes from Einstein and the likes, and some say cool things like:

Originally Posted by greeting card

Guilt promenades its rotund ass across my unusually broad shoulders, rebeling in the ample room they provide. Yet instead of dissuading it with a jarring shrug or even a disruptive twitch, I stand perfectly still...glad to be of assistance.

or this one:

Originally Posted by another greeting card

I really need to know. I'm stretched again, but my resilience is long gone and I can't bounce back. It's tiresome dragging around the excess, yet I'm unsure whether it's safe to cut it off. What if it houses my essence, or the directional portion of my id?

Nearly every person I send these to will think it very odd at best. I love that. These cards are so fantastic. I'm going to send them all out in the year to come. One of the most perfect gifts I've ever gotten. This person is a seriously talented gift giver.

The other fantastic gift I got was a photo collage from Michael and Indi. They snuck off to Michael's work to print the photos so I wouldn't know. Indi picked them out and they worked together to glue them onto a painting of a family tree that they did together. They managed to pull it off as a complete surprise too (I'm extremely hard to surprise). If I were the crying type, I'd have cried. I think this makes it to the very top of the list as the best gift I've ever gotten. Even though they did pick one picture of me that I really hate. The best gifts in life really are free.

[blueerica]

This year, the worst gift goes to the knee high stockings that I guarantee I will never ever ever wear. You'd have to see them to understand.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Best Gifts: A very good quality cookware set from Matthew's dad, a beautiful Buddha profile statue from Matthew, and a black and white vintage Tomorrowland framed photo, with the Matterhorn in the background, and a motor boat traveling under a Alweg Monorail. It was sent by a dear friend and I literally gasped when I first saw it.

Worst gift: A shower radio. I live in what we lovingly refer to as radio free Dana Point. We just have lousy radio reception here. Twenty bucks says that this radio picks up one station and it plays mariachi music.

[scaeagles]

My wife and I gave the worst gift to our duaghter. She wanted a laptop, and we were thinking it would be too expensive. my mother in law said "we have a laptop only a year old - you can have that to give to her because we never use it". So they cleaned it up, and we gave it to her.

Well, the laptop was 4 years old, the battery doesn't work, and it isn't high speed internet capable.

Had a very excited daughter for about 10 minutes.

I'm heading to Best Buy today to buy a laptop. Sigh. I could not give her that and say "Oh, well.....we tried. Merry Christmas."

[3894]

Best: A bracelet from Sundance. It's a bunch of hearts strung together and it's from the hubbo. *happy sigh*

Worst:My well-to-do sister needs to stay the hell away from Steinmart. She gave my kids (fashionistas aged 17 and 14) a tiny enameled-and-Swarovsky crystalled metal box (for pills?) in the shape of a fish, and a bent pad of paper. 'K.

[Alex]

Best: A $30 Applebee's gift card.

Worst: A $30 Applebee's gift card.

It was the only gift I received this year (how wonderful it was to find that my new job doesn't really do anything for Christmas, which makes sense since about 70% of the office are people of non-Christian extraction).

I hate getting gift cards. Not because they are tacky or show a lack of effort. If you buy me a gift and it takes you two minutes or 2,000 it is the same to me. I hate gift cards because they generally shift the burden of shopping from the gifter to me. Giving me the gift of shopping is giving me the gift of time spent in hell. I spent two hours shopping for a watch on Saturday and by the end of that I literally wanted to come home and take a nap I was so worn out.

So, 90% of the gift cards I get eventually just get thrown away because I'd rather not go to Wal-Mart or Barnes & Noble or Home Depot or World of Disney or wherever and I'm not going to keep them in my wallet for when life forces me into one of those establishments.

But as far as gift cards go, restaurant gift cards are probably best since I do eat out all of the time and doing so isn't shopping.

That said, Lani and I regularly make fun of the people lined up at our local Applebee's. Who the hell willingly eats at Applebee's if there is another restaurant within 40 miles (let alone 50 feet as in the case of this Applebee's)?

But regardless of the fact that we'll probably never use it I am glad to receive it since the last few years my grandparents have been going through a rough financial patch and weren't able to include anything with their Christmas cards. Not getting anything was fine (most years I never cashed the check they'd send anyway) but it was saddening knowing that they didn't because they couldn't.

[MouseWife]

It would seem I screwed up on some gifts. Gave the Hubster a jacket that was too small. {he has lost a lot of weight and I thought this was his new size...} He put it on to show me it didn't fit and it was quite funny.

I also gave my sis something too small {she says, she won't even try it on }. A nice robe type thing, lounger?

I get what you say about gift cards, Alex. I used to feel that way, too. But, they don't expire and you can give them away if you don't think you'll use them. {before I felt like I had to use it right away, buy something 'gifty' since it was a gift, etc.}.

It does feel strange just giving a card. The Chickies boyfriend said that was all he wanted, as he is going to purchase something much larger and saving towards it. But, as everyone was enjoying opening their gifts, he had just a couple. That made me feel badly even though it is what he wanted.

But, I feel worse receiving gifts when we said weren't exchanging them...duh, cause I didn't get one for you!! I don't mind not receiving. Just don't f me over by getting me something and making me feel like crap. Stick to the rules.

I received a lot of wonderful movies, jewelry, a Jack Sparrow figurine and the Disney Scene It? game. I haven't unwrapped it because we are all going to play it and I promised no one would have the upper hand by playing it before the gang does.

[Alex]

On Saturday there was a bit on NPR with a "shopping psychologist" and she was talking about gift cards.

She said that men don't like gift cards because they trust their women to get them good presents and women like gift cards because they don't trust their men to get them good presents.

First I was puzzled by this idea that people are only getting presents from the opposite gender. But I also figure that if stereotypes are going to be the cause, the much more likely on is that generally men don't like to shop and that women do.

She also said that that kids like gift cards because they don't trust adults to buy them good gifts. I believe that one. However, if you're going to just give someone the gift of shopping, does it really show much more thoughtfulness to limit that shopping to a single store? Instead of a $100 Home Depot card (or whatever) just give me the $100 in cash and save me a trip to the ATM this week.

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Best: A $30 Applebee's gift card.

Worst: A $30 Applebee's gift card.

If you buy me a gift and it takes you two minutes or 2,000 it is the same to me. I hate gift cards because they generally shift the burden of shopping from the gifter to me.

The comic, Jim Gaffigan, has a bit to the same effect about people who buy something ugly and thoughtless and say with a giggle and a shrug as it's being opened, "You can always return it." "How about I just throw it in the garbage? I want a gift. Not an errand."

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

However, if you're going to just give someone the gift of shopping, does it really show much more thoughtfulness to limit that shopping to a single store? Instead of a $100 Home Depot card (or whatever) just give me the $100 in cash and save me a trip to the ATM this week.

I think that if you give someone a targeted gift card, as opposed to a Visa gift card, you are at least saying that you know something about the person and what they're into. You're also giving them a slightly cool techie thing to whip out.

At Starbuck's the other day I had the good fortune to be stuck behind a woman buying $450 in gift cards in varying denominations up to $100 for a list of recipients as long as your arm. I am sure those gifts will be used.