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My brother got me a perfect present this year, but gave it to my other brother who just stared at it in confusion like "why is this in my hands and not his?". Meanwhile I also got a really good present. It's like he just went "Brothers = 2, therefore brother presents =2" and didn't quite do the detail. Meanwhile it is now 3 years since I got anyone a present that literally made them burst into tears so, that's good.
Luckily most of the people who know i have weird niche hobbies, also have weird niche hobbies- so they either share them with me and know clever things to get me, or they know that it's better just to leave well alone. So none of us have to deal with "I got you a bike thing"
I see your Twistfit and raise you a Bluetooth karaoke microphone.
Might be revenge for the truly revolting scented candle I bought her last year, come to think of it.
This year I finally managed to get everyone to stop buying pointless crap.
My present to my partner is a night out at a show of her choice when restrictions lift. Her present to me was 3 200ml bottles of unusual whisky's from micro distilleries which I'm really looking forward to.
Mum got a replacement tablet as she just broke her previous one and is lost without it. And she gave me some cash which I'll use to fit a towbar to the Kia.
And that is it. I'm pretty happy with that.
No random cycling presents this year, which is good!
I got a bottle of whiskey 👍
A usb charging bank 👍
Couple of graphic novels 👍
A slightly odd remote control car thing 🤨 which then turned out to be brilliant for chasing the 4 year old with 👍
An entire new 'age appropriate' outfit from the wife. Because apparently I dress like a tramp. I like to think I dress for comfort 😆 Tbh though the clothes are quite nice, so 👍
I got a jumprr off the mother in law, the same jumper i got 2 years ago and never wore so put it in the charity shop when i was clearing out the other week
Take charity donations like this to another town (on a holiday for maximum safety) to avoid any further re-gifting.
@bigdugsbaws Top trolling.
Best christmas thing Mrs Pondo and I ever did was agree to treat ourselves to a christmaa break and limit presents to £25. So we spent the week before christmas traipsing around an almost-deserted Cornwall and drinking prosecco in a hot tub, and on christmas day I got a great mug (says "you just got Litt up!", Suits fans 🙂 ) and a CD of our favourite big band's best tracks. Simple, no tears, no profligate waste of cash, and everybody's happy. 🙂
Oh great, I thought it was a novelty for this year and no-one would be so thoughtless or dumb to do it again 🙁
18 years in and mine have got the message. Now I get industrial quantities of chocolate because I once had a bar and quite liked it... Aaaaand not nice Dairy Milk or some such but wierd flavour combos from Johnny Euro. Y'know 'mince & tatties'* or porcupine and elderflower flavour - that sort of thing.
*Not very European I know but let's give our far Northern cousins hope during these difficult times... 😛
traipsing around an almost-deserted Cornwall and drinking prosecco in a hot tub
Eeeeeewwwwww, hope you cleaned it out first. All that filthy sex pond grot must have made the fizz taste funny (of fanny...?).
Nice neoprene overshoes for cycling.
Small. My feet are huge.
And I use flats with big spikes.
My brother advised my niece and nephew they'd be great and he's a cyclist so knows they're rubbish for me.
Next time he can fix his own sodding ebike
I'll raise the bar for crap presents.
SIL got me a jar of mango hot sause ? WTF. I don't do hot sauces, and even offered it to my sister's husband, as he has loads of hot sauces, nope, doesn't like Mango.
SIL has history for buying shit presents - just don't bother. The singing mug was bad - that was smashed up by a hammer as it wouldn't shut up.
I solve this by creating a book list throughout the year ensuring that there are a few pushing the hundred quid mark. I rarely get those but people get the message. 17 books this year plus rum and choccy. All is good.
Pleasingly low tat year for us. The usual worst offenders sent book tokens instead - result.
Received a fair amount of edible and quaffable items - also a result.
Completely unplanned, kids got lego from a number of family members - result #3.
The most standout insta-landfill that I ever received was a battery powered tabletop air hockey game that didn't work. I was thirty at the time. I would have preferred a bag of frozen peas.
Described this thread to my wife, who said ‘anyone get a mini crow bar’.
I bought one for her this year. It’s bloody ace, perfect for tins of paint or removing staples, nails etc (she loves decorating).
She hates it.
A gift box of different instant coffees.
I think my grandparents are taking the piss.
I got a pack of cotton boxers. I have thighs like an escaped mountain gorilla.
These will immediately roll up into torture-bands of extreme chafage.
See I know I'm hard to buy for and every year say don't buy me anything. Invariably I get some tat, but the quantity has reduced this year, perhaps due to the pandemic, maybe because people have been listening.
TBH the worst offender is my missus and it's definitely a conditioning thing, she's been raised to believe that both quantity and quality (spend) for Birthdays, Christmas and any other occasions are how affection is expressed. To the extent that it definitely causes noticeable stress and anxiety for her, but you can almost smell the dopamine when she finds the "perfect gift", the whole thing has been drummed into her and she won't shake it any time soon, peak capitalism and all that innit... I honestly dread Christmas day because as much as I don't care what I get, she gauges the state of our relationship based on what I buy her (or don't), I think I did ok this year.
So wierdly I kind of feel like excessive and/or crap gift givers need a bit of sympathy and understanding. They've been conditioned to buy you something, they will try to buy something related to your interests, but obviously it's not necessarily their area of expertise and the concept of registering their affection for you in gift form has been burned into their brain. Remember you are not the only person they will 'have' to buy something for, they'll go through this nonsense repeatedly...
I got nothing at all...
As a child I used to get great glee out of seeing people's reactions when the answer to "and what did you get for xmas young man?" or similar was "nothing".
I'm Jewish 😉
My 5yo boy received a baby crocodile head
Curious about this one. An actual head of a baby crocodile?
My 5yo would love that lol. And the 7yo.
A few years ago me and MsBeej decided we didn't need to give each other expensive presents and instead we do stockings for each other.
- £150 total limit
- Nothing that's been specifically asked for
- At least 10 items
- No tat - everything must have a use
- Includes something edible and something to play with (e.g. a card based game)
It works really well - most of the fun is trying to think of what to buy, and then on Christmas morning there are at least 10 things each to open.
stockings for each other.
– £150 total limit
– Nothing that’s been specifically asked for
– At least 10 items
– No tat – everything must have a use
– Includes something edible and something to play with (e.g. a card based game)It works really well – most of the fun is trying to think of what to buy, and then on Christmas morning there are at least 10 things each to open.
Souns-like-absolute-hell
It's basically the exact thing that many posters above are railing against, with the added complications :
You need to buy at least 10 of the ****ing things.
In the unlikely event that you do find something half decent, but expensive, you can't buy it.
Nightmare.
My Pal fell foul of the 'what to buy the Mrs' thing a few years ago: 2 padlocks and a tin of spray that smelled of fir trees... It was good to see someone else in the shit for a change...
I had an arrangement with friends forever ago. We were just getting to the point where we were no longer students and could afford presents. So I spend £10 on tat they don't want, they spent £10 on tat I don't want, rinse and repeat. So as Quoth said, "nevermore" and we all pledged to stop doing it. These days I'll still buy presents but ad-hoc, like "ooh, [Friend] will love that!" rather than "oh god, it's [Friend]'s birthday, what on earth can I get them?
Then I got a then-partner whose argument was always "throw money at the problem" and this
she’s been raised to believe that both quantity and quality (spend) for Birthdays, Christmas and any other occasions are how affection is expressed.
sounds horribly familiar. It got stupid, it practically ended up an arms race. Like, an iPad might be just one of the gifts I bought her. Between poor lifestyle choices (mostly me trying to keep her happy) and a wedding to pay for, when she left me two years later I was probably ten grand in debt. Fast forward a couple of years, I'd paid half of it off, the rest was on 0% for five years where it could stay, and my bank account was going up rather than redlining the overdraft every month.
Then I met my current partner. She was in a rental place, had very little spare money, so our first Christmas it was an engraved glass and a couple of books.
Fast forward to today, I'm debt-free (or at least I was until a few large unplanned bills arrived in rapid succession), we've moved in together so a lot of our joint expenditure has dropped. Plus Covid has curtailed a lot of cinema trips, pubs, escape rooms etc. My OH has a daughter who is Christmas-obsessed so, finally with a bit of money to her name it's all gone full-circle stupid again. Le sigh.
On the upside, I'm going on an Ariel Atom experience day. 😁
MsBeej decided we didn’t need to give each other expensive presents and instead we do stockings for each other.
– £150 total limit
Thats a huge amount in my book. Julie and I would spend £25 quid each for the other unless we found something really nice they would love then up to £50
Well this year she got:
- Sponsorship of an owl at the Hawk Conservancy
- Mini bird bath, bird feeder cleaner, some Christmas themed suet cake
- A "make your own feeder" kit
- A big birdwatching book (she's really got into feeding and watching the birds in the garden)
- Some exercise bands
- Puzzle book
- Little bag to organise handbag
- Socks
- Chocs
There's always a few minor misses, but generally we both end up pretty happy.
A gift box of different instant coffees.
LOL I would have difficulty hiding my disdain for that one. Like getting a tub of Bisto granules.
My ingrate rant is about a dressing gown. I hate dressing gowns. I have never had one, and certainly never given any indication that I would like one. It's a soft but seemingly hydrophobic synthetic fiber <shudder>