What do you do with unwanted gifts?

[LBR]

Mylovelyhorse, "amnesty" is a very apt way to put it. My brother, sister, and I agreed not to give birthday or Christmas presents anymore. I think we're all relieved.

The thoughtless presents, or the ones so obviously obtained in haste, make the ones given with love all the more poignantly beautiful.

[snapdragon]

Red - I bought a grey/pink fluffy yarm from ebay recently to make 'stuff' for grandbaby but was disappointed cos it was eyelash not fluff

you still want grey pink fluffy wool or was that a pre winterfestivalthingy thing? maybe i should take a pic and see if its any good to you

it was the winteryspendfestthingy I was knitting Moebius strip 'smoke rings' and my sister is allergic to wool
but if you want rid of it I'll try and think of something for a swap (any ideas?) as grandbabydragon has a birthday coming up

[Millymollymandy]

mhum . from one of my, if not my closest female friend i got a 8 inch plastic coloured pinto pony ina box designed to look like a stable with very large letters saying suitable for 4 year old. I am 55 years old and a painful bore when it comes to equine behaviour. i live and breath how badly we humans treat our horses. plaiting and shaving and rugging and stabling and isolating.... i could go on but you get the picture.
Naturally i visit this site because i like simple not consumerist stuff. I opened this package and just looked in amazement. does she hate me. am i reading this wrong. i cant bring myself to open the box because it is in a b***y stable so it would ruin it as a new gift. does she expect me to open it and put it on the mantlepiece like an ornament or does she think i will make neighing noises and pretent to canter it around the table.
by the way i have my own horse and i look after hers because she forgets.

seeeth seethe can anyone make me see this picture differently. your mirth is recognised in advance

Perhaps it was meant to be a joke - albeit rather a waste of money and leaving you with some unwanted plastic tat to get rid of!

[invisiblepiper]

am on a 'buy nothing new in 2009' quest and I have warned my Mother it is home made for Christmas 'well don't bother then' was her reply. When I suggested I make her a throw for last Christmas she asked if she was going to get a 'real' present to go with it. - Shes worse than the kids! and far less grateful...

How awful! You make me realise how lucky I am with my Mum and Dad in law # they wanted a crimson sunset for their new bedroom - so I painted one on a deep canvas, carefully matching their colour scheme - that was all they got and they were delighted!
Oh - and some of those horses in boxes are 'collectibles' -according to my mad equine daughter!

[Millymollymandy]

We give/receive so few gifts that they are mostly useful things like calendars and chocolates. I got a new tea towel (I always want/need tt) and some herbal bath sachets which I'll use when the weather is warmer and I can laze about in the bathroom! Also a few little animal ornaments that hang off the side of a plant pot which I asked for.

The most unwanted present ever was the knitted toys that my MIL knitted for us - can't throw them away but they languish in a box somewhere in the attic.

[Helsbells]

I didnt get anything useless this year thank goodness.

However, my MIL still think I really love the colour pink (I used to when I was about 17, now 25) even though I have told her quite clearly that I no longer like pink.
And this year she bought me a small solar charger which was really great. It is pink, and when I opened it my MIL said "its pink!!" As if that would be the only reason I would like it!

But worse was last year where I recieved a pink, sequined, butterfly, designed for little girls purse. I gave this to the 8 year old girl next door who loved it.
She also gave me a bright pink silk scarf which I have kept for the fabric,
She gave me a pink hello kitty brooch, which I swapped with Mrs Fibble for some fabric and an aloe vera plant.

It probably sounds terribly ungrateful but it really was awful, and I was quite upset that she hadnt noticed that I havent worn any pink clothes for the last 5 years.

[Milims]

My sis is often given stuff by her clients that she really doesn't want - so she tends to pass it on to me! Most of the time it's not something I'd want either so I tend to put it into my prezzie stash and pass it on to someone who will apprecate it or donate it to the school as raffle prizes - the probelm is that I tend to win them, or something similar back again! Oh well - it's back to the prezzie stash for them!

[red]

I don't generally get any unwanted gifts anymore! A few years ago I told my family and friends that I really didn't need/want anything, so please could we have an amnesty on Christmas presents. Since then we've all saved quite a lot of money by not buying for each other. I usually give little parcels of homemade jams/chutneys etc, but nothing that's been bought.

yes same here - i make a few things - peanut brittle went down very well, but it was entirely optional whether to do stuff or not.
we swap presents between OH and myself.. but we work from massive wish lists.. so no idea what we are getting.. but its definitely something we want

but yet to sort out with inlaws.. its sort of OHs call...

[trinder]

mhum . from one of my, if not my closest female friend i got a 8 inch plastic coloured pinto pony ina box designed to look like a stable with very large letters saying suitable for 4 year old. I am 55 years old and a painful bore when it comes to equine behaviour. i live and breath how badly we humans treat our horses. plaiting and shaving and rugging and stabling and isolating.... i could go on but you get the picture.
Naturally i visit this site because i like simple not consumerist stuff. I opened this package and just looked in amazement. does she hate me. am i reading this wrong. i cant bring myself to open the box because it is in a b***y stable so it would ruin it as a new gift. does she expect me to open it and put it on the mantlepiece like an ornament or does she think i will make neighing noises and pretent to canter it around the table.
by the way i have my own horse and i look after hers because she forgets.

seeeth seethe can anyone make me see this picture differently. your mirth is recognised in advance

Perhaps it was meant to be a joke - albeit rather a waste of money and leaving you with some unwanted plastic tat to get rid of!

[trinder]

sorry peps i cant quite get the hand of this. I wanted to say thanks to millymollymanda and agree that i think my friend was trying to have a little joke and opening a presant with something really jokey and funny inside alike a 20p book on Manners for women or something like that would have been funny. But i felt that even if it had only cost £1.99 it was a waste and actually someone would have got pleasure from that gift. But for me all i could see was the waste. I f she had said i could not find anything to suit you so i saw a charity that i think you would have approved of and i put some money in the tin. I would have been chuffed that she understood my values.
unfortunately i tried to put her text in as a quote so that the context of my post was clear but duh i blew it.

[Millymollymandy]

Trinder you nearly got it right - all you do when you want to use the quote function is press the quote button like you did, then type your text below. What you'll see on the reply screen is the text from the postings that are being quoted with this - [quote] at the beginning and the end of the text (if there is another quote there then you'll see it twice). Don't mess with it if you don't know what you're doing and just type below it.

You can have a practice in the Practice and Delete section of the forum which is right at the bottom of the index page.

As to your friend, not sticking up for her but maybe her £1.99 is equivalent to your 20p? Or maybe she just doesn't quite know where you're coming from yet?

[Green Aura]

My mother surpassed herself this year for crap, and probably overpriced, presents. She bought OH a nutcracker in the shape of a squirrel - which doesn't crack nuts.

And for me she bought a USB memory stick, with OHs initials engraved on it!

We gave her a new shower room bought all the tiles, base, shower etc and fitted it all while she was in Manchester - am I trying too hard?

[invisiblepiper]

No - you are just being lovely!

[Green Aura]

Thanks IP, I'm not feeling very lovely at the minute.

[invisiblepiper]

I think that post festive January blues can do that to you - but simply because some folk cannot appreciate the effort you have made, that does not make the effort any less lovely!
(I think that makes sense - )
It will be spring soon!