Is my MIL right or is she just rude?

I think I would buy her an 'experience', and the experience would be a fortnight on an ice floe a long way away from me. Seriously, she is beyond rude, and your husband is completely unreasonable in expecting you to deal with her.

Delegating dh????

hmm… I wouldn’t do it. It’s his mother.

I echo what others have already said. Tell your dh to buy the present.

And absolve yourself of any responsibility or guilt. Not that you should feel any anyway .
The previous presents all sound very thoughtful

Of course she's rude! Thats so nasty giving back gifts like that.

This

I know someone who received this as a present !

Nope, nope, nope.
His Mother, his problem to sort her a present

She won’t come to our house at Christmas and refuses to eat a meal cooked by anyone other than herself, or let anyone else in her kitchen but if we go round there she spends the whole time complaining about how much work it involves.
But she tells OH every year that she will be very hurt if he doesn’t get her anything.

”Dear MiL, this year we are having a Christmas at our house and you’re welcome to be there to give you a break from all the work it involves. However we have decided not to do presents as we want to step away from that intense consumerist hype.
For your birthday we always seem to get it wrong and so this year we have chosen in lieu of presents to give a donation in your name to the British Heart Foundation. We hope you will appreciate the difference that you are making with this generous gesture.”

She sounds intolerable and I think the only way out is to be intolerable back. Tell her you will be weaving your own yoghurt as an accompaniment to the lentil roast you’re doing for Christmas dinner and just stop giving her things. She’s using those occasions to put you down, deliberately, so just call her bluff and do something she can’t reject without showing herself up to be mean-spirited. If she does complain then your DH can remind her about all the times you have tried to bring something really thoughtful and she’s just shoved it back at you.

It is rude. Even if you don’t like what someone has got you you don’t just push it back to them after unwrapping it! You at least wait and tell them later, quietly, or you quietly regift it to someone else.

My dad is like this. I couldn’t in a million years imagine turning to my DH and saying, ‘you sort it out’. I mean wtf.

I agree with the suggestions to buy something you would like. I particularly like the cashmere scarf idea - preferably a colour both you and she could wear and then if she doesn't want it, happy days, you can use it.

Similarly would work with a lovely tube of hand cream.

Buy her a hand held mirror

I vote for a charity gift. Either a charity you support so you can be pleased they've had a donation or you could go the other way and choose something silly like sponsor pile of poo from Oxfam...(Google it!)

She sounds an ungrateful, self-centred, nightmare to be honest! If your OH insists that you source the gift for her then I suggest a magazine subscription.......for one of your choice. Then at least, when she chucks it back at you every month that it arrives in the post, you get to read it.
Also, tell you OH that this year is the last time you are shopping for HIS mothers gift.

The risk with vouchers is she may put them in a drawer rather than return them to the OP, so it's more money wasted.

“This year I opted to do a donation to charity instead of get you a gift, as I know that you don’t really like receiving gifts given that you generally give them back to us.”

William Hansons book Just good manners. Only £10 on Amazon or The ladies book of etiquette and politeness! It’s even cheaper £9.

It sounds like your presents were really smartly chosen and she still manage to make an issue. So definitely spa day and if she gives it back you win!

If this is real -,as op has disappeared- best answers
And we'd have done this after the first time

Buy her your favourite perfume.
If she likes it- great
If she gives it back to you- great

Was just coming on to suggest the same thing

When my mother got like this I had the kids make her a present - a jam jar covered in stickers filled with their favourite sweets. Cheap and cheerful and the kids had fun.

She's said she will be offended if your dh doesn't buy her a gift so I suggest he goes and buys something. She is incredibly rude and he needs to grow a backbone and tell her so.

Why are you buying anything? It’s the job of the partner whose parent it is. Tell your DH that and watch him get pissed off as all his gifts are rejected. He might not be so happy then! Also, don’t get engaged in conversations with him about ‘what she might want’.

His mother, his job, his choice.

What does she buy you and the family in return? Well thought out gifts? Money? Nonsense? Does she ask what you would like to receive?

100% this

I’d say to her you’re letting her son buy her presents from now on as you don’t seem to be able to get it right (not for the want of trying, ungrateful bitch) then leave it to him!

My Mil did this to me last year, sent all hers back back with a note saying I don't use shit like this, all stuff I knew she liked and had bought her before, we were disgusted with her, me or my DH don’t speak to her now