I like how people are suggesting "why not tell him what you want?" conveniently skipping the OP's posts saying she does tell him something she wants, and something she clearly doesn't want, and he buys her the thing she doesn't want.
My mum asks me what I want for Christmas every year, and says it's far too hard to choose gifts without such input, so I tell her a specific item and a specific book and she gets me neither, instead choosing to wrap up baffling bathroom storage items from the local Home Bargains. I don't get it. It's surely easier to buy the damn book?
Every year I just 'joke' that all I want is what I wanted last year, and the year before that, which is some pyjamas from my favourite clothing brand (cost, approx £25, half if you use coupons). I've been asking for about 9 years now, and I won't buy myself any, because I almost get a perverse pleasure each year at asking, quite nicely, could I please have pyjamas from my favourite brand please, I've always wanted some, they would be the best gift ever, and no one buys them. So I ask again each year, to faces that seem a little uncomfortable as they're like "Oh yeah, she always asks for that... I guess I'll buy her a set of measuring cups this year then."
They spend literally twice as much on random stuff that, in my head, they must have bought for someone else. I get biographies of people I've never heard of, supermarket chocolate, electronic items I've never requested and have no need for, and the array of Home Bargains things.
And to me, it seems like an annual slight. These people who claim to love me (when they want to borrow money, for example) deliberately take pleasure in presenting me with a hand wash dispenser. They await my eager expression and perhaps I will stroke it and coo over it like a pet. They know I'm expecting the PJs - maybe this is the year! - but there it is; pocket-sized screwdriver kit, a wooden puzzle, a bottle of Echo Falls, random guff up to and beyond the value of the PJs.
They are sending a clear message to me. We do not wish to give you a small treat. We do not wish to please you. We're laughing at you. Every year.
And husbands who do it are sending the same message. You asked for a £5 book, my dear, but to me you are worth only this Nivea Gift set. You may have asked for a candle, but you're not worth it to me, so here, have a wooden spoon or a bunch of garage forecourt flowers or some other token so dire, it takes a special outing to source such a thing, presented as an artefact of disrespect.