PIL completely ignored my wishes again

[DappledThings]

I'm so grumpy right now. I hate presents. Hate them. Everyone knows this. I thought this year I had managed to make it so I had nothing to unwrap but PIL refused to accept this and I now have a small pile of stuff I don't want or need that probably represents a waste of a a good £100.

I asked for either a charity present (the goat type) or to just be included in DH's presents and make them joint. SIL did the latter which was great. But PIL utterly refused. Have just overheard a conversation between MIL and SIL about me not appearing too thrilled. Because I'm not.

I'm pissed right off that yet again my desire to not receive anything has to come second to someone else's desire to go shopping. It's bollocks and I'm so unhappy.

I've never had any other complaint about PIL. I love them both, they're great people. But simply refuse to actually ever get me what I want for Xmas or birthday.

Some people have no family to give them presents, YABU and ungrateful

So its not ok for their happiness to trump her desire for no gifts but it IS ok for her to want her no gift policy to trump their desire?? Thats so hypocritical. The difference is being given gifts comes from a nice and generous place. Not wanting gifts comes across quite selfish (with the OPs attitude that is).

Same here - but thus year i succeeded. PILgave me a cardigan- which i wanted and needed - , otherwise nothing. amazing!
Kids got 5 presents each (all in all!) and were happy and not overwhelmed.
Keep trying - and think of stuff you need !

I wonder if it would be worth making them aware that you know they were disappointed in your reaction and explain that you don't mean to upset them but you cannot emphasise enough that you really do NOT want presents and that you will never be happy to receive them. Then pack up the stuff in a box marked WOMEN'S AID so they can see you mean it. They possibly think you are saying you don't want gifts in an effort to be kind to them so they don't go to any bother. PROVE to them you mean it.

I don't think YABU, but people don't really get it, I think particularly people from older generations who had to make so much more effort for each other during rationing and so on. Any little thing was precious as a gift. Times are changing though.

This. And how many of us now have any actual recollection of rationing? The last thing came off the ration in 1954 for goodness sake, and that wasn't toys, it was a food-stuff which I bet most people alive now didn't even notice apart from being told about it.

I never managed to convince my parents or in-laws (who were of a generation that had lived through the war and rationing) that I really don't want Things - and I did rather feel that a pink size 10 baby-doll nightie for a size 14 person who is known to hate pink showed a less than caring M-i-L! - but when I suggested a few years ago to my grown-up children that what I would really like if they felt they had to give me something would be if they decided what they would have spent on me and sent it to Crisis at Christmas instead, or lendwithcare.org/ or something of the sort, they were entirely happy to do that and just give me a card in which they told me what they had done. It was fun watching a person it had been lent to gradually getting what she needed for her small-holding improvements, and then being able to choose the next person the money was to go on to.

Children in our family still get Christmas presents; adults don't.

What worries me is all the people on here who think that giving unwanted and often inappropriate tat is what ought to happen because it is well-meaning and socially the norm, and are prepared to be very unpleasant to and about anyone who disagrees with them. Not very Christmas-spirited, I feel.

Gift giving is totally out of control and it's an environmental disaster because of the packaging, wrapping paper and the gifts themselves ending up in landfill or in an endless carousel of Auntie Jane's Christmas present from her nephew and his wife regifted to Carol-next-door for her birthday which Carol puts in the school raffle and Bob wins it and gives it to his wife who takes it to the charity shop where Auntie Jane's wife sees it and thinks 'That will do nicely for Auntie Jane, she was so pleased with that very similar set we gave her last Christmas'.

Utter waste of time and money. My husband and I have been married for nearly four decades. We don't buy presents for each other any more and what a relief it is, as neither of us is naturally gifted at it. We make joint decisions during the year about major purchases like building work, new white goods, holidays, which are going to give us both pleasure. We eat out and have days out, ditto. If one of us wants to buy something for him/herself, we just do it, if the budget allows. I know he loves me and he knows I love him. We don't need to buy each other anything to prove that.

I'm also thinking it's a lot of agonising re waste etc when it's just one gift(s), once a year. It's unlikely you don't buy something for yourself during the year that you end up not using. I'm sure you've bought stuff that has huge amounts of packaging you don't expect/want. Why twist yourself into a ball over one present.

My friend has horrible parents who don't buy for her or her dc - but they give her a list of what they want. To me that's a dilemma.

Op, your stance - that gifts are horrible - is not normal. You obviously struggle and they trigger a stress and anger response in you, and that is not normal.

And you need to understand that, before you can move on to finding a solution to your problem - and it is your problem, because you are the one having the stress response to something nice.

You are asking other people to stop behaving like normal kind people in order to fit round your panic response.

I can see why you think the solution is to stop getting gifts, but as you can see, that's not going to happen, so you need to find ways to manage your response or find ways they can meet the normal social behaviour of gift giving that don't trigger you.

No gift is not an option. A gift to someone else (be it your DH or to charity) is not an option. You will need to get a thing, and you need to find a way to cope with that.

What bit of the gift is the problem?

Mmm....... building works, new white goods, holidays, no environmental implications there ?!

Yes OP maybe itd be helpful if you explained what exactly about getting a gift makes you hate them so much? Your response is not very normal at all

Me and dp are that worried about waste and the environment that we don't even speak to each other in case one of us comes up with an idea that might lead to said waste and environment hazards.

OP is it the fact you hate getting things you don't need? I'm the same.

I hate gifts for myself as they just sit on a shelf or wasted as half the time it's stuff I don't need or want.

I'd rather the person saved their money than waste it.

ADastardlyThing I would reply to you but I'm worried the key strokes on my laptop will wear away the key board, necessitating a new one 4 seconds earlier than I'd hoped for. I'll pm you with the power of my mind.

Ah, touche!

I'm with you, I find it unbearable, literally. I'm pretty self aware and have had what feels like hundreds of years of counselling - so I'm pretty sure mine stems from having pretty much no sense of self worth or self esteem.

Being given stuff and having to open it in front of other people makes me feel hot, sweaty, squirmy, panicky and vommity. I honestly think that when that's been explained to people and they continue to ignore your wishes it's s form of bullying.

Part of the problem is that it isn’t just one thing - it’s millions of people buying ‘just one thing’. You can take the piss out of that all you like but I think it’s off to knock people trying to do their bit and cut down on awful waste just because it’s apparently a social norm. No one is knocking genuinely useful gifts. Although if I knew giving something made someone genuinely anxious the last thing I would want to do is give them a gift.

Haven't read the full thread but could you not give the toiletries to a hospital or old people home?

My DSL's is a hdu nurse and they love getting the patients nice toiletries

🙄

I do get where you're coming from OP. I hate waste and accumulating more "stuff" when it's not needed.

But... I can also understand their need to treat you, and to include you in the annual gift giving. Many people - rightly or wrongly - don't feel that the Oxfam goat is a "proper" present.

Is there another sort of compromise you can reach? Could you ask for consumable items you would use? I ask family for things like bars of soap or olive oil /vinegar etc. Happy to let them choose it. It's stuff I'll use, and I'm always genuinely happy to get it. And they get the pleasure of going to a posh deli or department store and choosing the things and wrapping them. Everyone's happy. Would that be a possibility?

droppoint.org/beauty-banks

Sorry, that was just one branch, I think. This is the FB page:

www.facebook.com/thebeautybanks/

I'm with you OP. I would speak to your DH and ask him to have a word with his DF.

I know it's not "just one thing" but all these things can be regifted, or donated to a huge number of causes and organisations. Unless you're given a dog lead but don't have a dog, how many people have so much stuff that they literally can't think of any use for a present they've been given that's not 100% suitable?

My dd got some socks she knows she won't wear, so gave them to me. My ds had some sweets he doesn't eat, a duplicate of a book and a book he's not interested in. All brand new so they'll be regifted.

but it IS ok for her to want her no gift policy to trump their desire?? Thats so hypocritical
No because one is avoiding anxiety and one is about a pleasure than is being got anyway. Oil's buy other people presents so get the buy-pleasure from them, and could buy a goat for an African family for OP and get buy-pleasure from tbst. OP would get given-pleasure from the goat. She gets given-anxiety from the wrapped present. It isn't bloody difficult to work out that making someone else UNHAPPY and filled with ANXIETY so you get PLEASURE is wrong, vs making someone else HAPPY and you a bit CONFUSED / PERPLEXED.

Some people have no family to give them presents, YABU and ungrateful nonsense. Other people having no famimy is not Op's problem and won't sole her anxiety over receiving presents. She isn't saying she wants better ones, she's saying she doesn't want any. She shouldn't be grateful for a shot present because someone else is going without. If I buy a non smoker a half packet of cigarettes and a second hand scalf stinking of smoke should they be grateful because someone else got none?

Why don’t you ask for vouchers towards something useful? Or a groupon for a meal or night away? Then you’re not getting a thing as such to open or clutter your house or be wasted or whatever it is that bothers you. I’ve never known anyone to genuinely be unhappy or pissed off at receiving a gift from a loved one so they probably don’t believe you. It is done with good intentions and you should be grateful that your in-laws love you and want to treat you. If you had other problems with them I might sympathise more but seriously this isn’t a real problem.