CF gift giving

[PedroThePonyCowboy]

What are your friends and family like when it comes to gift giving for birthdays and Christmas? Any cheeky f**ckers who take the piss? My Sil would always ask for (without being asked she would just say I want this for my birthday and give a link) expensive makeup that costs about 40 to 50 pounds. She would then get me and dh cheap crap in return. Once it was a notebook for dh that cost about 5 pounds maximum. Dh never even uses notebooks, its still sitting in a drawer 4 years later. I put my foot down and said no more when she asked for 2 makeup products totally about 60 pounds for Christmas, I now pick the gifts for her that's similar to the crap she gets us. It just amazes me how cheeky some people are. Are they aware they are taking the piss? Do they feel entitled or something? I would never ask for an expensive specific gift even if I was asked and I would never ask for expensive gifts and buy something crap in return.

My SIL is cheap. She earns good money but won't spend it on anyone else but herself - not even her own kids. One year she gave my step-daughter a shitty scarf she got free with her avon order. She gave DS a £1 t-shirt (it still had the price on it) and for christmas gave both DSs a t-shirt and variety pack of cereal each making a big fuss that they were getting 2 presents this year. I don't expect a lot, something little is absolutely fine - but a variety pack of cereal - just the one box each so obviously the one she didn't want to eat!

My SIL and BIL (DHs sister) sent DS a present costing all of £3 for his birthday, price tag included. Because his birthday is in December and you know it's a big shock that it's near Christmas. if they were hard up I wouldn't care but given they can afford fuck tons of trips and holidays every year it did upset me.

That with a joint Christmas present for the dcs which isn't something you can "share" easily!

It's her dcs 1st birthday in a couple of weeks and I haven't got anything yet because part of me wants to send a passive aggressive £3 present in return but she'd kick off and I'm not good at confrontation.

I'm probably being UR but it just annoys me!

(Former user, I've resurrected my account). My PIL are unfortunately like this. I don't really bother with wanting gifts at Christmas, happy to give small gifts, but PIL have always asked for, and given, lists of presents from and to each family member. In the last couple of years, their gift requests to DH have only contained a single, expensive item each, costing c.£100-£150 - think expensive perfume and handbags for MIL but £40-£50 for FIL. I put my foot down this year when the email arrived with their Christmas present request arrived from FIL and actually read "xx brand of expensive perfume for MIL and for me a meal for the two of us at xx (expensive restaurant) but you can just give us the money instead".

They actually asked their own son to give them money.

They are wealthy - big house, second home abroad, final salary pensions, multiple inheritances...

At our wedding, my DB1 and SiL gave us a £3 bottle of rosé (price still on), a mug with a picture of a cupcake on it (from Tesco, just the one), and gave them to us unwrapped, in a Sainsbury's carrier bag. They weren't wealthy so I hadn't expected much, but perhaps a mug each, so that my new husband and I didn't have to share? Perhaps some wrapping paper? Plastic bags were free in those days, after all...

For Christmas one year, DB2 have me a can of Tesco Value baked beans, wrapped in newspaper and packing tape. He then ate the beans himself about 30 minutes later. But he's a bit maverick, so I let him off.

MIL posted a list in the family group chat at the start of December of things she’d like for Christmas. Nothing on it cost less than £50. In return me and DP and the rest of the siblings received a towel bale each.
Said towels were rejects from the hotel FIL works at. Perfectly fine for use but not up to standards they want for rooms. So staff were told to help themselves to them.
Then gleefully announced that the ribbon she had tied them together in was only £5 on eBay while spraying the expensive perfume we’d bought her 🤨

Slightly off topic but related I think (and it's a copy and paste of my reply to a similar ish questions. While back but still relevant and hopefully interesting)....

my DW and I decided to re-enact the spirit of Christmas this year by purchasing an amount of "packs" from the charity Crisis (meals, haircuts, dental treatment, access to medical care, benefits info. etc.). This was after a day in our local town which seemed to have more than its usual share of homeless people sat on wet pavements, freezing cold and looking totally dejected. Despite the fact that I like the idea of bringing a homeless person into our lives, the reality is that I'm ashamed to say that it's too large a leap...so we have done the next best thing. Anyway, we have explained this to our friends and told them we will not be buying presents for the adults this year. Many have decided to follow our example, citing that it's better to be nice people all year round rather than buy into the nonsense of having to select totally inappropriate gifts, but a couple of them have said straight out that if they aren't getting a present from us, they will redistribute their present to us amongst their other friends. This is fine by us - we certainly don't expect present whether we give them or not. What really shocked us was the vehemence with which some people received the idea of not having a present from us despite the fact that we were trying to help those who clearly needed a bit of support at a miserable time of the year (for them). It's hard not to argue that the real spirit and intention of Christmas has been lost for some people sadly.

My sister got married fairly late on (at 39 years old) and of course by that time owned her own house. The man she married also owned his own house. Both houses were full of furniture, household goods, glasses, plates, dishes.....everything, in effect, that you'd need to live a normal.

Their wedding list was horrific. John Lewis and Jenners (posh Edinburgh department store at the time, now just a H of F). Designer items. They got rid of three full operational food mixers when some fool bought them the limited edition Kitchen Aid they wanted. They disposed of all their dishes when other fools bought them the Denby sets they asked for.

They had a combined income of over £250k (in Scotland), two houses full of stuff and two brand new cars and they still effing asked for gifts.

I'm still absolutely gobsmacked at the greed now, and it's more than 10 years ago.....

YANBU. We had a tight fisted Uncle so as children it was a tradition at Christmas to open his gift on Christmas Eve so we could laugh at it. He had money, he was just a tight Scroogey bastard. One year he bought me a pink nightgown in size 12-13 years. I was 15 and a massive goth . It also had a the price tag attached, £1.50 in the sale...

Stop buying her expensive gifts, you know what will happen in return.

I was also 16 when my sister got married. I took all the money I had and bought her what I thought was a beautiful jewelled mirror. In reality it was ghastly.

My sister graciously accepted it and still has it hanging in her bathroom 23 years later.

For every CF there is someone lovely

Early on in our relationship when money was especially tight my fil sent out his xmas present request and he'd asked for some air rifle related something or other. Turned out to be almost £80 but i was so scared of fil i darent say no. Meanwhile i could only afford £10 token gifts for my family. Since then i make DH do gifts on his side of the family.

Maybe our family (close, no feuds lol) is weird, but we agreed years ago to forget about birthday and Christmas gifts for anyone over 18 who was working.

I suppose I just don't understand why adults feel the need for gifts apart from their DP/DH/kids.

Anyway we are all delighted, saves a lot of hassle and money too. We always call each other on our birthdays with good wishes. That's all we want.

Why indulge these people with £50 perfumes and money? Seriously? 'Sorry, but our budget doesn't extend to gifts of that cost.'

Our solution to this was no more present buying (especially for Xmas) the first year was wierd as people still bought us stuff even though we said not to. The second year we got less. The third year the whole family were on board with no presents at all and Xmas was way more fun! No crap to send to charity shop and none of this guilt over who bought what!

SIL does this - sends Christmas list for her 3 at £50 each - my kids get sale items then the shop discount (she’s a sales assistant)

So £2 each

I’ve stopped getting involved

I feel your pain. My SIL wanted a laptop for Christmas. We got her a basic one, as she isn't very computer literate. She said it didn't work properly, but refused to use the warranty. God knows what she'd done to it. She refused to let me take a look. She didn't get us anything.

Her gifts have become my responsibility, as DH used to buy her gold and I think it's a tad impersonal and over the top, she's in her thirties. She's an aspiring fashion designer, so I put together a hamper of books about fashion houses, with beautiful graphics and information on the inspiration for the designs. She was not impressed ("ew books"). She always checks the price online of what we bought, to see how much money we spent on her. So now I hit up TK Maxx with £50 for something hideous with a ridiculously high RRP for her to stumble across on google. She always loves it. It's a shame as gift giving is my favourite thing to do, and she completely ruins it.

My mums brother married this girl, she was awful in every way.

But what she did for my Christmas present, she gave me Versace Red Jeans (a perfume I used to like as a v young teen, but had long grown out of).

When I opened it it seemed like there wasn't that much in the bottle.

Then I noticed, the outer tin was the new design, but the bottle was the older design, so she had bought a new one, put her old bottle in the tin and kept the new one for herself.

I thought it was hilarious.

I know someone who’s dad is so cheap, he got a bath towel set as a free gift for joining a gym and he split it and gave her one towel for her birthday and one for Christmas! I was gobsmacked.
The speech he gave at her wedding was full of inaccuracies and made-up stuff that just highlighted how little he knew her. Really odd bloke - and she was understandably upset.

OH has one sister and bil. We do charity shop purchases for Christmas. Initially it was supposed to be shit you laughed at, but in recent years we've actually found amazing stuff. My favourite present to them was a vintage ski-ing map of the area of France they love to ski in. I think it's a 1960s map, it is beautiful and it is now used to cover an entire wall of their downstairs loo. I got a set of absolutely gorgeous liqueur glasses from them a few years ago. Sure, there's only five so one must have been broken, but they're beautiful, delicate and perfect. Charity shops are the way to go. Makes shopping for gifts a ton of fun, and you never know what you may find!

'D'B once went off at me because I had only bought him, SIL and DN (1 week old) one gift each at Christmas. I fed them, had bought booze, had my own DC (both older than DN) and then DH had been made redundant. DH was not there at the time, as he managed to get a new job just a day or so before, so not working Christmas was not an option. We had had all our usual bills, mortgage etc to deal with and there simply wasn't the money for the usual gifts. The gifts I had given were thoughtful and not cheap, but not OTT expensive, since we simply didn't have the money, what with waiting for 2 months between wages.

Oddly enough, 'D'B went no contact with me some months later over something that had nothing to do with me. After I got over the shock, I realised what a relief it was that he no longer spoke to me.

People who sent requests for expensive presents, without being asked what they would like, are rude and deserve nothing. So glad you put your foot down OP. There are too many stories on here of people spending money they don't have, to please people they don't like.

Christmas this year we all spent £10 on each other, had so much fun finding items for each other it was a win win if you didn't like it back to the Charity shops as a donation.

Lol got one of those in dh's family too.
Highlights include: The gift list (unrequested) one Christmas with nothing less than £50 on it. Wasn't even a compromise possible, they had (John Lewis) catalogue numbers.
Accepted presents for 4 years, when dh handed over the 4th present he commented that he "owed" a few presents. Said "oh I decided 4 years ago we weren't doing presents"
Two years later we got a request for £50 towards an "experience" day for 40th birthday. Hadn't bought dh anything for his 40th the previous year.
The year our dc's presents were clearly from the pound shop.
The year they did everyone's presents in "an hour" and bought everyone different sizes of soap. Then boasted about how little time/effort/money they'd spent and complained about all their (fairly well thought about, and definitely more expensive) presents.

Irony is they like to boast about what new thing they've bought themselves and how much money they have.

Given up trying to get them something good as they only moan anyway. I get them something they can moan about like some nice pink fluffy dice for the car.

My in laws are quite well off and do get pretty decent presents for everyone, great. My Mil has a brother who has been married for 40 plus years, his wife does all their christmas shopping etc. Now they are equally well off, both great jobs, never had any children. Anyway it had become a running joke over the years that they got the most pathetic gifts, think really ugly charity shop shirt in need of a wash, 12 sizes too big or small. I'd watch this go on for years (they were never there when the gifts were opened as they live the other end of the country, the brother would drop them off the week before).

It was only when my husband had a landmark birthday and we had our own children that we realised that it was a big joke on my mil and her sister. My husband got a signed picture of his sporting hero (£500 plus to buy) and our children have always received beautiful, thoughtful, brand new gifts. Took me years to work it out that my mil's sil hates her and my mils sister! For years they moaned at how tight she was and thought she was useless at gift buying, it all made sense, she never came to visit (I've met her once in 15 years) and she sends the crappest presents she can find, I imagine that woman has had a lot of fun over the years!!

I really hate it when people ask for money or vouchers for a wedding gift, I'm never sure how much to give, gives me untold anxiety, would prefer not to attend the wedding

My SIL has short arms and long pockets.

She expects fancy handbags, perfume etc - she literally gives DH the exact item. The cost is usually around £70.

We usually give her husband a £25 amazon voucher .

In return, I generally get a cheap necklace - maybe a tenner max, and DH invariably gets a shirt or a jumper. Last year it was a jumper - he hated it and took it straight back to the store, where they gave him a £5 voucher because it was on sale last year.

So cost of gifts to DSIL and DH - £100. Costs to us - about £20. DH says its fine because we can afford it, and they buy for the kids. They go on 4-5 holidays a year, double income, no kids

They also like to make jolly plans like a week away at centre parks for MIL and all of us - they will share with MIL and we are expected to contribute. We need a huge place for our brood. And I can think of nothing worse.

And Mothers day, she wants to take MIL to a spa, which we have to contribute to - it ends up with us paying and her taking the credit.

I've confronted DH and pointed out how unfair it is, but he justifies it - to himself. I no longer get involved. No more thoughtful gifts, I leave it up to him.