AIBU end of term present

[Bunny93]

Hello everyone,

I am a reception teacher and my class very kindly gifted me a hamper at the end of the year. It is an M&S hamper worth £75, so very expensive.

It has 6 items inside. 1 of the items is a half bottle of wine, which I don't drink for religious reasons. 4 of the other 5 are things with nuts, which I am allergic to and the remaining item I can make use of is a jar of jam. I am struggling a lot for money at the moment and would really like to swap the hamper in exchange for vouchers where I can buy food.

I don't want to seem ungrateful though, and it would mean asking a parent who organised this gift for the receipt in order to return it. I tried to see if I could take it in without one and was refused. But the thought of having a £75 jar of jam actually breaks my heart ☹️ what would you do? AIBU to consider asking for a receipt?

This is the best way, I mean how many mugs does a teacher need.

Dear kind parent who organised my gift.

I am so grateful for the lovely gift and for you taking the time to do a collection for me, I know organising these things aren’t always easy.
it is such a lovely thought and I’m so grateful but I hate having to ask, but I am sadly allergic to nuts and can not use 4 out of the 6 items in the hamper, I feel horrible asking but could I please have the receipt so that I can swap the hamper for one that doesn’t contain nuts?
yours gratefully
@Bunny93

Why not support British companies? I don't use Amazon because I don't like the ethics of the company, and the parcels are left on doorsteps not delivered.

Ship has probably sailed on this now, since most schools broke up yesterday.

I think that would be fine but based on the policy others have posted I don't know that she will be able to return it even with a receipt.

I'd contemplates selling it on OP but with a message that makes it clear that it's a lovely gift you just can't have for allergy reasons and you don't want it to go to waste.

There’s nothing wrong in gifting to an adult individual something that includes nuts. Op is an adult and frequently will go into buildings where nuts are present in some form. The parents did nothing wrong to gift an item that contains nuts.

Being able to avoid allergens in general life is completely different from being given something with them in as a personal gift. Nut allergies and not drinking alcohol are very common to a lot of people; surely you would check discreetly beforehand, assuming that you were trying to give somebody a nice treat as a kind gesture that they would actually enjoy.

I would love to receive one of those posh steaks - and so would loads of people, going on the fact that they actively market them as gifts. Something like that does make a lovely gift that would be greatly-appreciated by a steak-lover; but I wouldn't dream of buying one for somebody whom I didn't know all that well without initially checking that they aren't vegetarian or vegan, as a very large number of people are - that's the in-your-face obvious gift-check 101 thing that anybody would do, surely?

It can't be difficult to realise that you normally take a moment to think about the recipient before choosing a gift for them?

It's getting quite tiresome (and somewhat cancel-the-cheque-y) how many people are still regularly suggesting trying to return/exchange the gift - whether with or without the receipt - when goodness knows how many people have said, and shown proof from M&S's own website, that M&S DO NOT ACCEPT EXCHANGES OR GIVE REFUNDS ON HAMPERS!!!

It’s a pretty big assumption to make that the hotter even has the receipt. Imagine going through a difficult conversation just to find out there is nothing they can do to help. If they wanted you to exchange the gift, they would have provided a gift receipt. In all likelihood, there isn’t much to be done about this anyway.
I am also in agreement with others that your personal financial situation, however unfortunate, has nothing to do with this.

Yes exactly. Imagine giving someone a present that could literally kill them if they ate it and then actually being offended when they pointed that out!

Sorry this has hit the mirror paper esp as the reason you don't want the hamper is due to an allergy and I feel the paper hasn't really acknowledged that

Not that you are ungrateful
For the present

Hopefully it will make more people aware that teachers and probably most people if given a choice would love cash or vouchers like love to shop /Amazon as can buy practically anything you want that way

When you work in an office and get a bonus. It's usually cash /money.

So totally get why op would prefer cash esp as she is struggling

As I said before @Bunny93 do look at uc to see if entitled to anything as a single parent working

I have a DC with a peanut allergy, so it probably would occur to me now but I doubt it would have before.

The parent will have said "let's do a collection and buy the teacher a hamper", and then bought the one at the price point closest to the amount raised. Most people drink alcohol, most people aren't allergic to nuts. Unless they had been told of the allergy then I don't think they did anything wrong, just an unfortunate situation all round.

I'm not sure I'd expect a Muslim to be grateful for a gift of alcohol. I'm teetotal and I've had lots of alcohol gifts over the years but if people don't know me well they won't know but we do know with Muslims.

I retired from a job after 20 years, they normally give people a voucher and a small gift. For some reason they decided to buy me jewellery. I don't wear jewellery, not one of them had ever seen me with jewellery and I have no idea why they thought I'd suddenly like some flash gold item. It sits in a drawer and whenever I see it I just think, Why? I'd have loved some vouchers.

The mistake I think, is to imagine that everyone outs a lot of thought into a gift. They simply don’t.

Leaving gifts for colleagues, for teachers etc….it’s a social norm for many. Many want to express gratitude or find memories or whatever, or to make a gesture….but it doesn’t go beyond that. So many gifts are rather generic and lack lots of personalised thought or research.

Thats fine. It’s over-thinking to feel very disappointed or to keep wishing that there had been vouchers instead.

Lots of other threads have peo0ke moaning that the vouchers they were given weren’t ones they’d like…or they lack thought or are tastless. You just can’t please everyone.

Personally, I think people who get really upset about gift they receive or don’t receive, are often lacking a bit of self-esteem and need some kind of validation via gifts. They read all kinds of kindness or thoughtlessness into the gifts that often just isn’t there.

Honstly those parents did a collection, saw they had £100 and decided £75 for hamper and rest for the other miscellaneous items. Looked online and found d a hamper in that price bracket and ordered it. They didn’t research what OP likes and doesn’t like. They didn’t look into whether a return could be made or not. They ordered the hamper and ticked it off their ‘jobs to do’ list. They are grateful to the teacher for teaching their children this year and want to express it, but it’s not a big thought, look hard to find a personalised gift kind of thing. And it should be received like that too.

This sums up my feelings. It’s a gift, accept gratefully then regift as appropriate. You cannot use money from gifts to supplement your income.

The trouble is, it's £75 which is not to be sneezed at.

Yes, it’s £75, but as recipient, you don’t get to choose what that money goes on.

It could equally have been 20 £3.50 boxes of chocs and mugs and candles that OP didn’t want.

The giver has liberty to choose if and what to give. That’s just how it is. Beyond a momentary ‘oh a gift voucher for John Lewis would have been nice, as then I could have had those sandals I’d seen, or it would have paid for a weeks shop’ you just move on and forget it. To give it more thought to be honest suggests a lack of perspective and becoming a hit self indulgent. And I get that OP is having a very hard time financially…but the parents’ gifting could never be counted on as a solution to that.

Sell it on ebay. I work in school as a TA and I've regifted presents before. I don't really drink either and got given two expensive bottles of wine this week. I imagine they'll be Christmas pressies for someone. These weren't off the parents this though but other staff members.

Why would anyone give a hamper rather than a gift voucher. The only gifts worth giving are vouchers money or a handmade card ( by the child)

A half bottle of wine isn’t actually an opened bottle. It’s a half size bottle of wine

No. people have all kinds of views on what gifts to give. It is their choice as the giver. There is no ‘only’ appropriate gift. It might be what you would give, but that’s your choice and also be what you’d like to receive, but there’s no right answer. People give what they want to. Some people love to receive a hamper. The fact they are available evert Christmas and throughout the year suggests they are regularly given as gifts and nothing unusual at all.

They are given as gifts by people who don't want to give a voucher. They would be appropriate for someone housebound or elderly but not for a teacher gift.

Thank you. I am just hoping none of them see it, I would hate for them to think I didn't appreciate them getting me something. They were lovely parents and a lovely bunch of children who I will really miss.

I did have a look a little while ago to see if I would get any help with UC but because I own my house and I am paying off a mortgage they don't offer much support, which I can understand. I am sure that many people are in a much worse position than me and are in need of that support.

Our class rep organised our group gift (voucher) and certainly didn't do it for the glory! It's a PITA getting money from everyone and getting everyone to sign a card.

The most frequent giver of hampers are large corporations who give to clients…especially at Christmas, and firms gifting to employees. The hampers we are talking bout contain luxury items, not products that someone might typically put in a hamper for the housebound. The items in hampers are typically booze, luxury biscuits, cakes, snacks, sweets and chocolates, conserves, chutneys, and can also include meats or dairy products or fish. Each if these kind of items in the first list are the kind of things one might gift as an individual item. So it wouldn’t be unusual to gift wine or biscuits or chutneys to a teacher.

Homemade hampers might be given to the housebound or elderly.

The nature of shop prepared hampers is a selection of items. Although you can get specialist types of hamper, then one OP received is a general hamper. It contains goodies that woukd appeal to a wide range of people. People often buy such gifts for someone they don’t know especially well….such as the teacher. The gifts are those most like and most will find some items within it to enjoy and be able to gift or share with family members the others. It isn’t a hugely personalised present. But in most cases, parents don’t know the teacher or their likes or dislikes really well….and that’s entirely normal. Gifting doesn’t all have to be about spending g lots of time finding out what someone loves and making it personal. It’s often a simple ‘thank you’ to people you might not know that well. And that’s fine.

It’s why teachers get loads of chocolates, wine, candles and mugs. They are all fairly generic gifts that you can gift to someone you do t know that well. None of them are bad or unusual gifts. Some teachers will love all of them or some or none, but they understand the sentiment is to say thank you.

Sometimes teachers get a gift they adore. Well that’s great and a real bonus for them. Other times, they get items they dislike. It’s hardly a disaster.

Yes, there is lots of waste and re-gifting. It’s the nature of dealing with 30 children on a daily basis and many parents wanting to show some kind of appreciation but not knowing the teacher well and understandably wanting to limit their expenditure. It’s just one of those things. Most gifts can be re-gifted or recycled. It’s not worth over thinking by teachers or parents to be honest.

YES WE KNOW BUT PEOPLE HAVE INDIVIDUAL DISCRETION.