“Oh, I donated to charity for your gift…”

[RabbitsNBears]

Just had this line for the first time this year, I don’t like it for a few reasons -

• The charities I support are never considered. Surely a donation should go to causes dear to the recipient not the giver.
• Call me selfish, but I want a present I can enjoy, I can donate money if I feel I want to. A present should be a treat.
• It smacks of people being too lazy to actually think of gift, buy it, and wrap it… it’s far easier to say you made a donation.
• I’m doubtful people bother to actually make the donation in many cases.

It just seems like something people do to make themselves feel good. Of course charities are deserving, but put your hand in your own pocket if you feel moved to donate. I'm happy to just axe gift exchanges with people and each of us make a donation to our chosen charities privately, but being blindsided with the fact I’m not actually getting a present after I spent a good deal of time and effort picking the perfect gift for SIL and wrapping it really rankles.

When you donate to charity on behalf of someone else as a gift the charity usually gives you a gift card to give to the 'recipient' so in the absence of that I call BS!

Charities usually send a card with the name of the recipient. I doubt she donated to any charity.

I like it, I don’t mind a goat, but the fatal flaw in your cunning plan, is that the goat will eat your tree. Followed by your sofa, carpet,
all the other presents, your White Company Winter pot pouri and quite likely your coats in the hall.

Far safer all round to buy someone a naice White Company electric diffuser [or enter gift you KNOW recipient (unless it’s me 😃) will like, because they’ve sensibly written a list].

wouldnt the correct thing to do be to give the recipient cash and say ‘I wasn’t sure that you might want to give to Charity this year, so please do with this what you wish.’ And hand over the money!

Or: ‘anyone who’d like their gift donating to charity please let me know the charity you’d like and I’ll make it happen’

We were given a family present of a charity goat when my daughter was 2 or 3. When we opened the card and read it she was most excited - a pet goat! She was, of course, angry and upset when we told her we weren't getting the goat, another family was. "But it's OUR present! Why is another family getting OUR present?". Trying to explain to a toddler how charity giving like this worked while she was in floods of tears wasn't the easiest thing ever. And all in front of the relative that gave us the present 😬.

I think she got a craft kit from them the following year!

My kids got a charity goat from their grandad around the same age must have been 2 or 3years old - I don't recall them caring much. They had plenty anyway.

If they had plenty of goats anyway that's different. My daughter didn't have ANY goats and she wanted one.

😜

I never intended to, but I was taken aback that my sisters thought my donations had been very little or nothing so I had to put them straight.

I promise I didn't just yell through the streets with a megaphone 😆

I had a PowerPoint presentation in mind when you said you detailed your giving over 30 years. 😂
But I do think you let yourself down. I doubt your sister believed you and you instantly cheapened the gesture by using it to promote yourself.

She sounds a little bit demanding! Maybe she needs to learn some gratitude

I think the charity donation thing can be a great idea, as long as it is mutually agreed in advance and you both nominate the charity you want the money to go to.

Otherwise, it looks as though your brother and SIL are cheeky, lazy what-nots. Remember, this is not all on her unless she is single.

This.
Adults don't need to exchange presents. At Xmas.

No one needs present whether they are a child or an adult but funnily enough people enjoy receiving them even when they become adults and many of us like to give them too.

Life would be really fucking boring if we only did things we actually need to do, don't you think?

I believe 99% of the time the person saying 'I donated to charity for you' is a lying liar and a cheeky chancer cheapskate who donated nothing and just say they did so they can get away with not putting their hand in their pocket for a present. Your relative sounds like they might be different OP but I really believe it's true in 99% of cases. And people starting to see through it too. I think it's easier to say you can't afford a gift than lie about not buying one.

This.

I give to about 10 charities a month, all for causes I believe in. So give to those or similar and we’re golden.

Give to your own choice and I wouldn’t be happy.

Well firmly cross them off your list for the future
Done!

I’m also going to put this one on your brother given he knew how much effort you were going to. I bet SIL had said to him that she has too much on this year with all the holiday prep that she was giving him the mental load of sorting his family’s presents this year, he then massively dropped the ball and she had to come up with the charity donation to cover it.

I would message her and say great idea on the charity donation, why don’t we all do that next year instead of gifts. It’s a great opportunity to ditch the adult gift giving rigmarole.

Woah. That's really fucking rude of her - waiting until you'd given her gift before dropping that line. I'd be fuming! Cheeky bitch!! Definitely do the same for her next birthday & maybe tell her she obviously can't be arsed with gift giving anymore so how about you don't bother.

If they actually enclosed the docket/receipt in a Christmas card as proof it might be different. Because then you know they actually did it. Otherwise how would you know they even did it? You don't do you.

They probably hadn’t, it will be that SIL told her H to take care of the gifts and he couldn’t be arsed/forgot.

Gifting really comes down to money doesn't it - so why bother? You spend £30 on someone and you want them to spend the same regardless of what they buy, that £30 doesn't belong to them.
Seriously, why are we continuing with this stupid nonsense. The joy of gifting is not a real thing for most people, which is quite clear from this thread and many others like it.

I did this one year for my siblings and parents. I still got neices and nephews actual presents.

The main reasons why: no one ever gives me a gift. I usually spend £10 per adult on something token: a bottle of prosecco, M&S voucher, book. I kept getting the sense no one actually wanted the thing or really cared, plus my employer matches any charity donation amount.

So instead of spending £50 on crap no one wants, the charity got over £100 with gift aid and higher-rate tax rebate on top of that.

My family might have seen it as - she didn't buy anything. Or she's trying to be holier than.. but I didn't really care. It felt worthwhile to me, and they never get my anything so the "not fair" angle wasn't a thing. Their kids still got stuff 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

So I get the overall points here, but wanted to share another perspective (because I felt personally attacked 🤣).