How to solve problem of consistently shit gifts - are you a shit gifter?

[YourNoisyKhakiCritic]

I have a family member who despite me saying both in a roundabout way and also bluntly I do not want gifts for my children they still continue to buy absolute shite for them think clearance charity shop crap that isn’t either clean, working or age appropriate. I’ve said multiple times please just send a card or nothing- kids aren’t bothered about presents whatsoever. This family member loves freebies and bargains and extreme coupons / temu type stuff I guess that’s their thing but why should I be burdened with piles of crap toys and the like to offload? I usually graciously still message thank you but I’m really struggling after last weeks latest pile of crap I still haven’t messaged and I’m feeling like times probably almost running out and I will be the bad guy. How do I stop this person sending us shite gifts? To reiterate I’ve said multiple times over several years to please stop.

if you’re someone who does this to family / friends may I ask why? Is it an addiction?

Keep sending the same message that the house is full of crap and kids don't want anything and please only send cash or this particular gift - really mean it NOTHING else. Ring them and verbally say it as well

dont send thanks for anything else

I think if it’s an elderly family member who genuinely thinks it’s a nice gift then I’d feel a bit guilty, as they’re actually trying and putting thought in to it .
But if it’s a ‘this will do, mainly because it’s free or cheap as you say, then I’d have no issues with throwing it away or salvaging anything ok and sending it to charity.
It would annoy me though as what a waste of their money and you.
I’d rather people not bother, than send me a pointless waste of money gift, even more annoying though OP when you’ve asked them not to

Stop sending crap please as it isn't worth the price of postage surely .

Not elderly actually few years younger than me. Thank you, I’m honestly the most grateful person even if someone gave me or my kids a card or even a happy birthday text or call. But this just feels personal now and thank fuck I can shield the kids from it and open the parcels before them

You’d think this wouldn’t you but no. I’d honestly rather the £4 ish of postage was spent on a card and a stamp. It’s insanity I can’t get my head around it. Several times. Year as 2 x kids bdays and Xmas also

Give it to the charity shop so that another shit present giver can inflict it on their relatives. That at least raises some money for charity and keeps it out of landfill for a bit longer.

Sorry: edited to say I've just seen that your local charity shop no longer accepts the stuff...

This person sounds bloody maddening!

You have my sympathy as I had years of this from SIL. And no one in my life ever understood why it upset me. I was gaslighted into feeling that I was being ungrateful and she was trying to be generous.

Years down the line and a few drunken (her) confessions later and I am vindicated…she was jealous of me and it was all part of a sustained campaign - including trying to sabotage my wedding, any parties I ever hosted, my children’s birthdays in all sorts of (bonkers!) ways that were just subtle enough to explain away. For example, turning up to my 30th birthday party, a Black Tie themed cocktail party (not as wanky as it sounds I promise, but just an excuse to dress up) in tatty joggers and a beanie hat. I’d never seen her without full makeup before or since.

The shit gifts, or sometimes extravagant gifts for me, were a way to make me feel uncomfortable and awkward. Sometimes it was expensive clothes and cosmetics but all the wrong size or unsuitable. Or on the flip side clothes from the bargain bin with sale tags still on; one year instead of going to charity I took a load back to Next and they told me they must have been at least 10 years old.

We don’t really speak now and she has stopped giving gifts at all, she is a very complicated woman and I just don’t engage anymore.

The point of this ramble is to say that it’s probably on purpose and a reaction is what they are hoping for. So just quietly bin it and feel sorry for them and their craziness.

On the mittens, I was delighted to find adult mittens in a charity shop. Ideal for cycling on really cold days. Gloves separate your fingers so they get cold more quickly.

I didn’t realise adult mittens existed before this either! They are proper outdoors ones though. Not suede.

Anyway OP, why on earth have you sent thank yous??. Your only option to try and stop it is to say clearly they are shit presents that go straight in the bin unopened and unplayed with and you will send any future parcels straight back unopened.

But it’s up to you if you want to go nuclear like this. Sending them back will probably stop it.

Charity shops aren't taking stuff from Shein and Temu because of the dangerous chemicals used. It's only fit for the bin.
@YourNoisyKhakiCritic we stopped doing gifts because of my sister. She's a shopping addict and hoarder. We'd hand her stuff back. We stopped caring if it's perceived as rude. It's rude to not care enough to get an appropriate gift, especially when you are asked not to buy. It would actually upset my middle DD to get nothing worth having, when I'd taken them out and got my sister a decent present (that I couldn't afford). I'd tell them that it's going straight in the bin and send them a picture of it in the bin. We should be moving away from buying stuff as it is, shit stuff deserves a shit response. You should never have said thank you, there was nothing to thank them for. The gift wasn't about you or your children.

You've had the courage to ask her not to send this rubbish, so just go one step further. Don't say thank you any more. Say: Look, I've asked to you stop sending stuff, we don't want it and we don't have room for it, so please just stop. How much clearer can I be? You are making work for me, not doing something nice for my children. If you'd like to do something nice for the children, come and visit us one day bringing some cake and soft drinks, and take them to the park for a couple of hours. They'd like that.

In this case they are being entirely selfish - they want the feeling of having given a gift without having to put in the money and energy to find something nice. I think given you've tried saying it nicely you've got to either be less nice (starting by not saying thanks for the latest one) or accept you'll have to keep binning the shite.

It sounds like it is shopping addiction type behaviour.

I once got a book on British regional cookery that described the food, rather than actually providing a recipe.

This and the sample text sounds like a book which was both dreamt up and written entirely by AI and then self-published. Unlike traditional printing runs, amazon print the books individually as they are sold, so you could in theory come up with 1000 variations on a book and market them all individually to each niche category without ending up with hundreds of redundant copies.

DS2 is age 7 and really interested in trains, so I got recommended a bizarre book like this once. It looked like AI so I clicked it out of curiosity and rather than being "101 train facts for 7 year olds" as the title said, the reviews were full of disappointed people saying that the facts didn't really make sense, the text was babyish and the book inside looked like it was aimed at toddlers, and worst of all the numbering system turned to complete gibberish part way through the book!

God knows who is setting up the instructions to churn out this garbage and market it to unsuspecting people! It's like those t-shirts that get auto generated so you are tricked into thinking "Wow, that shirt looks like it was designed just for me!!" it WAS, it's using your data.

But someone with a shopping addiction is probably even more likely than the average person to be taken in by something like this. And perhaps less likely to actually check the product before passing it on to the intended recipient, as well.

Op so annoying. Sister does with baby clothes or something boys didnt wear. Sometimes it doesnt scan as old tag. Theres a meanness about it all I think!!

If the parcels arrive in the post, can't you just refuse to accept it? Or , if your post person has nowhere else to leave it,don't answer the door so they take it back to the sorting office. Then don't bother collecting it. I believe they automatically get returned to sender after a certain time.

I'd put up with this for years then one Christmas received a bin bag containing a dirty and very tatty small plastic doll house. Size of a bread bin. I was instructed to give it a wipe over and wrap it.
After meeting my mum's friend who gushed "wasn't I lucky to have a mum who spoilt her granddaughter with a 'hand made wooden doll's house and won't DD be thrilled when she opens it " I realised I was enabling a 'Lady Bountiful' fantasy. My mother was not short of a bob or two!

I think to a certain extent it is on purpose. A form of control maybe? Which is weird because my Mum is actually lovely but the brain is a powerful thing. My Mum used to say ‘I know you won’t want this but.’ So she was admitting she knew. Very odd. Just literally detach from it now if you can.

When you say "piles" how much is this person actually buying? More than birthday + Christmas for each child?

Tbh, as someone with only two relatives who buy for my child (one being child free clueless uncle and the other being elderly dad who is carer for my mum with dementia and has no bandwidth to think about kid's presents), I think you're being a bit precious. Prior to her further decline my mum used to give us a load of random stuff. I just said thank you and gave it to charity if it wasn't wanted.

Why are you sending thank you notes for piles of crap. Cheap, thoughtful gifts, absolutely! But piles of broken, unusable shite absolutely not.
You are almost as bonkers as the gift giver in this scenario.

You must never have had a shit gift then.

My brother inherited my mum's shit gift gene. I have arthritis that really limits what I can do and my brother seems to delight in buying things that I cannot 'do', sewing kits, adult colouring book, a ukulele...

This.

It's not genuine generosity, it's being a convenient outlet for shopping addiction with the veneer of looking kind and not having to face the consequences of the shite building up in their own home.

The thrill is in buying the bargain for them, not making a recepient happy.