to give unwanted gifts to a charity shop?

[bumblingalong]

my DP seems to think i need to keep them just cos they're from my MIL!!

expat!

Then I shall visit once a month and ask about it every time

Bba,
Just don't make it a local tatty shop or MIL might buy it back!

Seriously folks- you have no idea. It's a big cupboard and I had to buy a house around it. I used to display it though so I have compromised. I also still have room epat so if LLPJ DOES send you some then I 'll give you my address

Expat, I'm having a clearout of books and have one called Climbing Free - My Life in the Vertical World by Lynn Hill.

I was going to send it to the charity shop but though of you and wondered if you might like it - I seem to remember that you used to be a climber?).

If you would like it I would be happy to send it to you .

God, i keep nothing unless it works for its keep.
Have a sizable basket of unopened Christmas presents for kids. I'm telling people to buy nothing for any of us this year. i can't bear tatt/clutter.

i already have it, oggs .

thanks, though.

shoots, you're a bigger person than me.

if i got fugly art it would disappear. art theft and all.

i can't bear it, either, moondog.

it just drags me down.

okay. Charity shop it is then

Yanbu, yanbu, yanbu...

Another one here with the grandmother who won't stop.

She is obsessed with buying things. She has cupboards filled with stuff she has bought for years and years. Colouring pens she got us when me and my sister were children, are still being doled out. We have told her millions of times that we don't want anything. She refuses to listen.

I give it all away now as soon as it arrives. Actually I'm not seeing her this year and have asked my parents not to pass on anything, just to tell her to return it to the shop and if she doesn't want to it can stay there and clutter up her place instead of mine

No, she doesn't mean well before anyone flames me. See my other thread about grandmothers...

I'm telling people not to buy us stuff as well. But the ones who go on about how horribly cluttered our flat is, are the ones who say 'Oh, just something small, surely..' - that's my mother btw.

flight, remind your mother that money fits neatly into a small purse so you'll have that.

otherwise, that if it's not something you would like to eat or drink you will give it away so don't bother giving it.

YANBU. Charity shop, Freecycle, jumble sale - it is all perfectly reasonable.

Either that, or use the tat to furnish your child's Wendy house.

any makeup i don't like i pass on to the girls' dressing up box.

my mil is always trying to help brighten our home too! Her house is literally full to the brim with ornaments, tat etc. None of it is necessarily nice (I'm being polite)! When we moved into our house a year ago, she bought lots of things that didn't match any room.

Dh is very good at telling her what we don't want. The thing is, she's a lovely mil that just loves crap so I feel bad having to say no. Bless her, she started art classes a couple of years ago and when ever she shows me her work I will say it's really good. She then says " you have it"
We've even had things framed! Like a bowl of fruit picture!!!! But she's getting really good but again I'm bring polite!!! They are what they are- paintings by a retired mil!!

Best to be honest. Easier said then done I know! I always chicken out! I even go as far to say "oh that's nice... I'll ask dh if he likes it" then blame dh for not liking it!!!!

Get dh to say something!!!!

What's worse is when I get sil's kids hand me downs... Again trying to be helpful but I don't want clothes after 3 kids already. They startto get a bit worn. But that's another story!

SO MUCH tat got "lost" (i.e. given to a friend's maid and shipped back to the Philippines for distribution to her family and friends) in our last move, it was liberating. It was mostly gifts from well-intentioned people who didn't realise I am the last person on earth who would ever display a wood and metal sculpture of a cat stretching.

PILs have, thankfully, got the message that while they live in a big house out in the country and have loads of storage room, we live in a small city-centre flat and an extra room would cost us 70,000 quid, so it's just too expensive to give house room to stuff we neither need nor want. It was definitely the "we simply cannot afford to keep anything superfluous" explanation that finally made the penny drop.

the ILs still haven't really gotten it with us, despite my constantly repeating, 'This is a really small flat' so it's Freecycle, charity shop and bin.

they did stop bringing DH old clothes he'd left there from about 10 year ago after they did so and we transferred the bags straight from their boot to ours in the car park and i said, 'great! i'll go get the rest of the recycling, if we're going to the textile recycling bin, we may as well do the rest of it.'

also, they never see the tatt ornaments out because i get rid of them straightaway.

i simply cannot abide clutter and DH knows it drives me round the twist.

their house would stun Kim and Aggie.

would suffer the clutter for the sake of my dp if he liked the stuff & noticed straight away that i'd hidden it, but he doesn't! and if mil had put a drop of thought into buying it, not cos it was on sale & it'll do for me! although -i hate ornaments & am slightly obsessive about matching things so maybe am hard to buy for!