Gift cards: terrible gifts

[AllegroVivace]

When I was a kid the whole Christmas gifts thing was a lot of fun. By maturity, it feels like an unnecessary hassle we can all live without. In all things that we can do during the few days of leisure we get to enjoy every year, the stressful gift exchange seems the least desirable. Still, there I am, under immense cultural pressure, searching through long shopping malls, looking at one stupid item after another.

[knight66]

OK, I will open for you the family memory locker. For many years my mother would stipulate what she wanted; a nightdress or a handbag etc from Marks and Spencer. However, the deal was that she wanted the receipts, just in case. The 'just in case scenario' became a fixed annual tradition and after the New Year sales she would phone to explain that she had swapped our nightdress....scarf.....whatever for four items, much nicer.

I got fed up with this so started sending her and my step father things they would not be able to swap. This was accepted for a while; but eventually my mother exploded on the phone......"These gifts you are sending, they are just rubbish"!!

I asked for a countdown of the 'rubbish' gifts. "We did not want a new toaster. What am I supposed to do with this coffee maker, I like instant coffee? That damned pashmina; it is in the drawer with the rest of them. But you really put the tin lid on it this year. You bought John that huge series of tapes on warfare in the 20th Century. IT IS ALL IN BLACK AND WHITE."

We agreed to swap cheques. She had for years been sending cheques, as she explained: "I don't have time to find things and I can't be hacked standing in the queue to post the stuff and it costs lots to post anyway."

By the way, I don't take this crap lying down, I imagine she could write a fair counterblast. But moving along, for about four years we swapped cheques for the identical amount. Then one year I thought that I would have myself an actual gift. So I sent a cheque for half the amount. More trouble ensued. I explained that I did not see the point in her sending a cheque which I then had to post to the bank back in Scotland where she lives. While she did the same in reverse for the same amount. The process simply put us into the position we started from. Her rationale was that if she got no cheque it felt like she was not getting anything.

So..... for three years she has had to settle for getting nothing. I just lost patience entirely with the charade.

Mike

[Szykneij]

A related story from my family memory locker --

When our son was young, my wife insisted we make our annual visit to a photographer's shop near the ocean to take a novelty picture for our Christmas cards. We have family pictures of the three of us, plus our chunky dog, as pirates, cowboys, Civil War figures, Dickens characters, and other assorted historical creatures. Eventually, as the son got older, the beagle got fatter, and the father got less patient, we ended those photographic jaunts to Cape Ann.
  Years later, when my uncle who lives out of state passed away one cold winter, we visited his homestead for the funeral. There, hanging on the living room wall as part of his holiday decorations, were all of our Christmas cards from over the years. He had apparently thought enough of them (and us) to keep them safe and put them on display each yuletide season.
  It turns out that these "gift cards" were appreciated more than I realized.
In the end, it really doesn't matter what the gift is. It could be money, a bathrobe, a gift card, or just a hug. The important thing is to have someone who wants to give you one.

[PaulSC]

In the end, it really doesn't matter what the gift is. It could be money, a bathrobe, a gift card, or just a hug. The important thing is to have someone who wants to give you one.

Well said, Szykneij!

[Kontrapunctus]

I tell people where to get me a gift card (usually Amazon) so I'm not "forced" to shop someplace.

[knight66]

Szykneij, Very nice story.

Mike

[eyeresist]

You bought John that huge series of tapes on warfare in the 20th Century. IT IS ALL IN BLACK AND WHITE.

You have my sympathy.

[Karl Henning]

Of incidental interest:

How your Best Buy gift card ends up in New York's bank account