Christmas presents....

[conuly]

1. Dear Amy: Every year, I spend time carefully curating a list of Christmas wishes for me, my husband, and our children. I know what we like and need. In turn, his family gives me their list.

When it's time for presents, my in-laws happily open the gifts for which they asked. They love them! We open our gifts, and do not receive a single thing from our list. My children receive toys they don't need and clothes I will not let them wear. Some things are regifted, while others just take up space in my house.

It actually hurts that after 12 years of being part of this family, they still don't know me at all. We spend a generous amount of money on our family at Christmas, but I’m disappointed and frustrated by their lack of consideration. Last year, I told my husband that I would only buy gifts for the children of the family going forward; I have not told the in-laws yet. The downside is that one of the siblings is childless, so they would receive nothing from us.

Should I hold firm and kindly let the family know that children should be the focus of Christmas from here on out, or should I make overt hints to stick to the list and hope for the best, even if I'm disappointed (again)?

– Disappointed

Dear Disappointed: Abandon the list. It’s not working. It also subverts the idea of Christmas giving.

You might segue to a non-material gift for adults – donating to a charity on their behalf or giving a subscription or membership to a local museum or cultural institution. If you don’t want to give any gifts to adults, in place of your list you can state: “I’m trying to cut way back on the overabundance, and so I’m going to only give gifts to the kids. Enjoying our time together is the only gift I want.”

Regardless of how you frame your own wishes, you cannot control what other people give to you.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2735605?fs

***************

2. Dear Care and Feeding,

It seems early to be worrying about Christmas, but here we are. I’m a man in a family of mostly women (my wife, two daughters, one daughter-in-law, mother, two sisters, and three nieces). My brothers-in-law are easy to buy gifts for and my wife buys the gifts for her father, but I struggle buying presents for everyone else. I know they all want jewelry or beauty products or some book series I have no idea about. I work an incredibly stressful job and have limited time for shopping, not to mention that I don’t feel at all at home in stores that sell what they want.

My eldest daughter, “Halle” (28), loves celebrations, is an organizational master, and a very thoughtful gift buyer. She keeps spreadsheets with dates of birthdays, preferences, and gifts bought. Most years, I have been able to ask Halle to sort the bulk of present-buying for our family on my behalf (of course I give her the money for it), since she enjoys Christmas shopping and it greatly eases my stress. But last year, Halle complained every time I asked her about what gifts she had purchased, acting like shopping on my behalf was a huge burden rather than something she could easily handle while doing her own shopping.

Then, at our Christmas get-together, she made a point of telling people about the gifts that were supposed to be from me, making it obvious that she had selected them. At least a couple of relatives felt as if I don’t care about them (not at all true). I had to make the point several times that it was not Halle who had paid for these gifts but me! It was embarrassing. And since then we have had some awkward birthdays when my sisters thanked Halle for gifts that were from me. Now we are in October, when Halle starts Christmas shopping. In the past she has called to ask me who she should pick up gifts for from me and about money transfers, but there has been nothing from her this year. I have a bad feeling she will do what she did last year if I don’t say something, or she might simply refuse to help out at all. I absolutely don’t have time to go to the kind of effort she does—Christmas holidays are an overtime period for me—but I don’t want to end up forgetting anyone or resorting to gift cards. Can you advise me on how I can talk to Halle about this? It seems like she’s being unreasonable and uncharacteristically passive-aggressive, and I don’t know how to approach this conversation.

—Christmas Problems Already

Dear CPA,

Let me get this straight. You want your daughter to do all your Christmas shopping for you without complaint or comment, you can’t imagine why it’s the least bit inconvenient for her, you’re hurt and angry that she let your family know that she was the one who picked out all these gifts that she did pick out—and you want to know how to get her to keep doing this but return to shutting up about it? Are you kidding me?

I’ve got news for you, busy father of three (et al.): the important part of gift-giving is not who pays for the gifts but who thoughtfully chooses them (and how, and why). If you don’t have the time or the inclination to choose gifts for your loved ones, I would cut right to the chase and give them all cash. Do not ask Halle to buy your gifts again. In fact, to make sure she doesn’t this year, tell your daughter you are going to be a grownup and take care of gifts yourself.

And here’s a tip: write each of them a note telling them you love them, and why—and maybe even say, “As you know, shopping is not my forte. So I hope you won’t mind some cash to buy whatever it is that would please you most.”

(In your note to Halle, you might even apologize for treating her as your servant for so many years. And maybe give her an extra-large cash gift while you’re at it.)

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/10/gift-giving-help-daughter.html

Comments

[jadelennox]

CPA is such a chef's kiss parody of a nightmare man that I wonder if he's fictional, or being written by Halle. I adore this fictional character.

[conuly]

I certainly hope he's fictional, for the sake of everybody around him.

[torachan]

Ugh, not a fan of the first answer. Telling people what you would like, especially if they are not the type of people who can figure that out from paying attention to you, is not subverting the spirit of gift giving. People who deliberately give gifts with no thought to the recipient are selfish. They may have spent money on the gifts, but they care only about how it makes them feel, not about the person receiving it.

[conuly]

They may have spent money on the gifts, but they care only about how it makes them feel, not about the person receiving it.

Although you're probably right in general, I'm getting those vibes off LW - it reads like somebody who cares about being The Best Gift-Giver, and very much views that as transactional. Also, I kinda got the impression that they're making this list without input from Husband and Kids, though that may not be what they intended to say....

At any rate, I do agree that LW and Husband's Family should just agree (or "agree", if LW and Husband have to strong-arm the relatives into it) into exchanging gifts that are, like, donations to charity or passes to the zoo or something.

I also think that LW needs to stop making hints, overt or otherwise. Hinting is gauche.

[cimorene]

Hinting is gauche.

More importantly, hinting doesn't always work, and when it clearly isn't working on someone, you need to move on to directness just for practicality. The odds that indirectness will suddenly start working on someone who has failed to comprehend it for years are not good. LW is the only one getting migraines in this scenario, so why not drop the ball?

[torachan]

idk, she says curating, so that could very well mean taking the wish list from the kids and deleting the ones that are too expensive/not realistic or ones that she plans to get them herself.

[conuly]

That certainly is one possibility. It's the sentence afterwards that made me raise an eyebrow, though.

[lethe1]

Yes, "I know what we like and need" doesn't sound as if LW's husband and children get much say in the matter. I also wonder what the "clothes I will not let them wear" look like.

[cimorene]

Exactly. This answer is bad because even if Amy doesn't like it, plenty of people are happy with asking for what you want and getting it and nobody appointed her the arbiter of gift-giving. It's not wrong to not buy things off a list that someone gives you unsolicited, but it is very much wrong to ask for such a list, which is not easy and quick to make, and then disregard it. If they are against shopping from a list for LW's family they should make that explicit - and if that's the case isn't it weird that they're happy to give her a shopping list for them?

[torachan]

Yeah, the other family gives her a list, too! So it's not like they're totally against that method.

[conuly]

Or maybe they're giving her a list because she insists on asking for it, and all these years they've been hoping she'll pick up on the hint that they don't intend to let their buying be constrained by her list....

[syderia]

I come from an "ask" family and I really disagree with the first answer.
I do wonder about LW's list contents ("clothes I won't allow them to wear") but if the list is a true reflection of what her family wants, her husband should have a talk with his family about it.

LW#2 is an ass. How much do you wanna bet that Halle "passive-agressive" show of last year was preceded by several years trying to get her father to understand the problem?
Did he ever thank her for what she was doing?

[melannen]

"Clothes I will not let them wear" makes me wonder if the grandparents are deliberately ignoring the lists because they think LW is being too controlling about what her kids are allowed to have. I'm struggling to come up with clothes Grandma would give under-12 kids that would be truly inappropriate for the kids to wear if they wanted and they fit. (Do they have pop culture logos? Are they too gendered or not gendered enough? Are they not made out of 100% pure hemp fiber? Do they let you see your daughter's elbows? What is the issue with these clothes?)

I even sort of wonder if Grandparents are in fact buying stuff the kids asked them for....

[lilysea]

There's a whole line of "cute" / "funny" clothes for kids with sexist/misogynist slogans on them...

[melannen]

Even then, I feel like to do that for 12 years straight they've gotta be doing it on purpose.

[syderia]

And there's the "toys they don't need" line up there, which really doesn't make me feel sympathetic towards the LW.

[viggorlijah]

I laughed so loudly reading the second one that I had to explain it to my kids. I didn't add that for years I was Halle, doing all the shopping for my ex and him taking the credit because he paid for the cost of his gifts.

I get the first person's hurt - these are mutually exchanged lists! And the other people are deliberately ignoring them while getting their desired presents. I would be curious about what kind of things are being given - super religious items, items the other family perceives should be given, the requests are too expensive?

I'm with LW, make it gifts for kids and the adults exchange cards or mugs or something basic and repeatable.

[melannen]

My grandfather did what LW #2 did, but he gave the money to all the adults not just one, it was understood most of the adults would just be keeping the money, and there was 0 secret that "pop-pop"'s presents were bought by Mom (in that he thanked her publicly during the gift exchange.) Also in years where he was doing well enough, the adults would get handmade woodworking too. It worked fine! I think LW has burned his chance to pivot to something like that, though.

[redbird]

Also, it's 2022, and "stores that sell what they want" includes not just department stores and bookshops, but online shopping. Does he really expect people to believe that he is so uncomfortable at Amazon.com that someone else should be happy to do all the work for him?

[torachan]

Right? He could buy everything online! Probably even from one place, like Amazon!

Also his "I know they all want jewelry or beauty products or some book series I have no idea about" is very dismissive. Do they really want those things or are those lady things he just assumes they want because all women do? He doesn't really sound like he cares to know what they're actually interested in.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, that bit stood out to me.

[conuly]

I KNOW.

[lethe1]

But but but... he works an incredibly stressful job! Nobody has ever worked a more stressful job than him! Certainly not the womenfolk around him, who, being women, have nothing better to do with their time than to go shopping! It's what they were made for. Shopping is not a manly pursuit, you know.

[ambyr]

I come from a family culture that doesn’t do wish lists, ever, and the first time I was involved with someone from a wish list-using family I was…frankly horrified. I’ve had twenty years to moderate that reaction, but I’m still deeply uncomfortable being asked for a list or told to shop from a list. So I sympathize with LW’s in-laws (I am interpreting “ In turn, his family gives me their list” as “I badger them for a list they would not otherwise produce,” because that’s been my repeated experience, but I admit I may be projecting), but guys, you gotta use your words. If gift list-based giving makes you as uncomfortable as it does me, find a way to tell your daughter in law that you’d like to scale back on giving, maybe switch to giving your grandkids experiences like a day out to an amusement park.

[julian]

It's interesting, my birth family does do lists, though we also leave room for spontaneous gifts of the "this made me think of you" variety.

But, my in-laws don't. (That is, my brother's in-laws don't.) And I've been able to adapt to this. It really is a matter of a) using your words, and b) figuring out that there's a *need* to. If one is instead Just Assuming that their own culture is Better, and not trying to find a happy medium, as LW #1 is doing... Then she's just gonna be unhappy.

(I do think her solution may be for the best, mind you. Stopping beating your head against a wall is a relief.)

[purlewe]

My gut reactions.

LW#2 can eff off right into the sun. Not sometihng I say very often but frankly at this point.. there are so many ways he can do something instead of making his adult daughter do it for him. I, personally, have trouble buying gifts for my BILs and so I ahve resorted to the one thing I know they both like: a lb a coffee I know they drink and a travel mug. Sometimes I throw in a box of fancy chocolate for them. If I can buy the same gift every year and it is welcomed, then LW#2 can give money or whatever pleases him to give.

I feel a little for LW#1. And it sounds like the best course of action is to do a gift to the kids and then like a "family" gift like a yearly pass to the zoo, or a charitable donation in the family name. I grew up with someone who never gave me a single gift I asked for. I was always given what THEY wanted to give me (which they actually wanted) and when I wasn't as happy about it was punished for not being THRILLED bc it was what they wanted. I now belong to a family that asks what I want and then gives it to me PLUS a gift or 2 that they wanted to give me bc whatever the gift was it made them think of me. Now I know if I ask for say... a set of tongs or a spice grinder I will actually get it, and also perhaps a quilt made for me. It is NICE to have someone ask and then give you the thing you asked for. It is a burden to get a gift you never wanted or needed and then be forced to act like it was "the best thing ever" bc the person giving the gift wanted it for themselves.

[lilysea]

When I was 10 years old, I was given a basketball as birthday present by my parents. I did not play sport, and was, in fact, so clumsy that my primary school later got me an university undergraduate studying human movement as a tutor in physical coordination.

When I did not express adequate appreciation for this gift that was 100% irrelevant to my interests,

my father *pulled down my track suit pants and my underpants and spanked me in a public park in full view of the footpath and the road where anyone could have seen*

apart from the shock, and the physical pain, I felt deep shame and deep embarrassment

I have *FEELINGS* about people giving people stuff they don't want and then expecting them to perform gratitude

[purlewe]

hugs if you want them. bc for real that is an awful memory.

my mother did public embarrassment as well. She relished in using her words and her tone to cut you into little pieces. Performing gratitude is exactly the performance she wanted.

My worst gift (maybe) was my freshman year of college. I asked for a boom box to listen to music. I got a Madame Alexander Doll. She was incensed that I was not thrilled with this gift.

[katiedid717]

The first letter is about half of why I stopped celebrating Christmas almost 10 years ago (with the other half being that I'm atheist and also just haven't enjoyed Christmas since I was 12 or 13). Every year my mother would demand a list of gift ideas. Every year I would provide her with a list of books/movies/games/etc that I wanted but wasn't going to buy for myself (mainly because it was my early/mid 20s and I was living paycheck-to-paycheck). And every year, my mother would skip the list entirely and give me things she thought I wanted/needed, and then be offended if I asked for receipts to make returns. If you ask for a list, FOLLOW THE DAMN LIST.