I am so annoyed!
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| Fri, 11-18-2005 - 12:10pm |
WHY does everyone in the world (except you lovely folks and a few other dear friends) think that $15-20 is a "nothing"?
I am so sick of Christmas already, and it's not even Thanksgiving. First, there's dh's family's gift exchange. There are four of us in this family, so we have to contribute four gifts. At $15-20 a piece (the stated "limit"), that's $60-80 out of our entire $200 Christmas budget. Now add the white elephant they're planning at dh's work, and we've hit $100--fully HALF our entire budget, for stupid gift exchanges where nobody really wants what we spend all that money on and where we don't really want to participate.
ARGH!
Everyone says, well, it's only $20. It makes me see red.
With $100 I could make 20--twenty!--beautiful baskets brimming with teas, homemade soups, handmade soaps, candles, and carefully chosen yard sale finds. Enough to get nearly everyone on the list, with items they can really use and that I've put real effort, thought, and love into.
Instead, I'm buying five stupid gifts that nobody's really going to want anyway.
And the remaining $100 will be used on the gift baskets.
And that leaves us zip, zilch, nada to spend on each other.
I feel so angry about it!!!
Thanks for letting me vent.
Heather

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I get so annoyned when someone having a party decides to have a white elephant, and then does it totally wrong! The idea of a white elephant is to wrap up some crappy thing you have lying around your house and then others fight over it. My aunt and uncle used to do this at their Christmas parties, and it was a laugh-riot. One year after my former FIL passed away, my MIL was going through his things and the first thing she did was to take down the antlers that he insisted on hanging in their bedroom. She didn't know what to do with it, but I did. I got a box, wrapped it up with pretty paper and bows and hauled it to my aunt's white elephant. You should have seen the fighting that went on over this extremely large box! I mean, it got vicious at one point, and all I could do was to sit and laugh, knowing what was in the box. You were allowed to take a gift from the table, or take one from another player, and after a box had changed hands three times that box was considered "dead"--it had to stay with whomever got it the third time. And the gifts are all opened, one at a time, at the end of the game. The guy that ended up with it was leaving the party early to catch a Christmas Eve flight to Chicago...he opened the box, and to his horror saw the awful antlers inside! I heard that he took it to the airport with him and left it (obviously this was years ago!). We did it again a year later, and I managed to top the antlers with street signs that friends had "stolen" and left on my yard--it was the intersection of my name and the name of a close friend. Hid them in my parents garage for years and wrapped them up. Ironically, my uncle got them, and said that he had a distant niece that recently married, and they had the same names as were on the signs, so he mailed them to her!
Wouldn't THAT fit into your budget so much better??
Hugs--Kathy
I think a lot of it is marketing hype-we are encouraged to spend more and more and personally I haven't seen my income increase enough to accomodate the "gift suggestions" in catalogs, etc. Well, O.K. we make twice what we did as grad. students but our expenses went up accordingly.
I especially dislike the gift exchanges and buying for people I don't know. I'll try to make this brief-DH's dad has been married 3 times. We now wind up doing Christmas with FIL & MIL (3rd) wife and the grandchild they are raising so there goes $60. But, DH doesn't want to stop doing Christmas with the step-siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents from FIL's 2nd marriage so we do a name drawing. We see many of these people only once a year. So, I wind up spending $80 on people that I don't see often and I have no idea what their interests are. I like these people-don't mind having a conversation with them at all but trying to buy gifts for them and then receiving gifts from them it just seems like we would all be happier keeping our money to ourselves. Of course, we also have DH's mom (wife #1) as well.
Taleyna
I don't know how you will feel about this suggestion, but why not value your baskets at 15 - 20 each? Do you think the baskets or gift sets in the store really cost that much to produce? NO. Its all in the labor and presentation. So go ahead and make your baskets. Besides its about the thought and love behind the gift. Not the gift or price tag. Put a little tag on it that says made with love and they will not dare to say anything negative. ;)
Sandra
Yeah, it seems like no one knows the meaning of "white elephant" any more. Sigh. Your stories gave me a good chuckle though! Thanks!
Heather
Heather, I totally agree! I'm already commited to a $10 gift xchange at my pt job and a $15 xchange at my ft job (very annoying since my own two brothers--who I am close to--are each only getting $20 gifts this year). To think I am spending nearly the same amount on total strangers! ARgh!!!! I will also need to contribute to charity efforts at each place of employment. Anyway...
I am also an antiques dealer. One year for one of these work events I filled an antique teacup & saucer (cost to me, prob $1) with a small choc santa, a packet of tea, and a wrapped biscotti (Nonni's brand in the grocery store is SO GOOD); set a vintage silver plated teaspoon on the saucer (cost to me, prob a dime) and shrink-wrapped and bow-tied the whole thing. Total cost definitely less than $5. Yet it was one of the most fought over gifts at the xchange.
My point (and I do have one!)...go with what you know you can do, is in your budget, and is lovely. People DON'T want the junk they get at those things.
Just my 2 cents!
BK
*I* think that's a terrific idea. Sadly, it won't work in these two instances. For one thing, dh doesn't see things that way. The white elephant, apparently, is supposed to be gag-type gifts (and yet, they have to be new--argh!), and he just won't go for the home-grown variety. I think he would be embarrassed by it.
And the gifts for the family drawing, each person usually suggests the gift they want. So if I have, say, Kyle's name, he may request a very specific CD. If I could find the CD for less than $15, great, but a home-made basket simply won't do. The good part of that is that everyone gets something they really want. But personally, I think it's totally silly anyway--I mean, if we're all spending the same amount of money, and getting something we specifically request, WHY don't we all just go out and spend the $15 ourselves for ourselves and skip the whole "exchange" part?? Aren't gifts supposed to be from the heart, a token of love and appreciation and thoughtfulness? Sigh. And the other sad part is, no one ever quite gets my requests right. First of all, there just really isn't that much stuff I want--I'd rather have the $15 to put toward our future. I don't buy CDs, I don't care about girly stuff. If I request a specific book, it's always one they can't seem to find, so they get me something "close" (for instance, I might request a specific gardening book and when they can't find that, they grab some generic gardening book off the bargain shelf that doesn't cover any of the topics I'm interested in, so I just have an extra book to get rid of in Spring cleaning). One year, I asked for warm slippers, and I got slipper socks, which are almost completely useless as you can only wear them once between washings and if you step in the least bit of moisture--and with two little boys there are "least bits of moisture" everywhere--you have to take them off and wear something else.
Okay, that's not really the point. I don't really mind what or if people give me something. But I really hate the fact that there's no thought, no love, no "I know you and I know you'll love this" in it. It's just, "I spent my $20 and here's the gift you--sort of--requested."
Now, baskets--I love getting baskets full of goodies someone else prepared. So that's what I'm giving to my *friends* and *loved ones*, and I guess I'll shell out the $20 per person for distant relatives and strangers at dh's work so we can all be included in the community spirit or whatever.
Sigh.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. It's a terrific thought, and I'll definitely keep it in mind should something else pop up.
Blessings,
Heather
Jennifer
Heather, can you make your beautiful baskets for the white elephant and the other gift exchange?? If it were me, I'd love to have a gift basket with little items to enjoy through the holidays! Maybe you could run the idea by your DH and see what he thinks?
Baskets are such popular gifts right now because so many people love them! :-D There are actual stores near my home that are dedicated to only making gift baskets--even a store for pets so they can have a gift basket also! LOL! :-D
Pat :-D
That's a great idea! I may do that. I hope Memaw doesn't think me a humbug for suggesting it (all suggestions go through her). On the other hand, I'm in her good graces right now, so I may have some goodie points I can expend on it, lol.
Thanks,
Heather
I wish I could! I asked dh about it--I actually made one up and put it on the front table for him to look at, so he could see how professional and beautiful it looks, but he said that the white elephant is supposed to be "off-beat" gifts. Sheesh! So, everybody has to go out and spend $20 on something that looks like it was purchased at a yard sale, but that wasn't, and that at the same time other people might actually want to bring home. Good grief. Anyway, I think maybe I'll just send with him the complete set of 1970s encyclopedias I bought at a yard sale. Talk about a white elephant! LOL I don't think he'll go for it though...
He also reminded me that he has to buy a gift for the people who report to him at work. THIS I don't mind. And, actually, although he feels like he should buy something for his one male report (it's hard to find inexpensive "boy" stuff for baskets), he's very open for the baskets for his female report. SO, I guess that's sort of good news.
Sigh. I think I may have to raid our tax fund to pay for part of Christmas. I think I probably overestimated how much I'm going to owe in taxes anyway, but I hate to think of tax time coming and not having enough to pay. Ouch. Fortunately, taxes come due after dh's big annual bonus, so if worse came to worst... we could use that money, which we were hoping to use for a tenth anniversary trip... sometimes it's hard trying to pay for everything in cash!
But it WILL pay off. It already has. We just have to stay disciplined!
Thanks for the suggestions and the sympathies.
Heather
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