Gifts of Years Past
In anticipation of Festivus which arrives just before Christmas I thought that I would give everyone a chance to vent about a topic I am calling "Gifts Gone Wrong." You know, the duds, the ones where we are forced to channel our inner Meryl Streep and say how wonderful said object is. Yes, we have all had this experience and today I will share mine.
Christmas about 12 years ago. Things are nice at Maison Taffy- good interpersonal relations with Mr. Taffy, it was the Clinton years and our economic situation was very rosy. So you would think that there would be something nice under the tree. (I should point out that I am not into jewelry as a must have, but do like a nice piece of clothing, a good book,or gift certificate to a spa) So it's Christmas morning and there is a box with my name on it. I rip open the wrapping see that my special something is......a set of 6 cobalt blue cereal bowls. I was told that they were bought at the Pottery Barn outlet becuase---we needed cereal bowls. Good thing we had stocked up on windsheild washer fluid. Oh, and my other gift was a set of everyday blue drinking glasses bought because- yes, we needed them.
The picture is the best I could find-you see the cereal bowls are no more. For the next 6 months every time Mr. Taffy and I had an arguement I would look at those bowls and one would end up missing. Then I would snicker silently when he complained that he could never find the darn things.
Would love to hear about anyone else's least favorite present.
Taffy
posted by Kathy @ 9:15 PM
6 Comments:
At 10:54 AM,
Anonymous said…
My present came from my MIL. We had just moved from Denver to Seattle and our new house was smaller than our last one. Stacking became my specialty as I crammed all of our goodies into the limited cabinets. I just get that done when the box arrives from MIL. Amidst more packing peanuts than a landfill can handle, I pull out a tea cup covered in bubble wrap. She has sent me a tea set. A Russian tea set. Expensive, probably. Useful, not so much, but more importantly WHERE AM I GOING TO PUT IT!
To add insult to injury, when DH next spoke to his mother he just had to be truthful and tell her that I didn't like the tea set because I didn't have the room for it. Thus, the label as the ungrateful b*tch that stole her baby boy was forever affixed to my name.
After that, the item found a home in a box labeled "The G*d D*m Russian Tea Set".
-Bruin
At 11:02 AM,
Anonymous said…
My DH, who enjoys exercise, thought I would begin to enjoy it if I had proper exercising apparel. He bought me a shiny pink warm-up suit. Name brand. Very pink. Very shiny. Slick fabric. Made me look like the Titanic, in shiny pink.
I put the thing on and wore it to and from the health club for several years, until it was "worn out" and had to be discarded (it had probably been on my actual body for about 3 hours by that time). Then I preemtively bought a dark blue terry sweat outfit and my exercising self-esteem went up quite a bit. Still don't enjoy it, though.
Merry Christmas! Fluffy
At 5:57 PM,
Anonymous said…
My present came from my mother, a couple of Christmases ago. She bought us a battery-operated handheld bug-zapper, in the shape and size of a badminton raquet. (Remember our half-time show during badminton in gym class, Taffy?)She's starting to buy us too many "As Seen on TV" type gifts, so we just ask for gift cards from her now.
Ho, Ho, Friggin' Ho!
Henny P
PS....
Second runner-up came from Mom as well....the "Blackout Buddy" (a "power failure plug-in radio, light and clock for emergency and everyday use"). This was a Y2K preparedness Christmas gift. I can't even GIVE it away on ebay!
At 9:18 AM,
Anonymous said…
I have to give the in-laws credit; they're positively ex-tra-vagant. Their son can hit the bull's-eye, too, like the spa cert to Thousand Waves ... once to the Red Door ... and shiny, pretty things.
Then there was the year he gave me a full set of pots and pans. T-fal, no less (maybe if they'd been Calphalon or something it might have been better). But here was this huge box, nice and heavy, I couldn't imagine what it was ... pots and pans. Also "because we needed them" AND because "they were on sale." Whoopee. At least he had the general awareness to realize he'd missed the target.
Maybe my pots and pans can set up housekeeping with your cereal bowls and everyday glasses, eh, Taff?
At 11:31 AM,
Kathy said…
The underlying theme (with the men at least) is that they are soooo proud that they noticed that something was needed-
You know, like they notice that a kitchen should have pots and pans, cereal bowls and glasses.
Of course, the problem is who would use, and later wash said items.
This year I am wrapping up the high heeled boots I just bought and putting them under the tree (the Cabana Boy won't fit in a box)
Taffy
At 3:26 AM,
Anonymous said…
a pair of black leather gloves from a well known department store, from FIL.
which were too small. And about 30 years too old for me.
They went straight in the charity box.
Post a Comment
<< Home