Whatever happened to being grateful for a gift? Isn't it the thought that counts? My MIL is something else. I wish someone would drop a house on her. Okay maybe not that drastic, but she really irks me. She is so ungrateful and doesn't appreciate all of the things she should be thankful for. DH and I married in 2004. For Christmas 2003 we bought everyone in the family a birdfeeder with bird food. (With exception to the children we bought individual age appropriate gifts.) Well my MIL has complained about that "awful" gift since that Christmas. She even gave it to another son. It just burns me she can be so selfish and self centered. I can just imagine what she will say about her gift this year. DH wants to forget gift giving all together next year. I am all for it. Guess what MIL hated the idea! I just don't know what to do with her. She calls all the time complaining about her miserable life and that she never has any money or any friends and no one ever comes to visit. She has two other sons and their families that live here and one that lives out of state. Why must DH and I burden the grief of her self pity? Thanks for letting me vent.

a great gift:

at local malls they usually have a tree for the needy (angel tree, tree of giving, etc) make a donation in the other persons name. this is the best gift of all! its feels good to pick a person who REALLY needs something.the person giving the gift, getting the gift and the recipient of the donation all benefit.

i do this for my mom (who has everything) and in the future i am asking ALL family and relatives who feel compelled to buy me a gift to do this. its just a better use of there money. i HATE recievings gifts from family that dont know me and my taste well enough to by me a decent gift that i will like and use. i am not being rude just honest. i would appeciate a card with a little note in it more than a gift i dont need/wont use/dont like/ etc.

maybe a bird will poop on her!!! j/k

yeah we have agreed that starting next year we are no longer buying into the materialistic nonsense of xmas anymore-this yr just finally did it for us-when you spend over $5000 at a holiday then something is seriously wrong in the scheme of things to us and this was it this year-next yr its going to be no more that $100 TOTAL-we need to get back to the basics of xmas-im so over this materialistic end of it.Tell your MIL to volunteer at the local soup kitchen for xmas then maybe she will reevaluate her selfcentered bs.

Thanks ladies you both put a smile on my face and gave me some good ideas!

I am trying hard to instill a sense of gratitude in my two stepsons-ages 13 and 15. It has to start young-Part of me also wants to give up the whole gift giving experience because they never seem to like what I get them-One year the oldest actually sold the wallet I had just got him to one of my daughter's friends on Christmas night! How's that for a slap in the face. The younger locked himself in the bathroom because he got an mp3 player that wasn't an IPod. We have tried the whole charity thing and they do it very grudgingly. Oh, well-ever the optimist, I'll keep trying!

diane!! thats appalling! whenever my brother and i started getting greedy or ungrateful my mother would take our favorite things and not so favorite and donate it ALL to goodwill. that will make you grateful for what you DO have.

i would have been pretty irritated about the wallet AND ipod. i hope they are more grateful this year.

yeah growing up we got to keep our 4 favorite gifts and donated the rest to a charity-was a hard some years especially as a 8 yr old getting alot of stuff u really wanted

oh man! I cannot imagine such behaviour!

Yeah, at that point I think I would have told the 13 year old that if he doesn't like the MP3 player you got for him, that you are terribly sorry you didn't give him the ipod and that you will have to take away the offending MP3 player. We wouldn't want him to use a substitue, one that is possibly better than the ipod, for goodness sake.

Of course, you will have to make it clear that he's not going to get an ipod, but this way he won't have to deal with the pain of using a non-ipod MP3 player.

As for the older one, well not sure how to deal with that.

My mom used to return everything we would give her and my dad would never use the things he got. So one year I donated a goat in their name through Heifer International. They were just kind of in shock and didn't really say anything but I got the satisfaction of knowing that some family would use this to better their life and my folks couldn't return it.

I now give my mom food from Omaha Steaks, A La Zing, or Impromptu Gourmet. She can't return it so she either eats it or gives it away.

alatina,

you mom and my mom must been friends!!! My mom did this too!! as kids we lived on the 'poor street' but were the first grandkids so at christmas we had presents like you wouldnt believe!!!! we would unwrap all the presents then pick our favorites and take the rest to other families on the street. its was always hard picking the ones we would keep and then seeing the neighbors playing with our toys! now i am thankful my mom always kept us in check!

when i have a kid if they start acting spoiled or ungrateful...to the goodwill we will go!!!!!!

yeah one year when my daughter was about 10 she gave me attitude at xmas regardless of how Id taught her to be so it just did it for me-I packed up everything she had gotten that night when she went to bed and when she awoke that next morning she had a polaroid of me dropping all her stuff off to the Goodwill drop center.Nuff said.

Our family stopped the gift giving about 5 years ago, and we are all so glad we did. My parents can get anything they want and the grandkids are getting old enough so that my parents just give them money and let them go shopping...usually the wait and go shopping after Christmas so they can stretch the dollars. We get together and enjoy each other's company and just relax and visit...it's been great. We used to draw names among adults and among kids, but this is even better.

Emily

As an older mom, the idea of receiving Omaha steaks is a good one.

Giving is so much more rewarding than receiving, maybe it's an age thing, but I truly would rather give, I hate opening presents, because if it's something I'll never use or don't like, I have a hard time being excited.