Disappointing Christmas Presents.

Same here with ML, a lot of money was being wasted.
Now AC and partners, with wish-lists, do a secret Santa. I give them each a present from their lists. They club together and give to me something nice, once an iPad, another an object I hankered after, this year an armchair.
I give towards my several grandchildrens’ yearly sports subscriptions.
Money has been spent on wanted items, no disappointments and less hassle these days.

We too have stopped buying for adults and just concentrate on the four DGD's.

I knew the romance was dead when ex bought me a Food Processor one Christmas.

I’m with Martin Lewis here!
Stopped buying for adults-both in the family and friends-with agreement of course.
Transfer cash to DDs so they can use to buy gifts for DGC-works a treat!

I asked my SinL for a bottle of Obsession perfume. She loves shopping, so I envisaged no problem - it’s only available in one bottle now and no other options in the range. Only trouble is she’s bought me Obsession for Men!

DH bought me an iPad case. I could forgive the fact it was for an iPad, not an iPad Air and therefore too big, but it was pink with butterflies all over. I hate the colour pink and have a fear of butterflies! We’ve only been married for 37 years so maybe he hasn’t realised.

I know it sounds ungrateful, but I hate receiving gadgets as gifts. I'm not a technology person and never harbour any desire for the latest phone, camera, tablet etc.

I like 'girly' things. Perfume, flowers, jewellery (appreciate this one is hard for another person to gauge), art.

My bloke is Inspector Gadget. One year, I took matters into my own hands and sent him a link for a piece of jewellery I wanted.

A friend of mine got me a foot muff thing, in the shape of a duck.................

I had a boyfriend who gave me a box of Black Magic for Christmas as 'it's your birthday on January 5th'. Fir my birthday I got a fancy box of Cafbury's Dairy Milk. He didn't last long.

Many years ago I was seeing a nice young man and invited him to Christmas lunch with me and my son. He put about half a dozen presents for me under the tree, all nicely wrapped and of different shapes and sizes. What a disappointment it was to find they were all bags of different sweets. Not even a decent box of chocolates amongst them. I put on a brave face and thanked him but ditched him a few days later.

Some of the family like to give lots of ...ummmm... silly presents. I, on the otherhand, like to give one nice present. I spend a long time choosing each one and remember their comments, throught the year, about what they'd like. The thing is that I get an enourmous kick out of seeing them open their presents, the look of 'oh wow' and the 'I wanted one of these' comments are the best gift ever. It makes me smile and my heart swell.

I favour the Martin Lewis (money saving expert) call to ban unnecessary Christmas presents. In our family, we buy for children but are dropping buying for adults. Adult children / grandchild get treated by us as and when we want, and hopefully fairly, but not to schedule.

It was the iron!!

There's not much Im disappointed with re Christmas gifts. Very occasionally if it's something I cannot use or something I'm allergic to, I just put it into the charity shop. It really does not happen often.

I don’t have any expectations so I’m never really disappointed. I do sometimes receive things I wouldn’t give house room to, so I wait a decent length of time then donate them to the charity store.

Years ago, I asked for a firescreen I had seen online. I even sent a link to my husband, showing him the sort of thing I wanted, and suggestions as to where he could get one.

When I saw a rectangular present under the tree, I was sure that it had a firescreen inside. It turned out to be a flatbed scanner. Imagine my delight.