Christmas Presents You Don't Want

I will use / be appreciative of most the things I get but if I'm totally honest I don't like any christmas presents.I'm not much good at buying them & can't be bothered unwrapping & sorting them out etc.
Different when the children are small of course & I'm resigned to doing it cos everyone else seems to enjoy presents.

you can hardly ask her to get you something else so just suggest you don't do presents anymore, maybe go out for a nice meal together instead.

You have probably left it too late for this year, if it isn’t tell her some things that you are hoping to get for Christmas.

melp1

Keep getting scented candles & have so many I don't need any more. Also Liqueur Chocs that I dislike from the same person every year.
How to make it know without offending I really do not want these type of gifts.

Send them all my way please,
To Oreo,
C/O Gransnet.
😃

I'll take the chocs off your hands please ! My advise , accept the gifts with grace , don't offend the giver - then pass them on to whoever you choose.

If you receive any confectionery, candles or cosmetics that you don’t want please give them to a food bank. Thank you.

If you feel you can't be honest you could easily say you "no longer" like them...

Next year you can say you have gone off liqueur chocolates??

We have a very kind neighbour who had been giving us curries regularly as he cooked for the local mosque every weekend.

It was OK when they were vegetarian (as we are) and it was OK when they were meat if we had one of our (omnivourous) Adult children visiting but eventually we had to say we were "going" vegetarian now because I just couldn't say we were just passing it on if it was meat.

He still brings us tasty treats when he's making a vegetarian meal.

I ll have the scented candles, the liquors and definitly the curries
Thank you

Pass them on to charity shops. They are a source of great bargains just after Christmas. I always buy at least one fancy toiletry set every New Year.

Next year tackle it early and agree to a £5 limit and charity shop only. Make it a fun game. Alternately agree no gift and a day out together instead!

I always get a huge box of expensive soft centre chocolates off one of my oldest friends although I don’t like them, but she's so busy everyone gets the same. So I share them at quiz nights.

Sounds it’s time to be the first to suggest (tactfully) another year to cut out the mutual present giving.

Not just the OP, but anyone who doesn’t want candles, curries, soft centred chocs….

Honestly, what is the point?

The whole pointless palaver of buying, wrapping, handing over….then the debate of what to do with the blessed things.

Regift, sit in drawer, charity shop, raffle….?

🤷‍♀️ Just why?

Better to graciously accept a present and pass it on rather than risk hurting someone's feelings.

Martin Lewis summed it up perfectly in his blog a few years ago. ‘Pre - Christmas, no unnecessary presents pact’
If only more people followed his advice there wouldn’t be threads like this.

To summarise.

I buy you a tie that you don’t like or want or need.
You buy me a pair of slippers that I don’t like or want or need.

I have therefore wasted £20 on a pair of slippers for myself that I now need to dispose of.

I’ve said this on here before but I volunteered for 15 years in a charity shop. Every year as soon as we reopened after Christmas we were inundated with unwanted gifts. Toiletries, nightwear, slippers, books, calendars and diaries, ornaments, socks, perfumed candles, preserves etc.

It always stuck in my mind but one year a lady came in with a bin liner full of WRAPPED gifts. She said she couldn’t be bothered to open them as people never gave her things she really liked.

All the above ( and more) is the reason I dropped out of the whole exmas thing.
In the nineties I told everyone what I was doing. The first Christmas Day was volunteering with Crisis at Christmas. Two other friends decided to do the same.
From then until the grandchildren came along ( early 2000’s that’s what we did.

Primrose53

I’ve said this on here before but I volunteered for 15 years in a charity shop. Every year as soon as we reopened after Christmas we were inundated with unwanted gifts. Toiletries, nightwear, slippers, books, calendars and diaries, ornaments, socks, perfumed candles, preserves etc.

It always stuck in my mind but one year a lady came in with a bin liner full of WRAPPED gifts. She said she couldn’t be bothered to open them as people never gave her things she really liked.

Same here. Last week we decided that after Exmas we are going to sell any exmas stuff for £1.
We have a mountain of exmas donations still in the stock room and we know there will be much more after.
I delivered 3 trees last week to customers who didn’t have transport. Anything to get rid of.
I’ve mentioned before that I take donations to a women’s refuge and a centre for asylum seekers but they are overwhelmed with donations and can’t take anymore.

Until recently, my sister-in-law kept giving me items for my kitchen. It is well stocked, and four different sets of placemats are not required because I no longer have or need a large dining room table.

This year, she gave me three tablets of scented soap, which I love. A nephew used to give me items to take a bath, but I have a shower!

I open items when they arrive, Christmas Day is another day to me.

Primrose53

I’ve said this on here before but I volunteered for 15 years in a charity shop. Every year as soon as we reopened after Christmas we were inundated with unwanted gifts. Toiletries, nightwear, slippers, books, calendars and diaries, ornaments, socks, perfumed candles, preserves etc.

It always stuck in my mind but one year a lady came in with a bin liner full of WRAPPED gifts. She said she couldn’t be bothered to open them as people never gave her things she really liked.

And yet on the other hand, people say that it is wrong to demand ask for specific presents, and we should all be 'grateful' for whatever we get.

I hate to see money wasted. Like others, I would prefer to go out for a meal, but that is not possible because of the distance.

It's a bit of a trap isn't it. You will see lots of threads about being grateful for gifts even if you don't like them and I am always very thankful, tell people it is lovely etc. There comes a point where you feel like OP and the thought of another smelly candle is just too much but how do you say I know I've been telling you for 20 years that I love the smelly candles but actually I can't stand them so please stop. I know that's a bit of an exaggeration but I think you know what I mean.

For me it is the flowers, I really don't like cut flowers, having a big bunch delivered is expensive and I hate that someone has spent that money and then I just feel sad as they wilt and die and then I clear them up. How do I tell them without upsetting them? It is hard and I sympathise with OP.

Sorry OP i am definitely with you but no idea how to deal with it.

Doodledog

Primrose53

I’ve said this on here before but I volunteered for 15 years in a charity shop. Every year as soon as we reopened after Christmas we were inundated with unwanted gifts. Toiletries, nightwear, slippers, books, calendars and diaries, ornaments, socks, perfumed candles, preserves etc.

It always stuck in my mind but one year a lady came in with a bin liner full of WRAPPED gifts. She said she couldn’t be bothered to open them as people never gave her things she really liked.

And yet on the other hand, people say that it is wrong to demand ask for specific presents, and we should all be 'grateful' for whatever we get.

You said it more succinctly than I did but yes this is the problem isn't it.

NotAGran55

Martin Lewis summed it up perfectly in his blog a few years ago. ‘Pre - Christmas, no unnecessary presents pact’
If only more people followed his advice there wouldn’t be threads like this.

To summarise.

I buy you a tie that you don’t like or want or need.
You buy me a pair of slippers that I don’t like or want or need.

I have therefore wasted £20 on a pair of slippers for myself that I now need to dispose of.

I don't do gifts outside the immediate family, well I do one for an old friend. My issue is I'd be really happy for my kids not to bother, I buy what I want or need and they buy stuff I don't really want or need. I don't want to stop giving to them and the GC so a pact won't work and if I suggest they don't bother about me they won't accept it.

I know come Christmas day I will be inundated with chocolates, flowers, smelly candles. I've been ill and have no appetite, even for chocolate, so I still have my birthday chocolates from a few months back, I don't like cut flowers, I don't like smelly candles. It is a dilemma.

theworriedwell

NotAGran55

Martin Lewis summed it up perfectly in his blog a few years ago. ‘Pre - Christmas, no unnecessary presents pact’
If only more people followed his advice there wouldn’t be threads like this.

To summarise.

I buy you a tie that you don’t like or want or need.
You buy me a pair of slippers that I don’t like or want or need.

I have therefore wasted £20 on a pair of slippers for myself that I now need to dispose of.

I don't do gifts outside the immediate family, well I do one for an old friend. My issue is I'd be really happy for my kids not to bother, I buy what I want or need and they buy stuff I don't really want or need. I don't want to stop giving to them and the GC so a pact won't work and if I suggest they don't bother about me they won't accept it.

I know come Christmas day I will be inundated with chocolates, flowers, smelly candles. I've been ill and have no appetite, even for chocolate, so I still have my birthday chocolates from a few months back, I don't like cut flowers, I don't like smelly candles. It is a dilemma.

This seems such a shame when they obviously love you. Could you ask them to club together to buy one gift that you choose yourself.. Maybe a day trip somewhere when you feel well enough...