What Should We Do When We Receive Bad Christmas Gifts?

Townhall.com ^ | December 25, 2007 | Andrew Tallman

[Twinkie]

Oh, so I should thank the giver for a diet book? Even if they’re fat, too? Even if they constantly make snide remarks about my weight and how I’m fatter than they are (and I’m not)? Even if they live 200 miles away, I rarely see them and they are a distant relative? Even if they call mostly to tell me how fat I am? Even if I am by now doubting that they love me?

[Gabz]

That’s an idea.....

But I think we’ll stick with the original plan :)

[Gabz]

ROFL!

Other than the nortgage and the truck payment we are debt free.....and the truck is for sale! And when that sells, not only will the payment be gone, but the insuranc will drop substantially.

[Gabz]

My best friend here is also the mom of my daughter’s best friend. She carts the girls around to karate classes and Girls Scouts.............I give her my cell phone on those nights. She does pre-paid minutes on hers and we have 800 minutes a month and rollover minutes, there are 3000 minutes (the max) sitting there.

She uses the bloody thing more than I do!

No 9 year old should have a cell phone, but the majority of my daughter’s friends have them. I find myself sounding like my mother when she starts whining about “all” my friends have them -— I ask her if “all” her friends decided to jump off the Chincoteague drawbridge would she follow them.......the discussion ends rather quickly, as does the whining!

[Quix]

Parenting seems like such an awesome set of impossible convlicting demands in an impossible war zone these days.

I think parents would do well to teach their kids to be constructive rebels . . .

especially

in terms of values.

9 years old is not too young to learn what’s really going on to SOME degree.

Masses of her peers are brainwashed, clueless serfs of the elites, imho. Being a lemming with them is not wise, healthy and will not turn out to be fun at all.

just my pontificating 2 cents.

now to the shower.

LUB,

[diamond6]

bttt

[Gabz]

That pontificating 2 cents was well worth far more!

Just like her mommy and daddy she will be a constructive rebel!

Enjoy your shower — I’m to the pillow!

[Abigail Adams]

Guess what I got in my stocking today...A big bottle of lotion that I can’t use, LOL!

[darkangel82]

I ask her if “all” her friends decided to jump off the Chincoteague drawbridge would she follow them.......the discussion ends rather quickly, as does the whining!

LOL!

[Squantos]

Got it .....you want a candle you can see your way with and the wife can heat up a cup of water with as well !

Ho Ho Ho ........ !

[billybudd]

Hah, exactly what I was thinking.

[Doogle]

..isn’t there an option under “edit” on a computer where you can count the number of words used in a story? The author had way too much time on his hands and probably did it after the Christmas party when his fellow “writers” were most likely trying to avoid him because they know he can get long winded

[netmilsmom]

I am soooo sorry.

Geez.

[Tax-chick]

Tom was telling me that “all” his friends have some kind of portable video game console, that they can carry around the neighborhood and play interactive games. “Oh, how interesting!” I said. “You need more exercise!”

None of his friends has a *snake*!

[Hot Tabasco]

It is 69.4F at my desk and 54.0F outside

I even bought extra transmitters for mine. I can tell you the temps on my back deck, in my garage and after I get the third one installed, the temp on the side of my house in the shade............The Weather Channel keeps calling me for updates.

[Quix]

Sounds like a good plan, effort on child rearing, to me.

Hope you had a great rest.

Happy shopping, if that’s what’s scheduled. LOL.

Pottery for me, today.

LUB

[Ditter]

My diabetic husband got a big box of cookies and he got it from people who know he is diabetic. I need to lose a few pounds so I am not going to eat them. Cookies anyone?

[cyphergirl]

I would have to agree. For the six years of our marriage, my husband hasn't gotten a present from his parents. Oh, sure, there's always something under the tree with his name on it, but it's all for "us", which pretty much translates to me. It started with china and crystal. They finished the set two years ago and started on kitchen things. This year they went all out. Spent hundreds of dollars on kitchenware and told him that it is for Christmas for both of us, my birthday, our anniversary and his birthday. And that was it. His parents became indignant when he politely indicated that he's not so hot on kitchen knives. And yet when his dad found out that mom had told us to buy him a couple of sweaters a few weeks ago, he called to tell us he doesn't want sweaters -- he wants "fun things". I promptly canceled the order and found something else that he would like; because we love him and care about what would make him happy.

Call him shallow or a flake, but my husband is crushed. It's not about things, he just wishes that someone would spend the time to think about him the way that we painstakingly do when we pick out our gifts to others. He's not sure how he suddenly became so out-of-step with his family. My heart absolutely breaks for him, and I have absolutely no clue how to handle the situation.

[Titan Magroyne]

Apparently none of you have kids with a bad gift giving Grandparent.
How do you explain the six pairs of matching socks to your five year old when the other kids get toys?
Preach it, sister! Imagine an entire extended family packed into the living room of a single-wide trailer (yes to the obligatory huge projection screen TV tuned to the infernal eternal revolving televangelist channel) - I mean, it's a tiny room full of aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins ... of which I was youngest. From my grandmother (seated across the room) bless her dear heart, I received a bunch of white granny panties.

Mom later scolded me for Mawmaw's complaint that I'd never thanked her or so much as acknowleged her gift.

Now understand how the usual technique for this in a room full of sound is to hold aloft the happy gift, smile and scream the giver's name until you have their attention and than scream "THANK YOU!"

I don't recall how old I was, but ingratitude was preferable to humiliating myself in front of my boy cousins and every other person in the place, LOL.

[Abigail Adams]

Cat got your sense of humor (and irony)? :-P