Eveybody has different ideas about gifting. My best pal’s mother was always very put out if anyone bought her a domestic or household item for her birthday but wasn’t quite so cross if one turned up ‘instead’ of a christmas gift. Her premise being that birthdays are the most personal of days, special to that person and christmas is a general free for all. I can recall one year she was really put out when their father bought her a very nice food mixer on a stand with all the tools. He’d actually bought it with an early form of ‘gift voucher’ that he had been awarded by way of a commission on sales but as the food mixer was much more expensive than anything he would normally buy, in fact the equivalent of the whole family’s gifts combined, he decided to use his hard earned reward towards it. No matter how hard he tried to placate their mother, they all suffered the resulting sulks for weeks. The poor Dad . . . I would have been absolutely thrilled with this gift, it would have meant even more to me that he had used a generous reward towards it too!
I have always been a little wary of being bought experiences for gifts . . . in fact when I had a large celebration the other year, I made a point of ensuring my in-laws knew not to buy me a balloon ride, wing walking, parachute jump or bungee jump!
