A little Christmas tip: if someone opens your gift, and they repeat the name of it, most likely they don’t like it.
EXAMPLE: “Wow! Socks!” or “Gee! Competitive jigsaw puzzles! Thanks, Mom.”
You should also be mindful of this when you open your gifts, since other people may also know this trick. No need to thank me. Have a happy holiday.
My dad was always into *educational* gifts. I would give my mom a list of things I wanted and somehow in the shopping, he would convince her to get seven-year-old me books about Michigan history or something. “A book about Mackinac Island… thanks, Dad…”
Damn. I hope none of my family reads your site and figures out this secret. 😉
My rule about giving me presents on birthdays and holidays was very simple. I would give friends and family a list of books I wanted. Give me a book on the list, any book, and it will be a surprise and I will be delighted. Give me something else, and I cannot be held accountable for my reactions and will not pretend to be delighted in any sense. It worked pretty well, after a couple of years. My husband, who is less forceful because he is not an only child, usually got packages of underwear and socks from his grandmother, and extraordinarily ugly plaid shirts from his mother. Why do parents feel compelled to give clothing to children at Christmas? Aren’t you already supposed to clothe your children? What kind of a gyp is it if you try to combine parental-responsibility-of-clothing-child with parental-responsibility-of-giving-child-presents?
this trick doesn’t always apply to kids, especially if they repeat the name of the gift in a high-pitched yell. This generally means you have a new best-friend and you can use this to your advantage by having them fetch things for you when you are too stuffed with turkey and Christmas Pudding to move from your chair 🙂
Thank you so much for making me very self-conscious whenever I opened up a gift and found myself naming it aloud …