help - need b'day ideas

Banty wrote:

In article , Rosalie B. says...

Banty wrote:

My mom never said that we shouldn't regift - actually she did that
herself - A LOT. My sister found gifts that she'd gotten for her
wedding (which was in 1963) that were still in my mom's attic in 2006
when my mom died which apparently were there for regifting.

Are you sure it was there for regifting? Or just that she didn't feel she could
otherwise dispose of them.

Well she regifted (or helped me regift) MY wedding presents. Why
should it be any different two years later for my sister?

Some of it might be that my sister left for Germany with her dh fairly
shortly after the wedding, and my mom might have intended to wait to
give her the things until she got back, or the things might have
arrived after my sister left and were forgotten.

But I know she taught me the principles of regifting with mine. If it
was a duplicate or something I didn't need and from a local store I
returned it for credit. One store I was able to get a nice adjustable
ironing board with the credit (!!). And if it was from someone out of
town, we kept track of where it came from, estimated the cost and sent
it on to someone else who it was appropriate for.

I have gotten the idea that it would be nice (but not required and not
rude not to do it) if I could show the person that gave me the gift
that I was using it, but she never told me that specifically - she
would just do it. If I gave her an item of clothing, she would wear
it for me. The only time that's a problem is if the item just does
not fit.

Well, it's a short step from "it would be nice" to "if you were nice you would
do it". So the expectations can really be there.

I never had anything verbal from her about it. She did not ask me to
wear things that she had given me. Or SAY anything about it at all. I
never heard her ever say anything negative about any gift, nor did I
ever see her specifically wearing or displaying something in
expectation of a visit from the giver.

Except once when just before she died, I was trying to clear out the
clutter, and I wanted to get rid of a ghastly foil picture which was
standing on top of the computer desk over the monitor along with about
20 other things. She said that someone specific had given it to her
and she was expecting them to visit in the next month, so I should
wait until after that. That was the only time I ever heard her say
anything about that.

And there are a LOT of things other than fit that may make a clothing item
unsuitable. If something is really not my taste, I do not want to wear it.

My mom and I fought that battle long before my marriage. She found
out that no matter how attractive the price of something was, or how
nice she thought I looked in it, I wouldn't wear it if I didn't like
it or it was uncomfortable. The problem I have with this now is my
DIL, and I doubt this is a problem for you yet.

Jeff wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:
Banty wrote:

In article , Rosalie B. says...
Banty wrote:

It's not the notice, although that would make it worse.

If they didn't bother to purchase gifts, then use the money to get whatever you
may happened to have in mind for him and put the rest in a bank account set
aside for him. Or all of it.

Send a short note thanking them for the money. Period. Any relative asking
after what was bought with the money should be met with an abrupt change in
conversation.

This seems ungracious to me.

Why? A gift is a gift. One doesnt' have to say what was done with a gift. One
thanks for the gift. This time, the gift is money, so you thank for the money.

My mom always made me tell a giver who gave money exactly what I'd
used it for. It was sometimes acceptable to say "I WILL GET.."
whatever I was going to get, or that I was saving the money for some
specific item, but I was never allowed just to say, "Thank you for the
money."
My mom too. My mom told me all kinds of stuff - how it's "rude" to ever re-gift
(even discreetly), or even give a away a gift if the giver might ever enter my
household. My mom told me to wear the gift, or put it out, or whatever, the
next time I see the giver.

My mom never said that we shouldn't regift - actually she did that
herself - A LOT. My sister found gifts that she'd gotten for her
wedding (which was in 1963) that were still in my mom's attic in 2006
when my mom died which apparently were there for regifting.

Hey, it's not to late to regift them.

These were presents to my sister when she was married in 1963. So
she's taken them as they were hers.

You can send them to her friends who you think would appreciate a final
gift from her to remember her by.

My mom's house - 4 bedrooms, a formal diing room, huge living room and
numerous closets, attics and a full basement was absolutely stuffed to
the gills with things. There was a pathway to walk through. We have
been donating, selling, and giving stuff away for a year, and aren't
at the end yet.

She did leave notes, inventories and instructions. Almost every kind
of container (baskets, cups, plates, vases) has a note in it with the
provenance. Things were assigned to children and grandchildren and
great grandchildren. Photos had been segregated to give to
appropriate people. She did all the work except to actually give the
stuff to people - except for my dd#3 who got much of her stuff when
she moved from MD to TX.

You can also save them and regift them yourself.

Banty wrote:

In article R226i.148$d63.59@trnddc06, Jeff says...

You can also save them and regift them yourself.

Heck - most of them wouldn't make the current UL code anyway..

BUT - I betcha 1963 small appliances and stuff are actually worth something now.
It might actually be worthwhile looking for a collector.

Seriously..

All that stuff (and there is a lot of it) goes to auction if no one in
the family (2 children, 7 grandchildren and various great grand
children) wants it. The clean-out man is salivating over the pots and
pans and even the old spices (people do collect those things).

My sister and I are keeping some categories of things. My sister has
kept OUR grandmother's collections. My niece has got the old quilts.
Two great granddaughters have the stamps, and two of my grandsons have
the coins. I've got all the old letters (letters from my great
grandmother to my grandfather down to letters that I wrote her before
email), all the photographs (my mom started to take pictures when she
was a child and continued through life) and slides, and the postcards
some of which date back to 1900. Another granddaughter will get the
old dolls, and the doll china that mom had as a child.

But the wedding gifts in the attic were mostly silver trays and butter
dishes and things like that - not small appliances.

toypup wrote:

On Sat, 26 May 2007 21:01:52 GMT, Rosalie B. wrote:

I believe one is allowed to do with a gift what one pleases after it has
been properly thanked for. A giver should not hold any expectations on the
recipient to so anything other than appreciate the thought. I personally
never ask about a gift after giving it, as long as I know the recipient got
it and hopefully been thanked. It does make me happy to hear that they did
enjoy it, but I would never bring it up to put the recipient on the spot.

If the recipient has not thanked me, then I don't think it is rude to
ask about the gift. They might not have gotten it. I sometimes
forget to alert my kids that I've ordered something, so they are
phoning around g- DD#2 will ask "mom did you send me something from
the Virginia Company? I asked dd#1 and she says she didn't send it."

Which is why I said, "as long as I know the recipient got it and hopefully
been thanksd." I don't think I've ever had problems not knowing they've
gotten it and I have yet to be upset by people not thanking me. It's just
rude to inquire any more than that.

My mom was paranoid about us being sure to thank everyone promptly. On
my honeymoon I had a set amount of thank-yous to write every day.
Because she did not want to lose face with her friends who had sent me
something. If she sent a gift and did not get thanked she was apt to
get really upset about it. I could see her asking pointed questions
about the receipt of a gift if she hadn't been thanked, and she would
not have thought it as rude for her to ask as it was for the recipient
not to have thanked her.

She would often send checks and she would be concerned if they weren't
cashed that they had been thrown out or lost. Her checkbook would be
out of whack.

I'm not as uptight about it, but I do want my grandchildren to write
some kind of age appropriate little note, and most of them do.

If you send stuff from the store or from a website, it is perfectly
possible for it to be mis-delivered or not delivered at all. I
ordered a print for my dhs bday and a different one for my daughter
where we were staying at the time - to be delivered to her house. They
got the zip code wrong on the package and it was returned to the
sender and was never delivered to anyone. My daughter told me that
she had not gotten it and I had to phone the place to find out why it
had not been delivered and that was the reason.

Another time I ordered an anniversary gift for dd#3 with a date and
names on it, and they sent something with totally different date and
names.

And my mom sent my christening dress to my son for his son's
christening and it was stolen from where the postman left it in front
of his apartment door.

For heaven's sake, this child is *4*. Surely he can think of something
he'd like to buy. If not, take him on a trip through Target or Barnes
and Noble. He'll catch on. When my son was 4, a gift of $20 lasted a
LOOOONNNNNGGGGG time, because he was enchanted with all the little $1.99
trashy toys in the local supermarket. Sure, they didn't last long, but he
had a great time with them.

and that's precisely the problem, I'm not prepared to let him spend up more
than 10 or 20 dollars that way and we have an awful lot more than that. Just
right now I'm not even keen on letting a small amount be spent that way,
we've had quite a lot of nik naks make it into the house one way or another
in the last few weeks and we need a clear out before anything else arrives!

Anne

Do you have an IKEA near you? I know they have easles and rolls of paper
for them in germany, so chances are they do in the US.

we have one about 15miles away, but it's an evil drive!

In germany you can get wooden train sets by BRIO. They're kind of
expensive but the last and last and last. We still have the one my brother
and I got when we were little and except for one connection that broke off
(and another that came off but is glued back in) it's just fine. Sam got
it when he was maybe 3 or 4 and he still likes playing with it and he's 6
now.
In germany you can get a cheaper version at IKEA, so you might want to
check that out. Possibly via their website, I don't know if you can mail
order those things though.

I know the ones, and I suspect if we got one, DS would still get use out of
it, but a while back we made a decision we weren't going that route. My
parents have a set, I think the IKEA one, so it was a special treat playing
with it at there house, then we moved away! We're unlikely to go to their
house for another couple of years! If I get to have grandkids, I think I'll
just give them a set rather than keep it at my house, unless I happen to be
seeing them very regularly (even when we lived in the same country it was
still only a handful of times a year).

Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:
Do you have an IKEA near you? I know they have easles and rolls of paper
for them in germany, so chances are they do in the US.


we have one about 15miles away, but it's an evil drive!

Check out their online store, maybe they'll send it to you?

In germany you can get wooden train sets by BRIO.
snip

I know the ones, and I suspect if we got one, DS would still get use out of
it, but a while back we made a decision we weren't going that route. My
parents have a set, I think the IKEA one, so it was a special treat playing
with it at there house, then we moved away! We're unlikely to go to their
house for another couple of years!

Yeah, I know what you mean. Ours was at my parents house for the longest
time, too. When we moved here and they moved to Austria it went to my
brothers house for a while (he lives right behind us on the same
property) and then eventually Sam brought it home *lol*. He played with
it for about a month and then my brother was over to play and he isn't
all that fond of the trainset (that's why we ended up having it) and
they decided to exchange it with something from the attic, so now it's
up there. But I'm planning to go through Sams stuff with him this long
weekend (how does all this STUFF manage to creep into childrens rooms
anyway? It used to all fit into boxes into his IVAR but now IVAR is full
and there's boxes in front of it, too!) and sort out what he's not
playing with right now, what we can toss and what needs to go into a box
"for the baby" and then check out what's in the basement and the attic
and possibly move it all around again.

Another thing I've just remembered is Playmobil. Sam loves to play with
his playmobil things. Right now he's really into Cowboys and Knights
(yes, at the same time, apparently there are battles to be fought
amongst them).
We have the Farm with animals and we have a lot of the construction site
stuff. He got the huuuuge crane one christmas, a dump truck (eh, that
truck that can unload what is on it by tipping it out. Babelfish says
it's a dump truck, but that sounds more like a trash truck which it's
not...) at the same christmas, he's got a lot of smaller things, too,
like the forklift, some machinery for road construction, etc. He has the
jungle hospital I had as a kid and the pirate ship my brother had. He
plays with it all more or less simultaneously, the knights are on the
ship, he has a fort built from Lego which is the cowboys camp, the farm
regularly gets deconstructed with the crane....

I think playmobil and lego are great value for money. We have duplo
bricks from a friends mother and you can't tell which ones they are! I
have never sen anyone break a lego brick and even the playmobil things
are pretty durable. Sam somehow managed to break off a part from the
pirate ship, but afaik that was stored in the attic and it gets
incredibly hot up there so it might just have been the plastic being
brittle. It's not a big deal though, next time I go shopping I'll get
some superglue and stick it back together.

cu
nicole

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
toypup wrote:

On Sat, 26 May 2007 16:18:04 GMT, Rosalie B. wrote:

But what I thought seemed ungracious was the snubbing of the relative
who asked what you'd done with the money. I think that's a legit
question, and the only reason for not answering it is if you know in
advance that the relative will not approve of your use of the money
and you want to avoid some kind of confrontation. But given good will
on the part of both parties, I don't think it would hurt any to be
polite and answer the question.

I think it's rude to ask about a gift after one has been thanked for it.
It puts the recipient on the spot. What if s/he gave it away or Ebayed it
whatever you might not want to hear about (which the recipient is allowed
to do)?

This was in response to Banty who advocated (for a money gift) just
saying "Thank you for the money", which I don't think is a proper
thank you. I think you should be prepared to say that you will do
SOMETHING with money even if it is only to put it by to save it for
something. One of my grandchildren used his money to sponsor an
animal at the zoo.

[Incidentally it really annoys me to get stuff donated to some cause
in my name unless it is something like a funeral where the bereaved
have asked for donations to a specific charity instead of flowers]

There was an article I read on this which made me laugh. Basically the
writer had decided to give donations for a specific charity (which then
produces cards for you to give saying "thank you for the goat" etc.) to
everyone one Christmas. they said they felt terribly good and virtuous until
they were sitting round with their family with all the carefully chosen
gifts for themselves and envelopes to give to everyone else. They then
realised that the virtue was entirely on the recipients who thanked them
kindly!
I'd never give a donation unless someone specifically asked for it. However
I might ask for it for myself.
Debbie
snip

NL wrote in
:

I think playmobil and lego are great value for money. We
have duplo bricks from a friends mother and you can't tell
which ones they are! I have never sen anyone break a lego
brick and even the playmobil things are pretty durable. Sam
somehow managed to break off a part from the pirate ship,
but afaik that was stored in the attic and it gets
incredibly hot up there so it might just have been the
plastic being brittle. It's not a big deal though, next
time I go shopping I'll get some superglue and stick it
back together.

you could contact Playmobil & describe the part. they replace
broken parts (which is why all the assembly instructions have
part lists, even on the single person 'specials'). one of the
rigging bits for my pirate ship is broken & the Roman
Centurian has lost his dagger, so i need to do a parts order
myself.
i second the Playmobil. i never had any as a child, but i've
been adding bits to my sets since i was 21 & moved out on my
own. i have knights & pirates. my 6 year old has the farm &
gas station, a couple pirates, the Roman Centurion, the
airplane, a helecopter & the dragon. the Centurion lost his
dagger from the cargo hold of the plane. i think it was the
baggage checkers...
lee

enigma wrote:

you could contact Playmobil & describe the part. they replace
broken parts (which is why all the assembly instructions have
part lists, even on the single person 'specials'). one of the
rigging bits for my pirate ship is broken & the Roman
Centurian has lost his dagger, so i need to do a parts order
myself.

Oh, I didn't know that. That would definitely be neat, but the ship is
from my brother and therefore at least 20-25 years old. I guess it can't
hurt to ask though :-)

snip
the Centurion lost his
dagger from the cargo hold of the plane. i think it was the
baggage checkers...

the thieving buggers! ;-)

cu
nicole