How should I handle it when someone doesn't like my gifts?

Don’t play secret Santa with them again. Or better, don’t ever give them any gift again. That person is a jerk and they don’t deserve to receive any gift ever.

I don’t get why anybody ever thought this tiresome custom was a good idea. Five gifts? And now, with shopping trips so difficult—this would have been the perfect time to end it.

Anyway, how about picking out something that appeals to the opposite taste and interest that you have been shopping for so far? Then just get it over with and forget it, and don’t sign up next year.

Just be all smiles since everyone will be there. She knows you heard her right? She already feels terrible if she has any conscience. You can always flash her a look if you can’t hold it back.

Try not to feel hurt, she’s a mean girl.

Next time don’t spend extra.

I hate secret Santa. I’m not a good gift exchange person in any circumstance.

Buy a less expensive gift for the final if she isn’t appreciating anything.

I learned during my first Secret Santa that it should be $5 candy, $10 Starbucks cards, and some very inexpensive easy to buy at the supermarket things. I would never again go out of my way for Secret Santa after having been through it, but it was a learning curve for me.

I was annoyed my company did Secret Santa. We couldn’t really say no.

I think things like Secret Santa work best when they’re more about the idea of everyone giving to each other than they are about the actual gifts themselves. I’m sorry that the person receiving your gifts was speaking ill about them, especially in a way to be overheard by others.

I would handle it by just ignoring it, personally. Act like I hadn’t heard. (If for some reason they later complain to me directly, I’d say something to the effect, “it’s the thought that counts.”)

I’m sure it’s a bit of a let down, especially since it seems you took the time and consideration to give thoughtful gifts. Ultimately, though, you can’t control how the other person chooses to react, and how they’re choosing to react doesn’t have to take away from your knowing you chose their gifts in a caring way.

It’s possible, too, that the person’s complaints about your gifts are more about them not liking Secret Santa to begin with, and they were going to complain no matter what they got from whomever.

Give money in an envelope and no problem!

A friend’s job is doing the Secret Santa (or Kris Kringle as it’s sometimes called) by everyone picking a charity that they like, and the person that picks their name donates $25 to that charity. The charity sends a card to the “recipient” saying thank you, and that so and so donated $25 in your name. I think that’s a great idea, since nobody needs more crap like mugs or whatever.

What kind of gifts have you given her in the past? I’m curious what she considers a “bad gift.”

Maybe @sadiesayit is right and it was more of a complaint about Secret Santa itself. Could that be?

Remember the old saying:
“You can please some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time.
But you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

And those unappreciative noodniks you give these gifts to?? “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!”

Here’s a weird idea. Maybe approach her and say, “I heard you don’t like my gifts. What “Secret Santa” gifts would you lie that are readily available and cheap?”

@janbb Direct, I like it.

@janbb: “Tell me what you’d like, $25 or less!”

I’d probably laugh it off and go on. Anyone who complains about a fun game is a brat.

Our people laugh and swap gifts as we play anyway, no one takes any offense at all.
One of the most gifted items is lottery tickets, so you could always swap if you feel awkward.

My experience with “Secret Santa” in a Church function many years ago, I felt really bad when I did not receive a gift, In front of the rest of the participants, Those things hurt. And whomever revealed the dislike of your gift should be ashamed. *And the person who received it should be even more ashamed! The final gift could be a bar of soap to wash out her mouth!

Some nice scented soap. ^^^ A great idea. Perfect, in fact.

Only you need to know the private meaning of it.

One thing to keep in mind is we all have said gossipy things we didn’t really mean or was not a big deal, but just being too chatty, and later we regret it. Especially younger people (I don’t know how old she is) learn the hard way, which hopefully she just did.

Covid is beginning to appeal to me. I get work alone and don’t have to put up with people like that. I’d as soon watch a skunk poop.

Exactly what kind of gift are you giving? Are they too personal? Or are they gag gifts? Or too thoughtless or useless. Sometimes a gift can also be insulting. I remember when my husband was leaving a job he got a bunch of meaningless gifts. Crap that anyone of them could’ve pulled out of office supply. He was always helpful to them when they were behind on work and needed a hand with work or even sometimes in their personal lives. And on his last day, they acted like they didn’t want to be there and had a small cake and a picture of all of them together on a cheap dollar store frame. I packed it in a box and left it there.

It was hurtful considering for each of their birthdays he made sure they got great gifts, and for showers and other milestones. And help organized great Christmas parties. He didn’t do these things alone so there was no excuse for them to go so half-ass. My point, gifts show us how people feel about us. When it’s thoughtless it says they don’t think much of you. When it’s too personal it can make the other person uncomfortable. And if it shows you went over the limit, it makes the receiver feel cheap if they stuck to the budget. And a gag gift can also make a person feel like they don’t matter.

@Jeruba I’m with you. I’ve never understood why anybody would think that a “secret Santa” swap is a good idea.

@Pandora Your points are well made but nobody can do much good – or harm – with a $25 total for 3 or 4 little gifts and one “big” one.

@OP Maybe it’s time for a palace revolt against your company’s whole Secret Santa practice?

“My point, gifts show us how people feel about us. When it’s thoughtless it says they don’t think much of you. When it’s too personal it can make the other person uncomfortable.” Brilliantly said! @Pandora

This is so appropriate to what my mom and I are going through this year, even though it doesn’t involve secret Santa gifts. I live with my elderly mom and spend a lot of time caring for her. She’s still very lucid but is physically getting weaker. I try to keep the house clean but it’s not always up to other people’s standards… I get that.

Now my mom doesn’t like to have a lot of strangers in the house because she gets overwhelmed. She already has a home health nurse come once a week and a PT person come twice a week. She also has various doctors appointments which may or may not be in person or on Zoom.

My sister-in-law informed the sibling group on Facebook Messenger about a week ago that she was going to get my mom a cleaning service for Christmas. Not a repetitive thing but a one time deal. Now my mom has a lot of clutter around the house which I’m trying to help her slowly go through, but there’s a number of papers that we don’t necessarily want strangers being around. My mom in general would rather nobody come but she’s the sort of person who will probably just bend to their desires rather than in any way hurt somebody’s feelings. She will then spend the next 6 months complaining about how she never wanted it done in the first place.

I convinced my mom that the first time they come maybe they could just deep clean the bathroom and the kitchen floor, hoping that this would provide a springboard to maybe more in the future after my mom gets some of her papers gone through. My mom did agree to this, and I let my sister-in-law know, and then she probably messaged me tonight and said they’re going to come over and do all sorts of stuff.

Now don’t get me started on how they never even called my mom in the first place to ask her opinion, but now they’re attacking me because they’re saying I don’t speak for my mother. But no phone calls have been made as of yet although my sister is saying she’s going to call my mom, and I still don’t know why they feel they would have the right to shove this down her throat. There’s no safety issue involved; it’s just them upset that the house is not sparkling clean. They also tell me I have no say in the matter because I don’t own the house but I am a resident there and much as you would have the right to say to someone that they can’t come in your apartment that you’re renting, I feel like I have some say in this matter as well.

Getting back to the quote from @Pandora, why do we give gifts anyway? Is it to get the person something they would really like or need or want? Or is the purpose of the gift to make you feel good about yourself, no matter how the other person may not really want it. And I fully recognize that my sister-in-law is trying to come up with a good idea and that her intentions are good, but I feel like by not discussing it with my mom, she kind of steamrolled over her. I know she might have been trying to surprise her, but when it involves somebody coming in your house, you kind of need to get their input.

Finally, I will say, that with both my mom and I having health conditions that make us high risk for COVID, plus my mom being elderly, I don’t think this is the time to have more strangers coming in your home than is necessary.

The OP never returned.

@Lonelyheart807, that story probably deserves a thread of its own, but I feel for you and want to answer.

In your place I hope I would have the strength to just say NO to these possibly well-meaning but aggressive family members if their plans are burdensome to you. Not that their idea is so bad but that forcing it on you both without your consent is rudely intrusive and is inevitably going to take a toll on you and your mother.

What’s more, as her live-in caregiver, you should have a major say as to what’s done in the house.

Now and then my son chooses a gift for me or my husband that is plainly and unambiguously intended as some sort of corrective. Not as drastic as a nose hair trimmer, perhaps, but still conveying a message of some perceived shortcoming. After a number of these went by, I finally said to him, “When you give a gift that is meant to change how somebody lives, you have to expect that it won’t always be well received.” It was hard to say that plainly, but I was confident that he didn’t mean them as an implicit criticism.

The lesson I hope he will absorb is that helping means doing what’s needed and not necessarily what you think the other person ought to have done. That’s not a gift. It’s a judgment.

While your mother is still lucid, you might want to see about formalizing your status in the household legally and with respect to decisions affecting both you and your mother.

The question why do we give gifts? You mean on Christmas? I’m going to say mostly peer pressure and tradition.

I’m assuming (one should never assume) Christmas gifts were originally gifts for children similar to Chanukah. The whole Santa story is gifts for children and I’d guess Americans brought that over from Europe.

Then, Christmas became mega commercialized and a lot of people feel badly if they don’t give or get gifts on Christmas. I think most people feel the worst if they don’t give when they think they should. Guilt or embarrassment can easily be part of that.

Retailers successfully convinced people to feel like crap if they don’t buy gifts.

Edit: I realized I maybe sound too negative. Many people want to genuinely give gifts. They aren’t pushed by commercialism, they enjoy giving and Christmas is a good time for it.

@JLeslie: Good points about the guilt. I find it really uncomfortable when someone gives me a gift and I don’t have something for them. If it’s something small, like a few dollars, I won’t, but anything more than that and I’ll feel bad that I didn’t get them something.

I remember when I first came to my present position, at work, I was asking my boss what the deal was with exchanging gifts. I asked her if the others would be getting me a gift, because then I wanted to have something for them, in return. She told me “it’s whatever you want.” I explained I didn’t want to buy gifts for six or seven people if I didn’t have to, but if they were going to give me a gift I wanted to have something for them. I remember opting not to buy gifts and one person gave me something, and I had some boxes of good chocolate in my office and I ran in and got one for her and wrapped it, and it was a relief.

The past few years, I’d get boxes of good cookies from Costco and just give them to coworkers, even though I didn’t expect anything in return, because I felt better having something for them just in case. That’s what annoys me about Christmas. I know it’s my own hangup but it adds to the stress. This year I’m not expecting to see anyone so I will only buy for the three that work in the office.

Probably workplaces should just make a rule no gifts.

@jca I agree with you wholeheartedly. As someone who doesn’t have much income coming in, I’ve told people before that I would rather not exchange gifts. Often, they still want to give me something, which I guess is fine, but it does make me feel bad. I was always able to exchange in the past but my work circumstances and my health issues changed all that.

@Jeruba, yes I didn’t mean to hijack the thread, but right after going through all this drama this evening, this question really struck a note with me. My mom can’t seem to deal with making decisions that should be made so although what you suggest would be a good idea, I can’t see her coming around to it, only because she gets overwhelmed when she has to think about things like that. And my siblings have all turned into a pack of wolves since my parents started getting older. I always figured it wouldn’t happen but I was wrong.

@JLeslie, some of us were taught that the tradition of associating gifts with Christmas goes back to the Three Wise Men bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. As for Santa Claus (St. Nicholas), yes, that is old European lore and didn’t have anything to do with Christmas to begin with.

@Lonelyheart807, I think you need some legal protection. There’s probably some kind of legal advice available on a pro bono or sliding scale basis through some agency or senior support organization in your area. Ask. Start with your mother’s PCP if you don’t know where else to begin. If your family members have all turned into a pack of wolves, you don’t know what will happen when your mother becomes more disabled. You can’t expect her to act to protect your interests, but somebody must.

@Jeruba, I’m just expecting the worst at this point. I don’t have money for a lawyer, even at a sliding scale. I’m most likely be out of a home and I’m not sure when I’m going to do.

@Jeruba I’ve been told that before about the gifts for baby Jesus. I’ve even heard of a tradition of three gifts. The gifts were for the newborn child, the adults didn’t exchange gifts. I understand gifts for a baby are gifts for the parents, but that’s a baby shower.

It’s still commercialized no matter how we look at it. Someone came up with naughty and nice also. I know a lot of parents who love using that to control their kids for a few weeks. I think it’s a terrible tradition, but I don’t mind the Santa Claus magic part.

Sorry for another post. I decided to do some googling out of curiosity. I found these links regarding Christmas gift evolution if anyone is interested.

Here is the Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_gift. It does mention the change to giving gifts to superiors. Some rulers seemed to think their subjects should be bringing them gifts. That’s outrageous, but in some ways symbolic of expecting people who don’t have the money to still be under an obligation to give. Of course, people can make a gift rather than buy a gift, but there is still likely some money spent.

Here is a slightly different breakdown of the evolution of gift giving in America with an obvious strong bias, but some overlap in explanation. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/2013/1221/Christmas-How-did-gift-giving-and-caroling-get-started