The Cheapest Gift You Have Ever Received

[catnapper]

I still giggle to think of the year my sister in law gave Ashley Staples brand photo paper as her Christmas gift. Thats all she got -- a 50 page pack of 4x6 paper that we never used because it was plain awful paper (at least we knew never to spend our money on the 8x10 value pack )

This year she gave both girls a cheap metal frame complete with price tag attached from a local clearance warehouse. I got a tin of spiced hot chocolate (also with the clearance tag still affixed on the bottom of the tin). When was the last time I drank regular hot chocolate let alone spiced? I also got a cheap box of note cards (complete with the same clearance warehouse price tag). I did a pencil portrait of the newest baby for her and hunted high and low for her kids' gifts and she apparently spent 2 minutes thinking of us. Did she suddenly remember Christmas Eve that she didn't get us anything and run out to the clearance store to pick up any old thing?

Ah, but I shouldn't complain., She's also the same woman who I did a huge needlework for. It was gorgeous (in my humble opinion) I designed it for her and it was inspired by her. She gave it back to me a few years later telling me she didn't like it and she thought since she knew I spent a lot of time on it that I might want it back. I gave it to another friend who thought she died and went to heaven -- she always commented on how lovely it was and nearly fell over when I offered it to her.

[Medusa]

A "friend" gave me a key chain of a rubber pig and when you squeezed it, poop came out of it's rear end. At first, I thought it was a joke and that she was going to give me the "real" gift. No. That was the gift. To add insult to injury, she said "This just so reminded me of you when I saw it that I couldn't resist it." Nice, huh?

[Muddy4paws]

I always get very cheap presents from my nan, Fair enough shes older but she always lets me know what shes brought everyone and it always seems to be alot more than what she spends on me. For example, She spend £30 on one grandchild and over £20 on most others too. Mine I know for a fact only cost £5. It was a bathing set which my mum from about the age of 2 asked everyone nicely not to buy me things like that because I cant tollorate certain products on my skin. Its the thought that counts I know but its quite thoughtless when you think about it.

I also got a present from my friend that she told me was 50p clearance. Guess what I unwrapped? lol the 50p clearence item

I always try to buy nice gifts, I wouldnt buy someone something that I wouldn't want myself. I always put alot of thought into my gifts so its quite dissapointing when you open a gift knowing there is no thought behind it.

[Medusa]

I always put alot of thought into my gifts so its quite dissapointing when you open a gift knowing there is no thought behind it.

That says it all. I shop w/the person in mind but I get gifts that people buy after Xmas and they save it til the next year, then think "Hmmm, who should I give this to?". And it's usually something like a mismatched set of Xmas hand towels or one Xmas oven mitt. My son, on the other hand, gives me fantastic gifts that he's put a lot of thought into. He learned from me.

[Karen]

I remembered a couple cheap gifts. I once got a little jar of honey so old it had crystalized, and another year just a small pad of paper with a postage-stamp design on the front, and another year a old-looking jar of jelly. These did not upset me in the least bit. Why?

Because the giver was a dear, dear sweet elderly friend of mine. She had beome diabetic, so couldn't have those sweet things, so passed them along to someone who could enjoy them. The little pad of notepaper I knew she got from the postman, but she wrote a sweet note on the first page. I still have it. She was the sweetest, nicest person, never learned to drive, lived by herself, as her daughters had long-since grown and moved away, and her husband had died when the daughters were small. She was in her late eighties, and pretty fragile. She felt she HAD to give me a present, because I gave her rides to and from church, even though I passed right by her neighborhood on my normal trip.

So yes, she gave me the cheapest gifts I've gotten, but not the most thoughtless by any means. And I still resent that her daughter, who came out when Eva died, decided not to have a funeral service - just because the daughetr didn't know Eva's friends didn't mean we didn't exist, and we would have like a service to remember and celebrate her life.

[caseysmom]

Karen that is so sad. I am glad she had you and you appreciated her, it sounds like her daughters forgot all about her.

[Medusa]

Cheap doesn't always mean thoughtless, true. I received gifts like that, too. When I moved into my house years ago, there was a drought and I so badly wanted to plant flowers. My senior friend lived right on the canal and she brought me an entire pickup truck full of gallon jugs of water so that I could water my flowers. It didn't cost her a penny but it sure was a labor of love. Filling all those jugs was no easy task. I miss her so much.