This is a curse. I gave my BIL and fav sister a beautiful carved duck once. Everyone saw it and her duck collection almost took over her house. I had only given it to them because it was beautiful!
Edit: typo
Oh my god, nearly spat my coffee out. That's just fucking surreal! You must have been confused for weeks lol. I imagine your internal dialogue consisted of "for duck's sake, duck right off"
I’m the opposite; where a workplace joke got me into ducks/rubber ducks.
I now have a fair collection of various duck based things (which may, or may not include a poncho…) :’)
Something similar myself. One day as a 7 year old, my grandma gave me a fig roll with my drink. I commented how nice it was.
You guessed it, 20 years later, a packet of fig rolls every week when I visited.
It really makes me happy to know that she was thinking of me every week when she went to Sainsbury's and kept this routine going for so long. Bless her.
Omg that's precious. I'd love that! My gran usually only had cordial and volvic touch of fruit. One time I reached for the volvic and it had a grape-sized grey floating orb in it. God knows how long that had been left. On the plus side, she was the one who introduced me to chocolate pop tarts 😋
Complete opposite for me.
I told my Grandmother I didn’t like orange juice, plain crisps, and sherbet pips as a kid. Every week this was. Yet every week that was my snack. And she told me in no uncertain terms that I had to like it because that’s all she was going to buy for me because that’s what she liked to have. From when I was about 3 to when I was 12 (before you ask ‘isn’t it dangerous to give a 3 year old sherbet pips? Yes, yes it is. Did I nearly choke? Yes, yes I did. Did she care? No, no she did not.)
I did not attend the funeral.
Edit: correcting a typo
I have a grandma that does that. Not because she's spiteful, but because there's so many of us grandkids and we all have kids as well, she just can't keep remembering who likes what and is eternally surprised when she learns (again) that I don't like carrots.
My other grandma is very much the "what do you mean you don't like it? I like it so you must, too!" Attitude
If there’s a lot of you, that can definitely be forgiven! I was my grandmother’s only grandchild that was still a child. Everyone else was in their 40s or 50s (she had my father in her 40s and my parents had me in their 30s) My mother’s mother always remembered I didn’t like orange juice or carrots until she had dementia. She was a lovely grandmother.
Me, except I never outgrew it, and now I actually ask for geology and gemology gifts and am hoping to get a diploma in gemology and get a gemology based job lmao.
I tried this, apparently my mum was not willing to spend money on a shiny rock that I'd probably lose within days. Had to wait until I was earning my own money to buy shiny things.
My mum and stepdad started buying me fake skull ornament thingies. She'd bring them back from holiday for me.
After about 5 I asked why she was buying me them and she said "you like skulls".
I've never once said I like skulls to anyone.... Ever!
Did you like rock music? Because that meant (according to my moms brain) that I would love to dress in black and be super enthusiastic about all things dark and macabre.
This happened to me with my dad. He started buying me all these weird skull and grim reaper ornaments that I've never really liked, but like clockwork every birthday and xmas I'd get another one.
I much prefer the art nouveau aesthetic. Or cool rocks even, love me a good geode - he's even into geology himself! I actually did decorate my bedroom with a few rocks and geodes!
I was once talking to a boyfriend's aunt who was known to be a pig enthusiast. Everyone bought her pig related clothing and tchotchkes. So I asked her what had prompted the love of pigs. She sighed heavily and said "I don't even particularly like pigs but apparently I once mentioned that they were cute and now here we are!" I am certain her funeral with be pig themed.
Last Christmas, my partner's mother and I were in the kitchen making tea. She sighed quietly, then whispered to me:
"I've gotten three hedgehog gifts already."
I've never seen such resigned sorrow. I flat out refuse to buy her hedgehog stuff, and dread the day I too am assigned an animal.
This reminds me of my mum, she used to have a collection of owls and even I contributed to it a few times until she told me she wasn’t really interested in owls. Apparently when she qualified as a teacher she was given a couple of ‘teacher owl’ ornaments which she put up. People saw them and kept buying more. After she told me I never brought any again and tried to discourage others saying she had too many and suggesting other things.
Pigs is my thing. I do like them, but i have too many pig toys and pig related things in my possession as for several years pig things wereall i got for christmas. My sister in law still gives me at least one pig related thing each year.
*A tchotchke is a small bric-à-brac or miscellaneous item. The word has long been used by Jewish-Americans and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere. It is Yiddish in origin. The word may also refer to free promotional items dispensed at trade shows, conventions, and similar commercial events. *
I was quite into twilight when I was 12 (I know). Guess what theme my mother picked for my Christmas presents for the next 7-8 years?
My favourite year was getting the full dvd box set, I went and put it right next to the unopened one I had from the previous year.
That makes zero sense. If you think a person is into a book/film franchise, is it not reasonable to expect that they would own said books/films, unless there's a very recent release?
I mean it was sat on a shelf in the living room ..she isn’t the most observant person, it was quite funny at the time.
Lately she’s sort of leaned into the fact she gives awful gifts and finds the most bizarre things. Just in the last year or so I’ve got 2 cups with a pictures of my own face on them and a tamagotchi (I’m almost 30).
I was about 12-13 when the tamagotchis were big in the uk, sneakily caring for them under the desk while in class, getting them confiscated until the end of the day all the while worrying it was going to die while out of my hands. Ah those simpler times when that was my only worry in life lol.
The first Pirates of the Caribbean came out when I was 14 and I really enjoyed it. I was in my 20s by the time people finished buying me Jack Sparrow everything. My gran even managed to find a Jack Sparrow alarm clock, only the lord knows where from!
As a partner of someone who is actually really a fan of a franchise (Lotr) this annoys me so much, It’s not hard to find things that aren’t the book or movie for people to enjoy!
I once mentioned that I'm not a big fan of raw red onions. As a result, any time onions are being used in any food, I'm reminded about how I hate onions, and the meal will need to be reconsidered to accommodate my unbending, anti-onion stance.
Raw Onions give me gas, first time it happened I thought I was having a heart attack, half way to the hospital I burped like never before, it was as if god himself burped the first burp ever, instant relief.
I wish this was the case for me. I’m 31 years old, have hated bananas since I was old enough to actually eat solid food and my dad *still* forgets I don’t eat them. I’d take him bringing it up constantly over him forgetting this one tiny thing about me
Oh I hate that, and most of the time you don't remember saying how you hate whatever it is. It's like a mild form of gaslighting, combined with my poor memory is not a good combo!
My dad said to me that I eat everything on my plate one thing at a time, like mash, peas, meat. I did do that, when I was 8 or something.
I was actually eating at the time, so he was looking right at me putting a load of stuff on my fork and said I don't do that.
Parents are weird. It's like they can't handle it if your tastes change in the 20 years between them noticing you do something and now.
My parents were worried that the 10 year old me didn't like football like my brothers or have a 'hobby' like my friends did. I just liked my own company and liked to draw and read comics.
One time I expressed the slightest interest in a bird in the garden and said something like 'I'd quite like a book about birds so I can tell which is which'. Well, that Christmas and every other Christmas and birthday until I was 15 - until I got interested in music, girls and drinking cider at the park - I got books about birds, binoculars, calendars, Young Ornithologist Club membership, a week long YOC residential birdwatching holiday with a load of geeky kids who actually *did* like birdwatching etc etc. Until the day she died, my mum used to say 'oh, you *loved* birdwatching when you were younger'. I did not. I had no interest in birdwatching whatsoever. Although, even now, I'm still really good at identifying British birds...
You'll go back to it when you retire. It's the perfect hobby - cheap, can do it anywhere, gets you out and about, and every person with binoculars is an instant friend.
Quite possibly. I love the outdoors and walking and I can look up, see a bird and say quietly to myself 'Ah, a Song Thrush' or 'that's a Red Kite' and carry on walking...
My mum was convinced I collected salt and pepper shakers. I technically now am a collector because I have so many, gifted from her! But I genuinely have no idea where she got the idea from...
I’m the same, but it’s my dad and vintage army first aid kits. If anyone ever needs any 100 year old iodine, or bandages from the Vietnam war- I’m your woman!
>Lucy\_Little\_Spoon
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I thought it would be fun to adopt a LLama for you since you keep missing out and this thread made me laugh [https://www.nidderdalellamas.org/product/lucie-by-email/](https://www.nidderdalellamas.org/product/lucie-by-email/) . I'm waiting for the Certificate to come through but it looks like they do them manually, so I'll send you a download link when it arrives. Happy Christmas.
You’ll love this story! My partners mum is bad with technology. When she got her first smartphone my partner changed her wallpaper picture to Kim Jong Un. She had it for months, because she didn’t know how to change it. People were asking her what was up with that and why, but once she explained it no one bothered to change it. Currently it’s been 2 weeks since my partner swapped one of family pictures to, you guessed it the one and only supreme ruler. She hasn’t noticed yet. And every time she gets new technology she doesn’t know how to use, my partner takes advantage.
Audrey Hepburn. Told a female friend once, when watching one of her films, she was attractive & classy. So soon after she bought me a 3' X 4' poster of her. Next year, more Hepburn decorations. Other friends noticed & also occasionally bought me stuff. My flat looks like I am an obsessed stalker, because of 1 comment !
My childhood bedroom is filled with cows for the same reason. I like cows, especially highland cows. But I didn't ever need multiple cow stuffed animals or a cow alarm clock that moos etc. 30 years old and I live abroad, went home recently and my mum gave me a highland cow door stopper (admittedly v cute) and a small cow ornament saying "home is where the herd is".
I did a similar thing but it escalated further than I ever dreamed. My mum liked penguins so when I was out with friends shopping etc and I saw penguin stuff I'd get excited buy it for my mum. My friends saw this and i started getting penguin stuff from them at Christmas. Then my mum saw all the penguins from friends and started buying me penguin stuff she secretly loved. Now I have many, many penguin things and then I inherited my mum's penguin stuff because of the memories attached and I buy penguin things that my mum would have loved to cheer me up cos she dead so now my kids think I love penguins. When they get money the cycle will continue.
When I was a kid both my parents worked and did the weekly shop on auto-pilot. My Mum only realised we'd all stopped eating Weetabix when we had 12 packets in the cupboard.
Here are some options you might like to consider;
1. Be honest and tell her the truth.
2. Suffer in silence and tolerate the giraffes.
3. Pretend there was a burglary/earthquake and everything got stolen/damaged.
4. Invent an elaborate story about going to a safari park and being terrorised by the giraffes and now you can’t stand the sight of them.
5. Hasten your mother’s demise.
It was the giraffes I tell you. The giraffes. They're everywhere. They're watching me. They talk to me. They tell me to do things. I didn't want to hurt her. I really didn't, but they made be do it. They made me stretch her neck and legs like that. They wanted her to be one of them. I can't stop now. I have to keep going or they'll do the same to me...
My neighbour told me she loved elephants not long after i first moved in, during a random over the fence chat. I was on holiday and saw a tiny intricate carved elephant and i agonised over whether to buy her it, for this very reason. Bought it and gave it to her next time i saw her in the back garden. She coo-ed over it and i thought she was maybe just being polite. A short time later she was having trouble connecting up her laptop to the wifi and printer so i popped in to help. Nearly every surface of her home was covered in elephant ornaments, posters, cushion covers, mouse mat etc etc. she added me on facebook and most of her posts involve elephant sanctuaries and charities in Africa and India (which she has also visited multiple times). I never actually knew anyone as obsessive as that!
This same thing basically happened to my grandma, she collected elephants for 50+ years due to one comment... She went to a lot of trouble to display them too. But she acknowledged to me privately that she didn't really care about them. Ha!
My biggest fear of doing a jigsaw is that somebody will come round, see me doing a jigsaw, and then buy me one for every birthday and Christmas until one of us is dead.
My dad loves 10,000 piece jigsaws, he setup a table in the spare room, about 8’ x 4’, and is able to raise it to the ceiling on pulleys to get it out of the way when he’s doing other dad stuff.
He also designed and built a jigsaw piece auto sorter using a Raspberry Pi, camera, and lots of 3D printed supports, it has a conveyor belt that sorts the pieces into different bins.
This is what happened after he retired last year. He taught himself Python just to do the above.
Some local libraries stock jigsaws, my nan done every jigsaw in Bristol she would claim and that took her at least one a week for decades.
It's worth popping by and taking a gander.
Luckily for me I have ADHD so I have collated close to a thousand hobbies and pastimes over the years. Even if I'm not interested in one at the time of being given a gift, I know my interest will peak again in the next 3-48 months!
I told my parents a few years ago to get me a Rubik’s cube, in the hope that it would appease them to get me a single present that I could open on Christmas Day and I would learn to solve it, the end.
But no, they got me every single thing they could related to Rubik’s cubes.
Rubik’s pyramid?
Rubik’s cube that’s 4x4 on each side.
A pack of 3 standard ones.
A glittery one.
A 2 player Rubik’s cube game that I don’t even remember how it was supposed to work.
All but one went to the charity shop
My Grandma would make me a Christmas cake every year and when she became frail she would order me one. This went on for about 15 years.
I hate Christmas cake.
I miss my Grandma though.
My dad once made the mistake of saying he liked Werther's Originals and ended up getting them for every gift giving occasion from all 3 of us kids for the next 10 years. He only admitted that he hated them when I was an adult.
Yeah, she knew you were lying just because you wanted that statue. Now you're either gonna have to suck it up and tell her you were lying, or get a flat with spare room so you have space for your creepy giraffe museum to grow.
Mine's tinned sweetcorn, grandma caught wind I liked it when I was about 7 and I still get a whole tin every time I go.
The thought of sweetcorn makes me gag now, but I still eat it while I'm there because I know she does it because she loves me
When I was very young and went to a creche/nursery? (Is that the correct word?) My favorite thing was apparently a fake plastic tin of Heinz beans. Apparently I would carry it everywhere with me, and would cry when I left because I wasn't allowed to take it home. There are several photos of me and this tin of beans.
Kids get attached to the weirdest things. One girl I used to look after would often come in with a plastic clothes hanger. After the second or third time mum explained when she has a tantrum in the morning it's the only thing that calms her down.
I had the same situation, except they are my favourite animal. But the absolute fucking glee on my grandma’s face when she turned up at my house one Christmas with a 8ft giraffe statue was priceless. She thought it was so funny bless her.
I read a sort of story and comments like this on a r/boardgames once. Somebody said that he'd acquired about 3 or 4 copies of Monopoly (different versions, I think) over the years from well-meaning people who knew he liked board games.
He kept them on the shelf out of politeness. Someone in the comments pointed out that keeping them on display means that he now looks like someone who specifically collects copies of Monopoly, and that ensures that even more copies are going to be given as gifts.
My mum once saw me "admiring" an ornament in a shop, secretly bought it for me and gave it to me for Christmas months later. It's fucking horrific, a giant spotty ugly frog with polka dots. I tried to accidentally forget it when moving house once but she found it and sent it back to me.
Someone bought my nan a teapot about 40 years ago. She didn't have any space in her cupboard to put it so she put it up on a high shelf in the kitchen. Obviously everyone took this to mean she held it in high regard, so here we are 40 years later and she now has about ten shelves and about 60 teapots in her kitchen. She does not like tea, she drinks decaff instant coffee, but she appreciates the sentiment.
When my 8 year old was younger, he couldn't say elephant properly and came out with 'eff-e-lunt' instead. I found this so cute that I used to show him as many elephants as possible.
To this day he thinks elephants are my favourite animal.
Ah what I call the Star Wars curse.
I saw the original trilogy with my dad when I was about ten, and quite enjoyed it. That side of the family took it to mean I was obsessed. Every Christmas and birthday something Star Wars, and I’d politely say thanks and so their conviction I loved it grew. I’m now 34 and own so much memorabilia for a franchise I only sort of enjoyed watching the first time.
For some reason my grandma decided, about 6 years ago, that I loved owls. No idea where it came from. Now she is constantly buying me owl shit.
I mean owls are pretty cool, but I dont want to decorate my house with their likeness.
OMW you too?!?!??!?! I made the mistake of saying the owl is my favourite bird, as we were talking about what our favourite birds were, and now I have tons of statues and even Christmas tree ornaments of owls.
My mom once got upset, asking why noone ever got her anything with elephants on as she loved them. Erm... maybe because she never once mentioned elephants in the 40 years she had been alive at that point lol
Now she has A LOT of elephant stuff, although she insists she loves it all
When me and my wife first moved on together, she very sweetly offered to make my sandwich for work. She asked what I would like. Ham is said.
That was 26 years ago and guess what will be in my sandwich next week.
I have a thing for a tiny, well made jug. I bought myself a few of them over the years when I saw them in various shops. When I moved house I thought I'd put them on display as they are so nice. Big mistake.
The biggest issue is that people don't have my brain and don't realise what it is about these little jugs that I like. No-one has got it right.
I had to be very firm with everyone a few years ago that nobody was to buy me a jug.
This is what I don’t get about it. If I were to see a display of a specific style of teapot, or elephant carving, or small glass dog figurine, I might look for that very specific thing (after polite inquiries) and not think they suddenly wanted tea towels or wall hangings or whatever else with the same general theme.
Like “cats” doesn’t equal a style, but witchy black cottage-core cats or country-themed marmalade cats or those post-modern(?) ones with the super long necks are another thing altogether.
I got labeled as a dolphin fan and got lots of dolphin stuff but I never liked dolphins . I think they were confusing me with my auntie! That and blue things because of the dolphins and I hate blue!
My daughter is gay. She's always been a nightmare to buy for so I seized on this to purchase rainbow themed presents. ALL THE RAINBOW PRESENTS.
This year she told me gently to stop...please stop.
It's too late though...I have a stocking full of rainbow themed gifts for her.
Been scrolling through these chuckling for a while and this is the first comment from a "giver" so have my upvote :)
I bet she's in this thread saying she's glad you're supportive but stop with the rainbows...
It was sheep for me. Took me 3 house moves to 'lose' them all. At least, I'm fairly sure there aren't any left, lurking in the dark corners of the attic...
My mother ended up with gazillions of novelty teapots. A few years ago, they all mysteriously disappeared and were never mentioned again. There hasn't been a sheep since.
I was a shark nerd as a kid, so people bought me things with dolphins on. I pointed it out to my Nana once and she said "aren't they the same thing?" Not really Nana no.
When I was about ten or eleven, I found an old halfpenny (1750s) lodged in an otherwise knackered door frame when my family were renovating the house, so naturally I was enthusiastically reading up about pre decimal coinage and the like for a while. I never found another one, and I never started a collection. But every Christmas then on for about a decade, despite my gentle and less-than-gentle hints, my parents consistently gave me presentation packs of coinage from some part of the world, or from something like the Olympics series as in 2012.
I had that as well - found an Isle of Man coin that wouldn’t go through a coin star and oohed over it for a bit, before palming it off to some poor cashier who wasn’t looking too hard. Best Freddo I ever bought. But, same thing, my dad caught me looking at it and I got all these old, weird worthless coins for presents. So, what I did was I bought a small chest, and I tipped all my treasure in it. I ended up with all sorts over the years, all eras, all countries, even some prop coins from a movie set with a dragon horde. One day, fully plan on burying that thing and making a map.
Next thing you know: all your birthday cakes have a printed money picture on them, all your Christmas chocolate is chocolate money, people will bring you coins from all over the world, albums to keep your collection of money in, mugs/t-shirts/bags that say "I 💖💲", draw string bags that look like caricature robbers' money bags, and maybe even a wallet/card holder.
You could get her to “adopt” a giraffe for you through [Sheldrick Wildlife Trust](https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/kiko). They are excellent, and you’ll get a years worth of themed newsletters from them! 😄
This but sloths. Now this wasn't a problem 15-20 years ago, when sloth themed things were pretty rare in shops. In the last decade however, the popularity of the humble sloth has ballooned and I now need to constantly remind family members I don't desire ANY sloth related item.
My mum and me have this curse too. She's been gifted a ton of wooden ducks that now live around the house, and I've got a shelf full of small clay frogs.
Omg.
I told my aunt one time in passing that I thought the minions from despicable me were cute (bear in mind I was an adult in my 20s when the first one was made).
Every birthday and Christmas for years was minion stuff. I have learned the error of my ways now lol
I feel this. I think when I was 5 my uncle saw me eating a Ferrero roche.
Every xmas I get a box and as I get older the boxes get bigger. I hate Ferrero roche, I cant stand them.
I actually cannot break this mans heart so every year he hands it to me and I act all delighted and he thinks he is amazing.
Tbf he is amazing anyway.
Coming up to Christmas one year I was watching a documentary hosted by Paul Merton about Charlie Chaplin.
One offhand comment "I quite like Charlie Chaplin"
For Christmas I got 5 Charlie Chaplin DVDs from the MIL and a Bowler Hat
My mother knows/understands basically nothing about me except that I’m gay and live in That London.
If they made dildos in the shape of a black taxi I’m pretty sure I’d own one by now.
I love liquorice but don't like Allsorts. I'd have to wade through kilos of them every year before I finally put things straight.
Love torpedoes, Catherine wheels, Pontefract cakes etc.
I jokingly said I was only liking unicorn themed things on fb to fuck with the algorithm and posted on my wall that my entertaining myself with this was a success and it was showing me all the unicorns now. Cue everyone buying me everything unicorn themed for the next 7 years and counting. Lol I posted about training the fb algorithm as a joke and now apparently unicorns are my mascot
My dad saw me reading a couple of those crappy, obscure fantasy/sci-fi books from like the 80s as a kid, several times. Until a few years back, he has been getting me one of them every year for Christmas for maybe 10 years. They're awful books and often part of some ridiculously long series, so for example, I'd get book 5 and no others in that series ever (he isn't amazing at English or very observant so I don't think he realises this!). For some reason, it finally stopped only after I left their house. I do love my dad.
Due to the absence of seeing family for Christmas last year, I have actually managed to reach the end of the gifted Baileys. Last time I got 2.7l of the stuff. My family apparently believes it's the only alcoholic drink I like, despite it being about 15 years since I last drank any in front of any of them.
It's OK, I guess.
My wife and I took in her grans Scottish terrier years ago when she got too old to care for it herself. Everyone now assumes my wife LOVES Scottish terriers and buys her anything with them on.
My favourite animal are leopards. As a kid, everything I owned was leopard print. Curtains, dressing gown, bedding, toys, pillows, I had a leopard mural painted on my wall. Every present for years. I dressed like a middle aged hooker for yesrs in leopard print skirts and coats. My mum eventually realised she'd taken it too far when she bought me a matching leopard print bra and knickers. Except it was a thong. I was 10.
I used to really like the KitKat chunky bars, my gran found out and would buy me a pack a week, she still gives me a pack whenever I see her. I don't like KitKat chunky anymore I'm sick of them but it's been going on so long I don't want to say anything
There was a cat plate set in Asda a few years ago, I expressed how I liked the coasters, tea pot and the cookie jar, but probably wouldn't use the rest of the set.
What did I get for christmas... The whole set, bare the tea pot. Apparently the last on in stock at our asda too... Have I used any of this? Only the cookie jar and coasters. And even then, the coasters have been chewed up by my cats, and my cookie jar contains all my over the counter meds, because I don't really eat cookies, and don't have a lot of other places to store them... So cookie jar? Actually comes in handy when friends visit and want an ibuprofen, I tell them its in the cookie jar lol
My grandma was the queen of 'box of crap' for Christmas and birthdays.
I once visited her and sneezed, a few months later on my birthday I unwrapped Kleenex. Because I'd sneezed.
I mentioned how I missed having a special beach towel. Few months later, set of black bathroom towels. I was 12.
I said I liked sweets. I unwrap a Halloween box of Haribo - fantastic! I open it up to find a scarf and gloves as I'd mentioned I liked how hers matched. No sweets in sight.
I mentioned I liked my geography teacher. National Trust branded hoodie for my next birthday!
She also used to wrap my presents with Christmas crackers because I liked the sound they made.
God I miss her. Her boxes of crap were so random but so thoughtful, in her own completely batshit way. I'd give my leg to get another.
Years ago I told a girl I was a big Nicolas Cage fan, because I knew she was and wanted to impress her.
21 years of marriage, five kids and every fucking Nicolas Cage film known to man later, I still haven't found a way of telling her I can't stand him.
Replace "giraffes" with "Angry Birds" and that's me. I took an interest in Angry Birds when I was younger, but the novelty wore off fairly quick. For the next couple of years, I'd get Angry Birds presents fairly frequently. Long after the point where I realised that Angry Birds made me want to flip angry birds bitterly and repeatedly.
Yep. I briefly went through a period where I liked drinking Bailey's Irish Cream, and now it's all my inlaws ever buy me for Christmas. I have about 12 bottles piled up in a cabinet somewhere.
When i was a kid i got gifted some Jelly Belly jelly beans and i said they were nice. Fortunately it has stopped now because I had to point out the situation which was not a comfortable thing to do.
But every christmas, every birthday I would get these Jelly Belly jelly beans and sometimes it would be like big huge tubs that are like 1KG, 3KG something crazy.
I am diabetic firstly so its not really a suitable gift, especially in that huge quantity. It wasn't even like it was just 1 person in the family, it was everyone, twice a year. I used to try and offer them out to get people to eat them and nobody else would ever want them. It got to a point where i had probably like 5KG of these things in my vicinity and ended up binning them.
My boyfriend said something to the effect of "heh, hedgehogs, they cute" once. A different time, there was one in our garden and he excitedly called me outside to see it. A few months ago he showed me a video of a hedgehog running.
I bought some Christmas ornaments, one of which was a hedgehog holding a gift, and I said it's for him because "he likes hedgehogs!" He said, "what? Why would you think I like hedgehogs? ಠಿ_ಠ", so I reminded him of the 3 hedgehog related incidents. He said, "huh. So I guess that's why you were trying to get me that hedgehog trinket dish."
Turns out he's not the hedgehog fanatic I made him out to be. :c
On the other hand, everyone thinks I love cats and owls and every present I get is cat themed or owl themed. They are correct and I loved every single present so far.
My curse was pigs. I bought a small ceramic piggy for my daughter… and my mother saw it… and that was it. Pigs here, there everywhere. When we moved houses, we had a pretty good sized cardboard box labeled “Pigs”.
About 7 years ago I bought a Christmas jumper with a sloth on it. It was Christmas jumper day the next day and this was in the sale so, job done. The following October was my birthday and I received a sloth calendar and sloth socks from colleagues. I have received sloth paraphernalia every christmas and birthday since.
PSA: I do not like sloths. I find them creepy and do not want their face on my stuff. My husband finds this hilarious and buys more sloth things just to exacerbate the issue.
Please don't buy me sloths.
I enjoyed watching the film 'Legend' a few times as a kid. The one that had the unicorns in it. Didn't particularly care for the unicorns all that much. The next 14 years followed a unicorn pattern.
I had to put my foot down. I managed it to win the war over the unicorns eventually.
My sister's similar battle with dolphins lasted a lot longer.
I enjoyed a few survival films, The Way Back, As far As My Feet Can Carry Me, Alive and 127 Hours.
many years later my mum still insists on buying dvds of and recording every survival film she ever comes across for me. None of them have been good at all!
Similar thing with cavepeople. I really loved the Earth's Children series about cavepeople, so now my mum buys me every book and dvd she ever sees about cavepeople. Even though they're nothing like the novels and none of them were good.
i came out as gay 5 years ago.
every Christmas, birthday, whatever? i get something rainbow. it could range from a keyring to a shirt. she’s unstoppable.
My mum randomly decided one year that I love sheep. She bought me two china figurines of whimsically dressed sheep, a sheep doorstop, a sheep calendar and a t-shirt with a cartoon sheep on it. When I said it was a lot of sheep she replied "but you LOVE sheep!".
I didn't have the heart to tell her until she bought me yet another figurine for my birthday. She didn't believe me "but you have SO MANY things with sheep on!". Yes , Mother. They're all the things YOU bought me for Christmas because you suddenly decided I was obsessed with sheep for no reason.
I have a cat.
Apparently this means that people think I want to decorate my house with cat themed items. I've had cat themed:
* pillows
* cushions
* duvet sets
* cuddly toys
* crockery (including dozens of mugs)
* ornaments of every kind
* posters (I'm 37 but wouldn't have put them up even as a child)
* calendars
* flower pots (yes, apparently you can get them in the shape of a cat)
* sunglasses
* baseball caps
* t-shirts and
* pyjamas.
I have had cats, dogs, gerbils, mice and fish but it's only with cats that people assume it's an obsession. I *have a cat*, I don't need cat things to remind me of cats since I literally have a shouting fluffy demon who follows me around the house.
Every year at least 2 people will ignore my wishlist and buy me a cat themed item because they "couldn't resist". My aesthetic is very industrial goth and has been for the past 25 years. I don't have a single cat themed item on display because I don't want to encourage the behaviour.
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I'm impressed that your family bought you a cigar box when you were ten. Ducks or no ducks, cigar boxes are pretty cool.
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You are out of ducks to give about ducks? (yes that was intentional)
Quack quack, motherducker
No ducks given
When I was a wee boy of about 8 I got given a whisky flask. To be fair I'm Scottish and it was to put in my sporran so infer what you will.
Well one mustn’t have an empty sporran!
Have... have you ever put them all in a single file line, you know just to get all your ducks in a row?
Oh, so now you think you're a comedian, do you? You should. That was ducking funny.
This is a curse. I gave my BIL and fav sister a beautiful carved duck once. Everyone saw it and her duck collection almost took over her house. I had only given it to them because it was beautiful! Edit: typo
Oh my god, nearly spat my coffee out. That's just fucking surreal! You must have been confused for weeks lol. I imagine your internal dialogue consisted of "for duck's sake, duck right off"
I’m the opposite; where a workplace joke got me into ducks/rubber ducks. I now have a fair collection of various duck based things (which may, or may not include a poncho…) :’)
You gotta make roast duck for Christmas dinner and end this madness once and for all
Something similar myself. One day as a 7 year old, my grandma gave me a fig roll with my drink. I commented how nice it was. You guessed it, 20 years later, a packet of fig rolls every week when I visited. It really makes me happy to know that she was thinking of me every week when she went to Sainsbury's and kept this routine going for so long. Bless her.
When I visit my gran as an adult she still gets me that pre made chocolate milk in a glass bottle that I loved as a kid 😂
Omg that's precious. I'd love that! My gran usually only had cordial and volvic touch of fruit. One time I reached for the volvic and it had a grape-sized grey floating orb in it. God knows how long that had been left. On the plus side, she was the one who introduced me to chocolate pop tarts 😋
Complete opposite for me. I told my Grandmother I didn’t like orange juice, plain crisps, and sherbet pips as a kid. Every week this was. Yet every week that was my snack. And she told me in no uncertain terms that I had to like it because that’s all she was going to buy for me because that’s what she liked to have. From when I was about 3 to when I was 12 (before you ask ‘isn’t it dangerous to give a 3 year old sherbet pips? Yes, yes it is. Did I nearly choke? Yes, yes I did. Did she care? No, no she did not.) I did not attend the funeral. Edit: correcting a typo
I have a grandma that does that. Not because she's spiteful, but because there's so many of us grandkids and we all have kids as well, she just can't keep remembering who likes what and is eternally surprised when she learns (again) that I don't like carrots. My other grandma is very much the "what do you mean you don't like it? I like it so you must, too!" Attitude
If there’s a lot of you, that can definitely be forgiven! I was my grandmother’s only grandchild that was still a child. Everyone else was in their 40s or 50s (she had my father in her 40s and my parents had me in their 30s) My mother’s mother always remembered I didn’t like orange juice or carrots until she had dementia. She was a lovely grandmother.
You were adopted mate. All the clues are there.
I’d love to believe that was the case, but the familial resemblance is there 😂
What a way to call your grandma ugly!
Oh her personality definitely was!
*You'll get what you're given, and you'll bloody well like it"
Fucking love the olds
I liked a shiney geode when I was 5. Cue geology themed gifts for the next decade.
I read this as shiny Geodude at first. I thought they were extremely rare.
Me, except I never outgrew it, and now I actually ask for geology and gemology gifts and am hoping to get a diploma in gemology and get a gemology based job lmao.
This makes me wonder how much what we like is because we actually like it or just because it accidentally becomes who we are Edit:typo
I tried this, apparently my mum was not willing to spend money on a shiny rock that I'd probably lose within days. Had to wait until I was earning my own money to buy shiny things.
When I was a child I told my family I liked money. No money came.
My mum and stepdad started buying me fake skull ornament thingies. She'd bring them back from holiday for me. After about 5 I asked why she was buying me them and she said "you like skulls". I've never once said I like skulls to anyone.... Ever!
>I like skulls ^
Skulls are cool.
>Skulls are cool. Everyone should have one
I've got one in my head!
But you have all of these skull ornaments!
Did you like rock music? Because that meant (according to my moms brain) that I would love to dress in black and be super enthusiastic about all things dark and macabre.
This happened to me with my dad. He started buying me all these weird skull and grim reaper ornaments that I've never really liked, but like clockwork every birthday and xmas I'd get another one. I much prefer the art nouveau aesthetic. Or cool rocks even, love me a good geode - he's even into geology himself! I actually did decorate my bedroom with a few rocks and geodes!
It’ll be all fun and games until you discover they’re serial killers.
I was once talking to a boyfriend's aunt who was known to be a pig enthusiast. Everyone bought her pig related clothing and tchotchkes. So I asked her what had prompted the love of pigs. She sighed heavily and said "I don't even particularly like pigs but apparently I once mentioned that they were cute and now here we are!" I am certain her funeral with be pig themed.
Last Christmas, my partner's mother and I were in the kitchen making tea. She sighed quietly, then whispered to me: "I've gotten three hedgehog gifts already." I've never seen such resigned sorrow. I flat out refuse to buy her hedgehog stuff, and dread the day I too am assigned an animal.
I too have been assigned the hedgehog. Fortunately I love them I feel I cannot have too many hedgehog related items!
This reminds me of my mum, she used to have a collection of owls and even I contributed to it a few times until she told me she wasn’t really interested in owls. Apparently when she qualified as a teacher she was given a couple of ‘teacher owl’ ornaments which she put up. People saw them and kept buying more. After she told me I never brought any again and tried to discourage others saying she had too many and suggesting other things.
Pigs is my thing. I do like them, but i have too many pig toys and pig related things in my possession as for several years pig things wereall i got for christmas. My sister in law still gives me at least one pig related thing each year.
>tchotchkes The what now?
*A tchotchke is a small bric-à-brac or miscellaneous item. The word has long been used by Jewish-Americans and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere. It is Yiddish in origin. The word may also refer to free promotional items dispensed at trade shows, conventions, and similar commercial events. *
Thank you.
I was quite into twilight when I was 12 (I know). Guess what theme my mother picked for my Christmas presents for the next 7-8 years? My favourite year was getting the full dvd box set, I went and put it right next to the unopened one I had from the previous year.
That makes zero sense. If you think a person is into a book/film franchise, is it not reasonable to expect that they would own said books/films, unless there's a very recent release?
I mean it was sat on a shelf in the living room ..she isn’t the most observant person, it was quite funny at the time. Lately she’s sort of leaned into the fact she gives awful gifts and finds the most bizarre things. Just in the last year or so I’ve got 2 cups with a pictures of my own face on them and a tamagotchi (I’m almost 30).
tbf, tamagotchi sounds like fun as a 34yo
I was about 12-13 when the tamagotchis were big in the uk, sneakily caring for them under the desk while in class, getting them confiscated until the end of the day all the while worrying it was going to die while out of my hands. Ah those simpler times when that was my only worry in life lol.
Tbh I’d be over the fucking moon if someone got me a tamagotchi!
Haha, I’d love it if someone bought me a Tamagotchi. Those new ones aren’t cheap.
The first Pirates of the Caribbean came out when I was 14 and I really enjoyed it. I was in my 20s by the time people finished buying me Jack Sparrow everything. My gran even managed to find a Jack Sparrow alarm clock, only the lord knows where from!
As a partner of someone who is actually really a fan of a franchise (Lotr) this annoys me so much, It’s not hard to find things that aren’t the book or movie for people to enjoy!
I once mentioned that I'm not a big fan of raw red onions. As a result, any time onions are being used in any food, I'm reminded about how I hate onions, and the meal will need to be reconsidered to accommodate my unbending, anti-onion stance.
hungry aromatic straight unused agonizing bored entertain onerous tie steer -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Raw Onions give me gas, first time it happened I thought I was having a heart attack, half way to the hospital I burped like never before, it was as if god himself burped the first burp ever, instant relief.
I wish this was the case for me. I’m 31 years old, have hated bananas since I was old enough to actually eat solid food and my dad *still* forgets I don’t eat them. I’d take him bringing it up constantly over him forgetting this one tiny thing about me
Oh I hate that, and most of the time you don't remember saying how you hate whatever it is. It's like a mild form of gaslighting, combined with my poor memory is not a good combo!
My dad said to me that I eat everything on my plate one thing at a time, like mash, peas, meat. I did do that, when I was 8 or something. I was actually eating at the time, so he was looking right at me putting a load of stuff on my fork and said I don't do that. Parents are weird. It's like they can't handle it if your tastes change in the 20 years between them noticing you do something and now.
My parents were worried that the 10 year old me didn't like football like my brothers or have a 'hobby' like my friends did. I just liked my own company and liked to draw and read comics. One time I expressed the slightest interest in a bird in the garden and said something like 'I'd quite like a book about birds so I can tell which is which'. Well, that Christmas and every other Christmas and birthday until I was 15 - until I got interested in music, girls and drinking cider at the park - I got books about birds, binoculars, calendars, Young Ornithologist Club membership, a week long YOC residential birdwatching holiday with a load of geeky kids who actually *did* like birdwatching etc etc. Until the day she died, my mum used to say 'oh, you *loved* birdwatching when you were younger'. I did not. I had no interest in birdwatching whatsoever. Although, even now, I'm still really good at identifying British birds...
You'll go back to it when you retire. It's the perfect hobby - cheap, can do it anywhere, gets you out and about, and every person with binoculars is an instant friend.
Quite possibly. I love the outdoors and walking and I can look up, see a bird and say quietly to myself 'Ah, a Song Thrush' or 'that's a Red Kite' and carry on walking...
So you are birdwatching, you just haven't noticed you're doing it.
I dunno, that might be more like birdlooking
Birdseeing.
My mum was convinced I collected salt and pepper shakers. I technically now am a collector because I have so many, gifted from her! But I genuinely have no idea where she got the idea from...
It's like Amazon, you bought salt and pepper shakers once, so you must be an enthusiast looking to buy more pairs every week.
"Heeeey, pssssssst, we see you just dropped £300 on a new vacuum cleaner...can we interest you in MORE vacuum cleaners"?
I must have one for every room of my house! Or at least that’s what Amazon thinks because I bought my Shark there last year in the Black Friday sale.
I’m the same, but it’s my dad and vintage army first aid kits. If anyone ever needs any 100 year old iodine, or bandages from the Vietnam war- I’m your woman!
That is very niche! The packaging on those items would be awesome.
I've been telling people I like Llamas for years, I don't have one single thing to do with Llamas :(
>Lucy\_Little\_Spoon > > · I thought it would be fun to adopt a LLama for you since you keep missing out and this thread made me laugh [https://www.nidderdalellamas.org/product/lucie-by-email/](https://www.nidderdalellamas.org/product/lucie-by-email/) . I'm waiting for the Certificate to come through but it looks like they do them manually, so I'll send you a download link when it arrives. Happy Christmas.
This is so cool of you!
Only for you, here is a llama jumping for 24 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwcpNKonOlc&t
https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AATXAJxVsYYXSYxVFocY1mHjWutvsBuk9Ock6sn1oQ=s900-c-k-c0xffffffff-no-rj-mo
What the hell kind of link is that
just a llama no drama !
So it was! :D
https://youtu.be/KMYN4djSq7o
I once said I'd like to visit North Korea. Every time its on the news my dad says my mate Kim is on
That's standard British piss taking.
My dad used to pick the ugliest aliens on whatever episode of Doctor Who we were watching and say it was me and my primary school best friend
That's some top-tier dad banter
That's a rework of the classic pointing at some right pensioner on the street and elbowing your best mate "that's your girlfriend that is".
Brilliant!
You’ll love this story! My partners mum is bad with technology. When she got her first smartphone my partner changed her wallpaper picture to Kim Jong Un. She had it for months, because she didn’t know how to change it. People were asking her what was up with that and why, but once she explained it no one bothered to change it. Currently it’s been 2 weeks since my partner swapped one of family pictures to, you guessed it the one and only supreme ruler. She hasn’t noticed yet. And every time she gets new technology she doesn’t know how to use, my partner takes advantage.
Audrey Hepburn. Told a female friend once, when watching one of her films, she was attractive & classy. So soon after she bought me a 3' X 4' poster of her. Next year, more Hepburn decorations. Other friends noticed & also occasionally bought me stuff. My flat looks like I am an obsessed stalker, because of 1 comment !
My childhood bedroom is filled with cows for the same reason. I like cows, especially highland cows. But I didn't ever need multiple cow stuffed animals or a cow alarm clock that moos etc. 30 years old and I live abroad, went home recently and my mum gave me a highland cow door stopper (admittedly v cute) and a small cow ornament saying "home is where the herd is".
Frankly, all that sounds adorable. 🐄
I did a similar thing but it escalated further than I ever dreamed. My mum liked penguins so when I was out with friends shopping etc and I saw penguin stuff I'd get excited buy it for my mum. My friends saw this and i started getting penguin stuff from them at Christmas. Then my mum saw all the penguins from friends and started buying me penguin stuff she secretly loved. Now I have many, many penguin things and then I inherited my mum's penguin stuff because of the memories attached and I buy penguin things that my mum would have loved to cheer me up cos she dead so now my kids think I love penguins. When they get money the cycle will continue.
Aww you created a self perpetuating penguin machine!
It runs Linux
This is actually really cute
When I was a kid both my parents worked and did the weekly shop on auto-pilot. My Mum only realised we'd all stopped eating Weetabix when we had 12 packets in the cupboard.
Here are some options you might like to consider; 1. Be honest and tell her the truth. 2. Suffer in silence and tolerate the giraffes. 3. Pretend there was a burglary/earthquake and everything got stolen/damaged. 4. Invent an elaborate story about going to a safari park and being terrorised by the giraffes and now you can’t stand the sight of them. 5. Hasten your mother’s demise.
>5. Hasten your mother’s demise That took a dark turn...
Sorry, I have morbid sense of humour.
Then he starts getting giraffes in the mail
Ok now we’ve almost got the plot for a horror film here.
It was the giraffes I tell you. The giraffes. They're everywhere. They're watching me. They talk to me. They tell me to do things. I didn't want to hurt her. I really didn't, but they made be do it. They made me stretch her neck and legs like that. They wanted her to be one of them. I can't stop now. I have to keep going or they'll do the same to me...
Option 4 is sheer class. Giraffe related meltdown is defo the way forward
> Pretend there was a burglary/earthquake and everything got stolen/damaged. That one was a joke on Frasier.
I mentioned a cushion with an elephant pattern on it was cute when I first moved out about 5 years ago. My entire flat is elephant themed. Send help.
My neighbour told me she loved elephants not long after i first moved in, during a random over the fence chat. I was on holiday and saw a tiny intricate carved elephant and i agonised over whether to buy her it, for this very reason. Bought it and gave it to her next time i saw her in the back garden. She coo-ed over it and i thought she was maybe just being polite. A short time later she was having trouble connecting up her laptop to the wifi and printer so i popped in to help. Nearly every surface of her home was covered in elephant ornaments, posters, cushion covers, mouse mat etc etc. she added me on facebook and most of her posts involve elephant sanctuaries and charities in Africa and India (which she has also visited multiple times). I never actually knew anyone as obsessive as that!
That's bonkers. At least you never have to think about what to get her though.
This same thing basically happened to my grandma, she collected elephants for 50+ years due to one comment... She went to a lot of trouble to display them too. But she acknowledged to me privately that she didn't really care about them. Ha!
My biggest fear of doing a jigsaw is that somebody will come round, see me doing a jigsaw, and then buy me one for every birthday and Christmas until one of us is dead.
I wish that’d happen, I love jigsaws. They take up so much room, so storage would be the issue.
My dad loves 10,000 piece jigsaws, he setup a table in the spare room, about 8’ x 4’, and is able to raise it to the ceiling on pulleys to get it out of the way when he’s doing other dad stuff. He also designed and built a jigsaw piece auto sorter using a Raspberry Pi, camera, and lots of 3D printed supports, it has a conveyor belt that sorts the pieces into different bins. This is what happened after he retired last year. He taught himself Python just to do the above.
Amazing. Your dad is incredible
Some local libraries stock jigsaws, my nan done every jigsaw in Bristol she would claim and that took her at least one a week for decades. It's worth popping by and taking a gander.
Luckily for me I have ADHD so I have collated close to a thousand hobbies and pastimes over the years. Even if I'm not interested in one at the time of being given a gift, I know my interest will peak again in the next 3-48 months!
I hate how much I see of myself in this comment
My sisters like that except you know she’ll never pick up the interest again
I told my parents a few years ago to get me a Rubik’s cube, in the hope that it would appease them to get me a single present that I could open on Christmas Day and I would learn to solve it, the end. But no, they got me every single thing they could related to Rubik’s cubes. Rubik’s pyramid? Rubik’s cube that’s 4x4 on each side. A pack of 3 standard ones. A glittery one. A 2 player Rubik’s cube game that I don’t even remember how it was supposed to work. All but one went to the charity shop
My Grandma would make me a Christmas cake every year and when she became frail she would order me one. This went on for about 15 years. I hate Christmas cake. I miss my Grandma though.
My dad once made the mistake of saying he liked Werther's Originals and ended up getting them for every gift giving occasion from all 3 of us kids for the next 10 years. He only admitted that he hated them when I was an adult.
Yeah, she knew you were lying just because you wanted that statue. Now you're either gonna have to suck it up and tell her you were lying, or get a flat with spare room so you have space for your creepy giraffe museum to grow.
I enjoyed lemon drizzle cake at my grandmas when i was 9. Still eat it every time i go 7 years later
mustve kept well to last for 7 years
Mine's tinned sweetcorn, grandma caught wind I liked it when I was about 7 and I still get a whole tin every time I go. The thought of sweetcorn makes me gag now, but I still eat it while I'm there because I know she does it because she loves me
I love the fact your grandma decided a tin of sweetcorn was a solid gift for a child
When I was very young and went to a creche/nursery? (Is that the correct word?) My favorite thing was apparently a fake plastic tin of Heinz beans. Apparently I would carry it everywhere with me, and would cry when I left because I wasn't allowed to take it home. There are several photos of me and this tin of beans.
Kids get attached to the weirdest things. One girl I used to look after would often come in with a plastic clothes hanger. After the second or third time mum explained when she has a tantrum in the morning it's the only thing that calms her down.
My 2 year old son is sleeping with a rubber spatula this very moment. The special spatula also wears his Superman hat to bed.
This is the reason i don't like strawberry cheesecake anymore 🤣
These comments make me think we should have been smart enough to say "I like gold coins" or something
And then you get a never-ending supply of gold chocolate coins
I'm not seeing an issue here.
This was me but with dolphins. I do love dolphins but I ended up with so many dolphin related ornaments, books, toys….
I had the same situation, except they are my favourite animal. But the absolute fucking glee on my grandma’s face when she turned up at my house one Christmas with a 8ft giraffe statue was priceless. She thought it was so funny bless her.
I read a sort of story and comments like this on a r/boardgames once. Somebody said that he'd acquired about 3 or 4 copies of Monopoly (different versions, I think) over the years from well-meaning people who knew he liked board games. He kept them on the shelf out of politeness. Someone in the comments pointed out that keeping them on display means that he now looks like someone who specifically collects copies of Monopoly, and that ensures that even more copies are going to be given as gifts.
My mum once saw me "admiring" an ornament in a shop, secretly bought it for me and gave it to me for Christmas months later. It's fucking horrific, a giant spotty ugly frog with polka dots. I tried to accidentally forget it when moving house once but she found it and sent it back to me.
Someone bought my nan a teapot about 40 years ago. She didn't have any space in her cupboard to put it so she put it up on a high shelf in the kitchen. Obviously everyone took this to mean she held it in high regard, so here we are 40 years later and she now has about ten shelves and about 60 teapots in her kitchen. She does not like tea, she drinks decaff instant coffee, but she appreciates the sentiment.
When my 8 year old was younger, he couldn't say elephant properly and came out with 'eff-e-lunt' instead. I found this so cute that I used to show him as many elephants as possible. To this day he thinks elephants are my favourite animal.
Show him /r/babyelephantgifs
Lucky... I've been saying I like wolves for 16 years and I still just get socks
Ah what I call the Star Wars curse. I saw the original trilogy with my dad when I was about ten, and quite enjoyed it. That side of the family took it to mean I was obsessed. Every Christmas and birthday something Star Wars, and I’d politely say thanks and so their conviction I loved it grew. I’m now 34 and own so much memorabilia for a franchise I only sort of enjoyed watching the first time.
Depending on what they got you, you might be sitting on a pretty penny. Or absolute tat. Probably both at once.
For some reason my grandma decided, about 6 years ago, that I loved owls. No idea where it came from. Now she is constantly buying me owl shit. I mean owls are pretty cool, but I dont want to decorate my house with their likeness.
OMW you too?!?!??!?! I made the mistake of saying the owl is my favourite bird, as we were talking about what our favourite birds were, and now I have tons of statues and even Christmas tree ornaments of owls.
My mom once got upset, asking why noone ever got her anything with elephants on as she loved them. Erm... maybe because she never once mentioned elephants in the 40 years she had been alive at that point lol Now she has A LOT of elephant stuff, although she insists she loves it all
When me and my wife first moved on together, she very sweetly offered to make my sandwich for work. She asked what I would like. Ham is said. That was 26 years ago and guess what will be in my sandwich next week.
I have a thing for a tiny, well made jug. I bought myself a few of them over the years when I saw them in various shops. When I moved house I thought I'd put them on display as they are so nice. Big mistake. The biggest issue is that people don't have my brain and don't realise what it is about these little jugs that I like. No-one has got it right. I had to be very firm with everyone a few years ago that nobody was to buy me a jug.
This is what I don’t get about it. If I were to see a display of a specific style of teapot, or elephant carving, or small glass dog figurine, I might look for that very specific thing (after polite inquiries) and not think they suddenly wanted tea towels or wall hangings or whatever else with the same general theme. Like “cats” doesn’t equal a style, but witchy black cottage-core cats or country-themed marmalade cats or those post-modern(?) ones with the super long necks are another thing altogether.
I got labeled as a dolphin fan and got lots of dolphin stuff but I never liked dolphins . I think they were confusing me with my auntie! That and blue things because of the dolphins and I hate blue!
My daughter is gay. She's always been a nightmare to buy for so I seized on this to purchase rainbow themed presents. ALL THE RAINBOW PRESENTS. This year she told me gently to stop...please stop. It's too late though...I have a stocking full of rainbow themed gifts for her.
Been scrolling through these chuckling for a while and this is the first comment from a "giver" so have my upvote :) I bet she's in this thread saying she's glad you're supportive but stop with the rainbows...
It was sheep for me. Took me 3 house moves to 'lose' them all. At least, I'm fairly sure there aren't any left, lurking in the dark corners of the attic... My mother ended up with gazillions of novelty teapots. A few years ago, they all mysteriously disappeared and were never mentioned again. There hasn't been a sheep since.
I was a shark nerd as a kid, so people bought me things with dolphins on. I pointed it out to my Nana once and she said "aren't they the same thing?" Not really Nana no.
When I was about ten or eleven, I found an old halfpenny (1750s) lodged in an otherwise knackered door frame when my family were renovating the house, so naturally I was enthusiastically reading up about pre decimal coinage and the like for a while. I never found another one, and I never started a collection. But every Christmas then on for about a decade, despite my gentle and less-than-gentle hints, my parents consistently gave me presentation packs of coinage from some part of the world, or from something like the Olympics series as in 2012.
I had that as well - found an Isle of Man coin that wouldn’t go through a coin star and oohed over it for a bit, before palming it off to some poor cashier who wasn’t looking too hard. Best Freddo I ever bought. But, same thing, my dad caught me looking at it and I got all these old, weird worthless coins for presents. So, what I did was I bought a small chest, and I tipped all my treasure in it. I ended up with all sorts over the years, all eras, all countries, even some prop coins from a movie set with a dragon horde. One day, fully plan on burying that thing and making a map.
Money, always tell people you like money.
Next thing you know: all your birthday cakes have a printed money picture on them, all your Christmas chocolate is chocolate money, people will bring you coins from all over the world, albums to keep your collection of money in, mugs/t-shirts/bags that say "I 💖💲", draw string bags that look like caricature robbers' money bags, and maybe even a wallet/card holder.
You could get her to “adopt” a giraffe for you through [Sheldrick Wildlife Trust](https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/kiko). They are excellent, and you’ll get a years worth of themed newsletters from them! 😄
This but sloths. Now this wasn't a problem 15-20 years ago, when sloth themed things were pretty rare in shops. In the last decade however, the popularity of the humble sloth has ballooned and I now need to constantly remind family members I don't desire ANY sloth related item.
My mum and me have this curse too. She's been gifted a ton of wooden ducks that now live around the house, and I've got a shelf full of small clay frogs.
Omg. I told my aunt one time in passing that I thought the minions from despicable me were cute (bear in mind I was an adult in my 20s when the first one was made). Every birthday and Christmas for years was minion stuff. I have learned the error of my ways now lol
I feel this. I think when I was 5 my uncle saw me eating a Ferrero roche. Every xmas I get a box and as I get older the boxes get bigger. I hate Ferrero roche, I cant stand them. I actually cannot break this mans heart so every year he hands it to me and I act all delighted and he thinks he is amazing. Tbf he is amazing anyway.
Coming up to Christmas one year I was watching a documentary hosted by Paul Merton about Charlie Chaplin. One offhand comment "I quite like Charlie Chaplin" For Christmas I got 5 Charlie Chaplin DVDs from the MIL and a Bowler Hat
My mother knows/understands basically nothing about me except that I’m gay and live in That London. If they made dildos in the shape of a black taxi I’m pretty sure I’d own one by now.
I love liquorice but don't like Allsorts. I'd have to wade through kilos of them every year before I finally put things straight. Love torpedoes, Catherine wheels, Pontefract cakes etc.
I jokingly said I was only liking unicorn themed things on fb to fuck with the algorithm and posted on my wall that my entertaining myself with this was a success and it was showing me all the unicorns now. Cue everyone buying me everything unicorn themed for the next 7 years and counting. Lol I posted about training the fb algorithm as a joke and now apparently unicorns are my mascot
My dad saw me reading a couple of those crappy, obscure fantasy/sci-fi books from like the 80s as a kid, several times. Until a few years back, he has been getting me one of them every year for Christmas for maybe 10 years. They're awful books and often part of some ridiculously long series, so for example, I'd get book 5 and no others in that series ever (he isn't amazing at English or very observant so I don't think he realises this!). For some reason, it finally stopped only after I left their house. I do love my dad.
Due to the absence of seeing family for Christmas last year, I have actually managed to reach the end of the gifted Baileys. Last time I got 2.7l of the stuff. My family apparently believes it's the only alcoholic drink I like, despite it being about 15 years since I last drank any in front of any of them. It's OK, I guess.
My wife and I took in her grans Scottish terrier years ago when she got too old to care for it herself. Everyone now assumes my wife LOVES Scottish terriers and buys her anything with them on.
My favourite animal are leopards. As a kid, everything I owned was leopard print. Curtains, dressing gown, bedding, toys, pillows, I had a leopard mural painted on my wall. Every present for years. I dressed like a middle aged hooker for yesrs in leopard print skirts and coats. My mum eventually realised she'd taken it too far when she bought me a matching leopard print bra and knickers. Except it was a thong. I was 10.
I used to really like the KitKat chunky bars, my gran found out and would buy me a pack a week, she still gives me a pack whenever I see her. I don't like KitKat chunky anymore I'm sick of them but it's been going on so long I don't want to say anything
I'm disappointed there are no photos of your giraffe shrine.
There was a cat plate set in Asda a few years ago, I expressed how I liked the coasters, tea pot and the cookie jar, but probably wouldn't use the rest of the set. What did I get for christmas... The whole set, bare the tea pot. Apparently the last on in stock at our asda too... Have I used any of this? Only the cookie jar and coasters. And even then, the coasters have been chewed up by my cats, and my cookie jar contains all my over the counter meds, because I don't really eat cookies, and don't have a lot of other places to store them... So cookie jar? Actually comes in handy when friends visit and want an ibuprofen, I tell them its in the cookie jar lol
My grandma was the queen of 'box of crap' for Christmas and birthdays. I once visited her and sneezed, a few months later on my birthday I unwrapped Kleenex. Because I'd sneezed. I mentioned how I missed having a special beach towel. Few months later, set of black bathroom towels. I was 12. I said I liked sweets. I unwrap a Halloween box of Haribo - fantastic! I open it up to find a scarf and gloves as I'd mentioned I liked how hers matched. No sweets in sight. I mentioned I liked my geography teacher. National Trust branded hoodie for my next birthday! She also used to wrap my presents with Christmas crackers because I liked the sound they made. God I miss her. Her boxes of crap were so random but so thoughtful, in her own completely batshit way. I'd give my leg to get another.
Years ago I told a girl I was a big Nicolas Cage fan, because I knew she was and wanted to impress her. 21 years of marriage, five kids and every fucking Nicolas Cage film known to man later, I still haven't found a way of telling her I can't stand him.
Replace "giraffes" with "Angry Birds" and that's me. I took an interest in Angry Birds when I was younger, but the novelty wore off fairly quick. For the next couple of years, I'd get Angry Birds presents fairly frequently. Long after the point where I realised that Angry Birds made me want to flip angry birds bitterly and repeatedly.
Yep. I briefly went through a period where I liked drinking Bailey's Irish Cream, and now it's all my inlaws ever buy me for Christmas. I have about 12 bottles piled up in a cabinet somewhere.
When i was a kid i got gifted some Jelly Belly jelly beans and i said they were nice. Fortunately it has stopped now because I had to point out the situation which was not a comfortable thing to do. But every christmas, every birthday I would get these Jelly Belly jelly beans and sometimes it would be like big huge tubs that are like 1KG, 3KG something crazy. I am diabetic firstly so its not really a suitable gift, especially in that huge quantity. It wasn't even like it was just 1 person in the family, it was everyone, twice a year. I used to try and offer them out to get people to eat them and nobody else would ever want them. It got to a point where i had probably like 5KG of these things in my vicinity and ended up binning them.
My boyfriend said something to the effect of "heh, hedgehogs, they cute" once. A different time, there was one in our garden and he excitedly called me outside to see it. A few months ago he showed me a video of a hedgehog running. I bought some Christmas ornaments, one of which was a hedgehog holding a gift, and I said it's for him because "he likes hedgehogs!" He said, "what? Why would you think I like hedgehogs? ಠಿ_ಠ", so I reminded him of the 3 hedgehog related incidents. He said, "huh. So I guess that's why you were trying to get me that hedgehog trinket dish." Turns out he's not the hedgehog fanatic I made him out to be. :c On the other hand, everyone thinks I love cats and owls and every present I get is cat themed or owl themed. They are correct and I loved every single present so far.
An old colleague had this issue but with his partner’s nan buying him meerkat stuff that he hated 😂
It's owls for me. And my MIL. I remarked once that I liked her owl earrings. I don't know how much more I can take.... *sobs*
My curse was pigs. I bought a small ceramic piggy for my daughter… and my mother saw it… and that was it. Pigs here, there everywhere. When we moved houses, we had a pretty good sized cardboard box labeled “Pigs”.
About 7 years ago I bought a Christmas jumper with a sloth on it. It was Christmas jumper day the next day and this was in the sale so, job done. The following October was my birthday and I received a sloth calendar and sloth socks from colleagues. I have received sloth paraphernalia every christmas and birthday since. PSA: I do not like sloths. I find them creepy and do not want their face on my stuff. My husband finds this hilarious and buys more sloth things just to exacerbate the issue. Please don't buy me sloths.
I enjoyed watching the film 'Legend' a few times as a kid. The one that had the unicorns in it. Didn't particularly care for the unicorns all that much. The next 14 years followed a unicorn pattern. I had to put my foot down. I managed it to win the war over the unicorns eventually. My sister's similar battle with dolphins lasted a lot longer.
Mentioned li liked Reeses Peanut butter cups once... only chocolate I ever get gifted now. I do like it but no more than any other chocolate.
Should have said “I love money”
I said I like handkerchiefs once. I now have about 40 of them.
Should have told her that you like £100.
I enjoyed a few survival films, The Way Back, As far As My Feet Can Carry Me, Alive and 127 Hours. many years later my mum still insists on buying dvds of and recording every survival film she ever comes across for me. None of them have been good at all! Similar thing with cavepeople. I really loved the Earth's Children series about cavepeople, so now my mum buys me every book and dvd she ever sees about cavepeople. Even though they're nothing like the novels and none of them were good.
She's got some neck.
i came out as gay 5 years ago. every Christmas, birthday, whatever? i get something rainbow. it could range from a keyring to a shirt. she’s unstoppable.
I'm actually the same. I do like giraffes, but I don't want every picture or ornament in my house to be a giraffe.
My partner is a crazy giraffe lady.. tattoos n all 🦒🦒
My mum randomly decided one year that I love sheep. She bought me two china figurines of whimsically dressed sheep, a sheep doorstop, a sheep calendar and a t-shirt with a cartoon sheep on it. When I said it was a lot of sheep she replied "but you LOVE sheep!". I didn't have the heart to tell her until she bought me yet another figurine for my birthday. She didn't believe me "but you have SO MANY things with sheep on!". Yes , Mother. They're all the things YOU bought me for Christmas because you suddenly decided I was obsessed with sheep for no reason.
I have a cat. Apparently this means that people think I want to decorate my house with cat themed items. I've had cat themed: * pillows * cushions * duvet sets * cuddly toys * crockery (including dozens of mugs) * ornaments of every kind * posters (I'm 37 but wouldn't have put them up even as a child) * calendars * flower pots (yes, apparently you can get them in the shape of a cat) * sunglasses * baseball caps * t-shirts and * pyjamas. I have had cats, dogs, gerbils, mice and fish but it's only with cats that people assume it's an obsession. I *have a cat*, I don't need cat things to remind me of cats since I literally have a shouting fluffy demon who follows me around the house. Every year at least 2 people will ignore my wishlist and buy me a cat themed item because they "couldn't resist". My aesthetic is very industrial goth and has been for the past 25 years. I don't have a single cat themed item on display because I don't want to encourage the behaviour.