I vanished again for a bit. December is a bad month for me. This one included another hospital stay. Another huge bill! Just what we needed! It could have been avoided if the doctor has forced the issue with the insurance & tried to fix the problem before it got that bad. Insurance dictates that one must get certain medications & wait for a certain amount of time before proceeding to a more aggressive treatment even when you have an underlying condition that makes it obvious that this is something much worse than what they think.
Because of that mess & having to take care of everyone making little time to take care of myself, I haven't gotten out much. I told my family I couldn't afford to buy them anything & the were OK with it, but I did manage to scrape up some extra money to get each of them something. It wasn't much. I try really hard to find things that are useful or that I know they want. My BIL doesn't have any sort of wish list, but I found something perfect for him. He didn't even know it existed & was super excited about it.
I've always felt that if you're going to buy things for people, make sure it's something useful or something THEY like, not just what you want to buy because you forgot about that person until Christmas Eve and ran out and grabbed whatever happens to be next to the register.
This is how my mother in law (MIL) shops for me. She called the Mr. Friday morning to tell him she forgot to get me anything. This was fine with me because I wasn't going to her house this year to be verbally abused & insulted under the guise of "Southern hospitality." My husband told her I didn't want anything. She insisted she HAD to get me something so he suggested a gift card to a book store or vintage shop. She hates gift cards & he kept telling her I preferred them. He finally gave in & gave her a few book titles & that I wanted a particular color Besame lipstick at the vintage store.
Pretty easy, right?
Nothing...super easy, continue what were you doing anyway & I'm not frustrated over stupidity.
Gift card...walk in, hand them money, they hand you card/certificate & the recipient gets to pick out what they want.
Insisting on purchasing something physical & getting a list, then getting the wrong things, some of which cannot be returned = recipient unhappy, plus you wasted money.
She went to the vintage shop & grabbed 2 tubes of random lipstick (they were both the same color that doesn't work for me) & a metal case that was next to the lipstick. She didn't look at it. I don't think I can exchange the lipsticks. I need to return the case as well. The button to open it is too hard for me to open, but that shouldn't be a problem to exchange.
What really bothers me is the waste of money (about $80 this time). She always cries about not having money & you can see why.
The situation is confusing to me. Every year she throws away $80 - $100 buying junk for me (she spends just as much on her other in-laws, but things they asked for). She grabs things out of clearance bins & gift displays at the drug store. She's not buying things FOR me. She's grabbing random things to make herself feel better. Wouldn't she feel better if she got me something I liked? Isn't the point of giving a gift to make the recipient happy? There is no thought here, so that doesn't count. I used to tell myself that in the early years.
It always makes me sound like a spoiled brat, but to me it's a slap in the face. I'm not hard to buy for. I'm happy with nothing or just being treated like a human being. That would be nice...
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