Our inlaws were terrible gift receivers! Most of the time, they'd open the present in a bored manner, and then toss it aside with little comment. Many of the gifts we gave them ended up being given back to us, with a "We're never going to use this. We don't need it." shortly after Christmas.
One year, my MIL had been talking about a chicken roaster she had years before. I found one and spent $100.00 of my own money on it (money was tight when we had little ones in the house years ago) she said she liked it, yet I haven't seen it in her house in over 10 years. She throws things away all the time. She probably dumped it.
My MIL also doesn't "like to shop." Well, shit, she's a freakin' millionaire (at least according to my husband, his father left her with over 1 Million dollars in hoarded money) so she doesn't shop. She would once in a while get our kids crap toys from the Dollar store, which would break immediately or were so dangerous that I had to take them away from the kids as soon as she left the house. I'm sorry, you don't get a 1 year old a bag of marbles, nor do you buy a "beauty set" that has a glass mirror and is made of plastic so cheap, that when I simply put some pressure on it, it cracked and fell apart. The glass mirror fell out of the frame, and I cut myself on it!
She doesn't bother with Christmas, we get the same check, made out ONLY to my husband every year. The kids used to get bonds, but she said she was "tired of going to the bank" so she sends them checks, which she then persuaded my husband to obtain an account which I have no access to to cash them into. I'm the one who buys things for our kids and takes them shopping, she thinks the money should be "saved." I swear she wouldn't spend a single freakin' penny if she didn't absolutely have to.
But, usually my husband sends her a flower vase from a floral company, and she sends us the check in HIS name only, which he deposits into his account and I, in essence, don't get a present from her at all.
I spent years trying to find nice gifts for these people, but they were never appreciated. I don't like the "you buy for your parents, I buy for mine" mentality (especially since until my step father died, I had four "parents" to buy for) and he had one after his dad died. I've given up trying to please her, so fuck it. She can have her vase of flowers, which when she is told it is coming, she calls us every 3 hours to see where it is (as she is in FLA for winters and refuses to come home to celebrate with her family) and starts to obsess about, "Where can it be? Look it up on them internets." (She doesn't have a computer, because "I don't know how to do them things.") So, my husband is a basket case from the time he orders the flowers until the arrive at her house.
Rant over.
