Dear Dr. Jake: How do you stop mothers bent on giving useless stuff?

[TheNewChupe]

Hi, Dr. Jake-

This should perhaps be prefaced.

For the past 3.5 yrs, my gf and I have received countless useless gifts from both her mother and my mother (as well as her mom's good friend) in various forms, including but not limited to:
- Christmas ornaments of a craft nature
- Christmas ornaments of a Hallmark nature
- candles that stink
- candles that are ugly
- candles that stink and are ugly
- stuffed snowmen
- stuffed snowman and snowwoman that sing (you've seen the Hallmark commercial)
- musical box snowglobe with snowmen/women/kids
- more ornaments
- Hallmark bells that have snowmen on them (for 5 different holidays/seasons)
- a giant Santa on a bench with a bunch of crap on him
- seasonal but ugly potholders and towels
- giant ceramic snowmen stocking hangers
- giant ceramic snowmen tealight holder
- a nutcracker with a base (so you can set it out, of course)
- NUMEROUS small snowmen/santas/bears/reindeer/etc.
- wine corks with things on top of them (santas, snowmen, deer, etc)
- cheese/dip spreader knife things with wine related handles (bottles, cheese wedges, etc)
- a dip holder with an ice bucket TO KEEP THE DIP COLD (with wine related drawings on it)
- guitar-shaped drink stirring sticks, guitar shaped bottle openers, guitar shaped wine bottle holders, etc.
- countless craft-related items (her mother is a Creative Memories person and a stamper and everything else you can think of)


We've decided to start going through all this stuff and get rid of a lot of it since she has a very small house we will likely live in together in about 10 months or so. So, we asked her mother politely to not buy any more similar items.

Now, my gf comes from a historically Catholic family (although they now go to a Lutheran church) and they still give St. Nick's Day gifts. I'd never heard of this, but evidently they give a single gift early in Decmber. So, yesterday, we received our St. Nick's gifts and a gift for my birthday: the above described dip holder, nutcracker, a candle holder, and the cheese spreaders with wine-related handles. Note this was all given AFTER we asked her not to buy things like this.


I'm really not trying to sound like a jerk. Her parents (and mine) really don't have the money to spend on this stuff- not to mention we don't have room for it and don't need/like/use it. Is there a tasteful way to get around this?


Sicnerely,

Drowning in Junk

 

[avi]

man, I thought my mothers were bad

 

[TheNewChupe]

my mom gives tons of hallmark ornaments and the nasty potholders, but the main culprit here is her craft-bent mom.

 

[xfer]

i've never heard of this st. nick's day jawnz

 

[minxnim]

wow. im glad i dont give presents like that

 

[avi]

my mother-in-law is a vintage dealer and a packrat. she moved out of state recently, but she would try to unload so much crap on us every time we went over. ugh.

sometimes they were good things, but I don't need more trinkets. fuck that noise.

 

[TheNewChupe]

her mom is a total trinket goblin. and lots of the time, not good trinkets. we're talking dollar store trinkets.

 

[deadair]

Dear Drowning,



first let me say to the rude person who posted on this thread before i had a chance to answer... you are obviously a jew, because you have no respect for Christmas related questions. get your on fucking "jewish holiday" (i won't even speak the word) thread asshole.



now, back to the problem at hand.



plain and simple, you are screwed. but let me explain why. you see, old people have a chemical imbalance. it effects their hearing when they reach 45 and have in-laws. they "hear" what you say, but they "know" you don't mean it. i think your best plan of action is to OVERLY thank them for the gifts. this way, you trick them into thinking you really love the trash they give, causing the chemical imbalance to kick in and trigger their brain to pick a new "collecting hobby" for you. while you are running the risk of them picking a new sucktastic collectable line, at least you won't have any more nutcrackers.



xoxo

Dr. Jake

 

[TheNewChupe]

this chemical imbalance may have some foundation. there's an older woman in gf's neighborhood who has these birdhouses attached to the side of her house with 'pretty' posts and greenery attached, and she just started putting up her holiday decorations. I think the degree of her fading eyesight is directly proportional to the intensity of the spectacularly appalling display she is making her husband arrange: giant (i mean like the size of a large coffee mug) light bulbs, animatronic snowmen with lights, reindeer with lights, a projection thing that throws the image of some holiday something on the side of her house (not the side with the birdhouses, mind you), and various large plastic faded lawn ornaments. My theory is that she needs it to be bright so she can know which house is hers and find her way home after buying things at the dollar store.

also, there's this one horrible house that we call THE GRISWOLD HOUSE for obvious reasons if you've seen Christmas Vacation. Literally took them 2 weeks to put everything up. they have a giant archway of lights over their driveway, with giant lighted toy soldiers guarding the entrance. the rest is a blur, as we have to drive by it.

 

[avi]

plz post pics thx

 

[TheNewChupe]

if gf ever gets the pics of her wedding dress off the digital camera so i can use it again, will do. cuz the arched driveway with the toy soldiers is something that must be witnessed.

 

[Novembers Paul]

It sounds like you need to burn down every Hallmark store in a 500 mile radius of your moms house. I'll help. See you Saturday with my matches.

 

[TheNewChupe]

i believe that is a potential temporary solution, but eventually we'd have to further our techniques.
but this is a good start. saturday it is!



(if a bunch of Hallmarks get torched this weekend, I disavow any knowledge of this post.)