Why are people so weird about gifts?

Not always true -- some people give little thought and emotion over gift giving - some give because it is expected or they feel the need to give.

I personally try to give something thoughtful (if I can come up with something creative) - to me it shows you care and are thinking of the person rather than giving because of some odd you are supposed to.

My insanity gift giving stories:
Two wedding ones - these seems to bring the worst outta people....I open a wedding gift with a card that says - from Fred and Joan (made up to save the embarassed couple). I notice that the box seems torn a bit almost as if it were wrapped previously. Inside I spy a nice pretty glass vase. Not an odd gift by any means - just odd as unless you know the person's style odd to give. Then there is another card inside - which says - congrats Fred and Joan - you see Fred and Joan had just gotten married a few months previous to our own.

Then as per common I have several nice checks to deposit as wedding gifts. The nice bank returns one check with angry red written all over - DO NOT TRY TO RE-DEPOSIT insufficent funds! Thanks to Aunt Mary - she cost me money as their was a fee associated as the check bounced. Just send a card next time!

Oh the guilty gift --- when I was younger and rented an apartment with a roommate - just prior to leaving to my parents to stay a couple of days over Christmas, I brought up a fruit basket to my landlord. I told her this was to thank her for being so helpful whenever we had problems she took care of it right away. It was exactly that - my thoughts to thank her with no expectation of a return gift.

Odd when I came back after Christmas - she gave me a gift - it was a night shirt - kinda personal from a landlord. It was obvious a guilt gift like she felt she had to give me something in return.

I wish!

I haven't read other responses yet, so avid am I to talk about this. I was an only child whose parents moved around a lot, shy as all get out, and amazed by the gift giving I ran into in an ordinary suburb of Chicago at nine. They were nice to me, and I got some too, over a few years. Then we moved again, to a place where my school was not close and I knew no one in the neighborhood. Not the worst life, of course, as I could still read, and so on.

But, when I got a job at a hospital after school, I gradually got new friends and some of them paid attention to birthdays. I liked it.

Mmm, some years go by, like eight, and I get interested in art. That wasn't immediately relevant but became so later. I was an ordinary earner for decades, but never a high earner. Nevertheless, I like the two and a half careers I've had and don't regret them. Soon enough, with examples from the odd friends (there was DeeDee, who when asked as we all were to bring a tin can to bacteriology 1A to hold stuff, brought a can she painted - she's still a friend).

Gradually I started buying at thrift stores or used book stores, for myself. But sometimes I'd see stuff that fit a friend's likes. Every time I did that, they appeared to be favorite gifts, not just from polite wowsa words. Later on I got poor too - if not the max, close. You would be getting a drawing.

I changed on the matter of buying ribbon and fancy bags or nice paper.
I started making collages of friends' or my own magazines. Scotch tape or equivalent works.
I wish I'd photo'd those. Some of them were big hits. Over time, you could tell my package on the table of wedding gifts.

On gift giving, I get how much it is involved in the world economy, not to mention bribary, or simple social expectation.

I'll say, limit your gifts and make them personal.


Oh, wait, I was supposed to talk about insane experience, I see.
Don't remember one yet but will think on it.