I am actually very easy to buy gifts for as long you don’t go off script 😛
I can give you a list of exactly what I want, and you should buy off that list because…. I will just not be happy seeing as I have done a ton of research on exactly what I want, and if you think buying a substitute that is LIKE that item is the same thing, it isn’t. It really isn’t.
It’s like saying a Canadian KitKat tastes the same as an American KitKat (eww, no). Canadian KitKats are the best, everyone know this. So don’t buy me an American one.
I’m also however, not someone who looks a gift horse in the mouth. I will very excitedly accept your present but then probably give it to someone who can use it more, or figure out a way to repurpose it so that it’s useful for me.
My partner is even more difficult than I. He doesn’t want anything. And if you buy something, you can be sure 99% of the time, it is something he DOES NOT WANT.
In conclusion, if we want anything, we will buy it ourselves.
Therefore, do not buy us anything, unless you are planning on making food for us to eat, and/or it is already on our approved list of “Things I Would Enjoy / Already Use“.
Keeping in line with all of this, it is how we have managed to stop giving gifts to people because we ourselves DO NOT want to receive any. Win-win.
We have achieved the coveted #Minimalist Level of: The No Gift Minimalist Christmas! NINJA LEVEL
My mother, has a real problem with this. She cannot help herself.
She WANTS to give a gift. She WANTS to spoil us. We ask her for money instead to put into Little Bun’s RESP or whatever, and she struggles so hard internally to NOT buy us ALL THE THINGS and to just give us money instead but she feels just so sad she can’t stand it.
She even gives us gifts and then we have to do the dreaded speech of “Mom, I can’t keep this gift because WE HAVE NO SPACE. I already said this! STOP buying us stuff. We don’t want any of it.” Then when you ask her for something like “oh find me some triangular crayons for Little Bun”, she goes and buys out the store and brings you a massive box. O_o
Therefore, last summer, amidst constant insistence that WE DO NOT WANT STUFF, she presented me a cheque for some money towards a piano for Little Bun because I conceded that I would like to buy a piano and I could play it along with teaching Little Bun how to play.
I have deposited the money safely in our account, earmarked for “Piano” and will buy one soon-ish once I can go and test out these pianos in person and pick the best one.
