Gee Thanks - Gee Thanks – Sponsored by American Express® Gift Cards

Submitted by The Bargainist on December 12th, 2008

One Christmas, a guy I was just beginning  to see invited me to a Christmas party at his colleague’s place. Before we left for the shindig, he surprised me with a festive gift bag containing a perfume brand I’d never worn before. He insisted I try it out right away so I could wear it to the dinner party.

The whole car ride there I was trying to breathe as shallow as I possibly could; the stench was awful. It smelled rancid, like overcooked carrots and parsley, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. All night I was busy meeting new people, sitting next to new acquaintances, or engaging in intimate circles of gossip, and I swear I saw more than a few noses wrinkled in olfactory displeasure.

Not wanting to hurt my new boyfriend’s feelings, but knowing I could never wear the perfume again, I went to the kitchen and rubbed a cut lemon on my wrists and neck, a fruit I’m quite allergic to. Once I broke out in a rash, I showed my boyfriend and sadly told him I must be allergic to the fragrance he’d given me. He apologized profusely and took me shopping to choose my own fragrance a few days later.

by Bianca Bartz

photo by joannenah

Submitted by Alexis on December 5th, 2008

I really like to cook and happen to love Japanese food. It’s not uncommon for friends and family to give me cooking-related items like a nice set of knives or a cookbook.

The funniest and most interesting gift of all time, was the set of 6 specialty soy sauces flown in from Japan. It turned out to be a great gift – interesting, useful and tasty, but still makes me wonder what about me screams “I need gift-wrapped sodium!”

Submitted by Trend Hunter on December 18th, 2008

The idea behind a Secret Santa gift exchange is great: Set a price limit, drop names from a hat and gift away. A completely anonymous Secret Santa gift exchange is somewhat more perilous, however, especially when college kids are thrown into the mix.

My freshman year dorm instituted a Secret Santa gift exchange that would remain completely anonymous. Our gifts were to be labeled and given to our RA, who would then disperse the gifts at our weekly meeting to open. There were some brief guidelines and a $10 limit. Since the exchange was limited to just our hall, there were only 20 of us. How bad could it be?

For my Secret Santa gift, I bought an AC/DC shirt. I received a fart machine. Yes, a fart machine. I considered myself lucky minutes later when one of the super-sheltered twins opened a miniature, um, adult toy.

Since then, the Secret Santa gifts I’ve received as a working professional have been relatively innocuous, but no less welcome in my home: a singing, dancing Big Mouth Billy Bass, a Tamagotchi (about 12 years too late) and a tennis racket bug zapper. Thankfully, all of these gifts–including the fart machine that kicked this tirade off–came with its receipt.

-Marissa Brassfield for Trend Hunter

image by Dan Zen

Submitted by John Battelle on December 10th, 2008

Every single year I get a shirt from my mom. It’s the kind of shirt I really liked…when I was in high school. Every single year I say “Thanks!” but I think the “Gee” is getting more and more evident…I think this year I need to figure out how to say…Gee, Mom, this is great, can my son have it?! He’s almost in high school!

Submitted by jen on December 17th, 2008

my grandmother is famous in the gift giving world. a few year’s ago she bought all of the college-aged boys large, stuffed christmas rats. i’m not even kidding here- think 4-feet tall christmas rat- FAR from a college kid’s dream. upon opening, the guys just looked… confused. i got a kick out of it, since a few years earlier i had received earrings for my unpierced ears. how thoughtful, grandma…

photo by balutpalooza

Submitted by Alison Storm on December 18th, 2008

I have a small circle of high school friends. Even though we live in five different states we work hard to keep in touch. We exchange phone calls and e-mails and birthday cards. We’ve forked over big bucks for bridesmaid dresses for each other’s weddings. We’ve spent large chunks of our paychecks on plane tickets to Vegas for our annual gathering. And every year we buy each other Christmas presents, carefully wrap them up, and ship them off as another way to show our friendship.

But this year one of girls in this intimate circle (we’ll call her Friend B) decided that with the state of the economy our decade-old tradition of exchanging Christmas gifts should be halted. Friend B’s e-mail read,

‘the main thing that I wanted to bring up is the gift exchange thing. I know that every year I feel very strapped financially and I also don’t have as much time to shop for great gifts as I would like… so I was thinking that maybe we should not exchange gifts this year due to all of the economic strain and all of us having not as much free time as we would like. What do you think about this idea? If you still really want to do the gift thing let me know, but I will just have to do small items.’ READ THE REST…

Submitted by NOTCOT on December 19th, 2008

Small children love repetition. If their toy beeps, giggles, sings,squeaks or gongs then you can be guaranteed they will make it do so as many times as possible. And if they can hit something and produce a loud noise? That is like kid nirvana.

Giving children a full drum set or a certain ticklish doll who shall remain nameless will no doubt make them light up with joy … and make their parents curse the day you were born. The same goes for encouraging someone else’s child’s budding musical talents by giving them a kazoo, mini-accordion or sing-along CD by [insert name of fictional musical teenagers or brightly colored puppet here].  Of course, sometimes we give these kinds of gifts on purpose. Whether it’s as a joke on a friend, revenge on a formerly obnoxious younger sibling or a passive-aggressive payback ~ there are endless ways to drive a parent crazy. We know, it’s wrong. But damn if it isn’t funny.

Submitted by Kate on December 12th, 2008

I was once “surprised” with a gift that I had been asking for over a year, a pair of earrings. Here’s how the story goes…. Every holiday, birthday, valentine’s day, anniversary for a year I hinted and hinted that I wanted this pair of earrings. I even told my friends to flat out tell my boy friend that I wanted this pair of earnings. Still he never got the hint. Come Christmas I still didn’t get them. So being the independent and impatient Manhattanite female that I am, I finally got sick of waiting and went out and bought them for myself after having not received these earrings for every darn holiday for a year.

Fast forward to New Year’s Day and I find a present on the kitchen table. A.) who gives new year’s presents? and b.) what did you wait to get said gift on sale? Anyway, I open the gift and it’s the earrings… mind you the one’s I was wearing!!!

If that’s not a Gee, Thanks moment I don’t know what is! That ever happen to anyone else?? Please don’t let me be the only one!!