My mother hasn't given ME a personal xmas gift for quite a few years now. The kids and my husband get personal gifts, it's just me that is left out. I got.... drum roll.... cleaning cloths!! Okay, my brothers got them too, but still!! And some glass food containers. Those are great, but you know, they aren't personally for me, they are for the whole family. My husband got a $75 gift card. Huh. Yes, he's the "favored one who can do no wrong."

Past gifts from my mom include toothpaste, an electric toothbrush (meant to be shared with husband, but he already had one, so at least that one was all MINE!), flavoured drinks (which I do not drink and gave to the food bank), dish cloths from the loonie store, a music CD - country, which I couldn't stand so I passed it on to someone else, and so on.

No, she's not poor. She's just cheap. My two brothers get similar crap.

Which is why I didn't buy my mom or brothers gifts this year. I did go in with my brothers and buy my dad a nice $100 polar fleece hoodie. He's bald at the moment (doing chemo), so a hooded sweater should come in handy. His head is cold so he wears a toque indoors! Anyway, what I did instead of gifts was got a calendar made with lots of pictures. It was a pain in the butt, and a few weeks after I got it, all the calendar prices dropped, like 40-50% so I'm still a bit miffed about that. The calendars went over well. I tried to use pictures that people wouldn't have seen before. The only person who didn't say much about it was DH. (roll eyes)