Family Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I think we need yet another S/O Poll:
What's the worst custom made gift someone gave you?
(This was inspired by the fairy wedding diorama from Kota's post.)
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Non wedding - a custom faberge style egg, using purple nail polish as the surface color. It opened on a tiny hinge to revel a large CZ stone set in a nest of brown paper shreddings.
Wedding - a fug pewter dish (hello lead poisoning) made in Mexico with a matching spoon from my MIL, with the 20$ price tag still attached, wrapped in newspaper and sealed with masking tape.
Hope is not a strategy.
Re: I think we need yet another S/O Poll:
BIL and his GF bought us a painting from an "up and coming artist" (so therefore it will be worth TONS later) that was the son of one of GF's clients.
It was a picture of a zebra in the African safari and it was just ..... bad. Bad, bad, bad.
We named him Zebo and the painting became known as "Zebo the retarded zebra".
We actually hung it (literally on a random nail sticking out of our brick wall) in our LR for a long time - more because of the hilarity of it.
But when we moved, I told DH the joke was over.... Zebo was going in the basement.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I love this story! Zebo!
I now realize that I don't think anyone has ever given me a custom made gift, aside from artist friends that knew I had always admired a certain piece and then they gave it to me. My mother is an artist and she has a policy that she never gives her art to people as a gift (aside from situations such as my cousin who kept saying "When am I going to get one of your paintings for my new house?")
LOL at the leather plate. What on earth?
MIL is FAMOUS for giving DH and I holiday decorative items. he had to ask her to stop giving us anna lee dolls (i HATE them). she loves them and assumed we did as well. frankly-those things are possessed looking. dh told her they scare him so i wouldn't be at blame. good dh! the number of holiday plates, kitchen towels, bathroom towels, soap dispensers, place mats, napkins, serving forks, serving spoons etc.. is astounding. i've donated 99% of the stuff.
I have been very lucky and the homemade gifts I have received have been awesome. Here is a sample of some of the stuff we have received a clock from DH's brother, quilts from friends (one for the wedding and one for the birth of our son) and a truck from DH's best man.
Now, it's a different story when it comes to stire bought gifts we received for our wedding. For example - a heart-shaped dutch oven, a plate with the Milwaukee skyline on it and 2004 wall calendar (we got married in October of 2004).
Well - I inspired the poll so ya know what my answer already is!
The fairy diorama was absolutely the worst, followed up by the bedazzled swan music box that the same relative of DH gave me for Christmas. DH had no qualms about putting that one right in the garbage after proclaiming me the best liar of the day when I smiled and genuinely thanked the giver. DH said he wouldn't have known what to say in the presence of such "beauty".
The other bad one - my Dad is a healthcare provider and had a patient who is an artist and was going to need some serious attention but knew they couldn't pay their bill. My dad agreed to a service swap and this artist was to paint a pic based on some photos they supplied. The painting came back and of all the pics she had to choose from, she chose one of me and my childhood dog but it was BAD. The dog's head was bigger than mine and my face was all sorts of wrong. I came home and it was propped up on the mantle at my parents house (I was in highschool at the time) and my jaw dropped and I just didn't quite know what to say about it. My parents were busting up laughing. The artist got the better end of that deal, for sure. I think my parents finally threw it away after storing it in their attic for a long time.
MIL is a Catholic school teacher and is very frugile, so DH and I have gotten many, many regifted items that were obviously from her [preschool] students such as snowmen mugs with marshmallows inside and earring sets that look they either came from the Dollar Store or from a costume jewlery shop.
For my bridal shower, MIL got us a bunch of random towels for the bathroom & kitchen that we didn't register for. I actually liked all of them, which worked out. BUT, she wrote in our card that "the lawnmower that FIL dropped off was also part of our gift..", in which she meant this used, garage sale lawnmower that FIL gave to DH that didn't work.
For Xmas one year, my dad gave me this scary singing ornament that when you pushed the button on its head, its BIG eyes opened and it started to sing. It was too scary to display and wasn't funny enough to regift, so we tossed it.
For our wedding both my mom and my aunt gave us multiple sets of champagne flutes - like we have about 4 sets. I have been sober for 6 years. I found this to be the most ridiculous thing ever. Especially since they were super offended that I wasn't falling all over myself about the gifts.
Non wedding - my mom got my husband and I a glass brick with the eiffel tower etched inside of the middle of it that sits on a plastic pedestal that lights up and changes colors - apparently since we got engaged in Paris this was to be a super great reminder. Um, yeah, my engagement ring is reminder enough, thanks mom. It's still the most hilarious gift we've ever gotten.
Sorry, I missed the "homemade" part. My mom's friend took our wedding invitation and trimmed it down (!) and put it in a cheap picture frame from Target and sent it back to us. Um, thanks?
Wedding -- got a few custom made things, but all were things we liked.
Non-wedding -- got a SUPER scratchy baby sweater as a shower gift when pg with DD. I'd love to say it was cute and precious, but it was really just ugly. And scratchy. Very scratchy.
ETA: Wedding, but not hand made -- this appliance called The Juice Tiger. The "As Seen On TV" sticker was right on there, and it was clearly a re-gift. We have continued to joke about the "juice tiger -- growrr!" ever since. We kept it for a while, then finally decided to sell it when we had a yard sale. The yard sale was a total fail. The only item that sold the WHOLE day was the stupid Juice Tiger!! We got five whole dollars for it!
I still miss Zebo. Sniff.... sniff.