Ok, I know, when I was growing up there was certain etiquette when giving and receiving gifts. Now I don't expect these were all across the board, but it was what was considered polite in my family. One thing was to ALWAYS remove the price tags. My mother always said it was in poor taste and kind of rude to leave price tags on gifts. I will forget to put a tag on a gift saying it was from me, but I will never leave a price tag on one. *laugh* Through the past year every gift given to us has had prices still on them.
Now one thing my husband's family ALWAYS do, that I find strange, is when someone gives a gift to one of our kids (or any children in the family) They want to sit with the child on their lap surrounded by the gifts they just gave them and take a picture. Now, whereas, I don't think that it is rude or anything like that, I do find it kind of peculiar.
Does anyone else have any strange habits or etiquette when it comes to gift giving/receiving?
ha! ha! I see I'm not the only one with the price tag thing.
Just as a note, I have no problem with the tags still being on the item. The prices are easily removed though. They are kind of made to be torn off, so the tags are still there to return the item, if need be, just not the price the person paid.
I guess I am in the majority with the picture thing. I guess I just thought it was strange because no one in my family, or anyone I've known has done that. I suppose it's not unheard of, just not that common.
We're definitely a price tag removing family AND gift receipt givers, as well. I even scratch out the price if I take a pie somewhere!
My in-laws? They leave the price tag ON, give us the actual receipt AND the gift receipt!
The pictures? I might take a pic of my nephew opening my gift, but a staged, formal "to do" rule seems odd.
We try to take a picture of the child with the gift as he opens it. Especially if the giver isn't present. The idea is to give the picture to the gift giver. We often didn't get the picture sent. Now, my daughter does better at sending the picture thru her I-phone.
We also take off all price tags. And.....wrap the gift. Except lately, we've started just putting the gift in a bag; a pretty gift bag. However, sometimes I've forgotten to get a bag and I give the gift in the store bag. I really appreciate stores that use pretty bags.
No strange habits or etiquette I can think of or yet REALIZE :o) ...
Anyway, my grandmother taught me to never leave the price of gifts visible. Even if I purchase it off a registry I remove or cover the price. I'm glad they make the price part perforated for easy removal now because before that I used to cut it off or cover it with a black marker. I still color over the price on store bought cards (not the ones I give my husband and children though).
Something I've found a bit strange about my in-laws is that they will ask about the price of things. My husband and his younger brother seem to be the only ones who don't do it. The others have asked how much we paid for our house, vehicles, clothing, shoes, even our kids' photos. Even things we've gifted them. Lol. I just don't know why someone needs to know that when they aren't in the market for that particular thing or when it's a gift. Once, I told one of them that it was personal. He felt that since he is my husbands (older) brother that I shouldn't have had an issue telling him the price of our home. I told him the rice range of the area, but not what we paid for our house. He seemed disappointed. Lol. Funny thing is when he saw my husband he didn't ask him.
One last thing...
When I got engaged one of my co-workers actually asked me the cost of my engagement ring. I told her that it was personal. She told me that if she wanted to know she could just go to the jeweler and find out. I told her that she would have to since I wasn't telling. I also told her that since it was so important for her to know the price, going to the jeweler shouldn't be a problem. If she ever went through the trouble she never mentioned it. Haha... :o)
My mom would make us put all our unwrapped presents back under the tree (when we werent using them) until New Years so everyone that came by the house could be in awe of what a great Christmas we had! I don't do that.
My mom would tear the whole tag off and throw it away so nothing she bought could ever be returned. That was annoying.
My odd tradition is giving presents to my ex-husband. At 1st I would put on the tag that it was from his daughter. She's 19 now and buys her own gifts, so that excuse is over. Now I make the gift be from my new kids with my new husband. Yeah, that's odd.
Your mother must have grown up in the same neighborhood as me!
I think it is tacky to leave the price tag on too. I also think if you are giving a gift, you should show up to the party and not send it in the mail when you live down the street. If you want a gift, invite the people over to a party. If you don't, don't expect a gift. If you exchange a gift, be within the range of agreement (Christmas time). My in-laws are the the strangest people alive. My family usually gives between $40-50 for a Christmas gift, and we all exchange. My husband's family gives $10.00 for my children, and expects me to give them $50-80 a gift. They also expect you to send the gift and not invite you to the party. So I stopped going to the in-laws since my husband wants nothing to do with them, because he hates his family. I have been gracious enough to sent gifts and dropping them off in person. But, they don't invite us over for holidays and wants us to put the gifts on their door steps. So this year, if they don't want us over then they will not exchange gifts with us. I believe holidays are to be with the people you care about and not sent gifts in the mail. The in-laws do not live outside of town...THEY ARE CLOSE. Plus, they have always been invited to our house but never show up and hurt my children's feelings. So I say screw them all now.
I am a constant gift returner and therefore I give others the option of returning gifts. So I too leave the price on and give the receipt. It is too hard to return a gift without a receipt and if the receiver doesn't want it I dont want to waste my money!!!
well ok so maybe I am weird but I would hate to receive a gift for my child of clothing or whatever and it not be appropriate (size, season, age whatever) and not be able to return it for something that does fit etc. and tacky would be my having to call you and say I need the tags and or receipts. tackier still would be my having to donate it to goodwill be cause of you not wanting someone to know where it was purchased or how much it cost. cost is not the issue and I totally understand tearing the price part of the tag off and including a gift receipt but to remove the tags totally so there is no way to know where it came from is in my opinion rude. but thats just me lol
Price tags always come off for us too - the only exception is when my Mom or sister buys an outfit or something that they found cute and on sale or whatever. We're so close and it's so familiar that it doesn't matter. In fact, we'll brag and be proud of ourselves for the great deal we got. BUT, any gift going out of our house, or giving on an occasion like birthday or Christmas the tag always comes off.
We do the picture thing too though, but our family is sort like picture crazy. We take pictures of everything all the time. We're pretty obnoxious about it actually. BUT, I was recently scanning a bunch of old pictures from my childhood and my dad's childhood and I wish there had been more. I have several of birthdays where I'm surrounded by wrapped packages and now I'm wondering ~~ what was in those packages - what did I get for my 4th birthday - what was I into? It would have been cool to have some of those pictures too.
At Christmas time, we ALWAYS take turns unwrapping gifts (and there are 27 of us!). It's never a chaotic free for all, paper flying mess. The kids go first (until they are old enough to wait their turn with the whole group) and they take turns, even at that age when taking turns is so hard and the presents are so exciting! It's a few hours, but everyone spent their time and money picking out gifts and we want to see what everyone got - appreciate it a little, y'know.
