Looking for a gift

Have you ever received a gift you didn't really want?  Or worse still, it was a gift you knew the giver didn't really want either and was just looking to pass it on?

I have.  Sighhhhhh.....  I won't go into the details of the gift but I know the giver has erm... social issues so the gift was a good reflection of their social awareness.  Needless to say, I've scratched the said person off my gift list for-eh-vah.

The people I find hardest to buy gifts for are my in-laws.  Every time we fly to the UK to visit Mum and Dad, I'm at a loss as to what to buy them as buah tangan.   Some wine would make a lovely gift, I'm sure, to be opened at a family dinner but with the new airport regulations, it's hard to cart wine all the way from KL duty-free to the UK.  We usually have a stopover somewhere and we're never sure if we'll be allowed to hand carry our wine from the stopover to UK.

So far, we've always bought our gifts after arriving at home and dumping our luggage.  It's usually practical things that Mum can use and won't buy for herself.  Like most of the older generation, she won't throw things out till they throw themselves out so we've had to persuade her to replace some things before they blow up and take her and Dad with them.  Hehe.  For Christmas, we got her a shiny new toaster.  She was rather pleased with it as the old one had just about given up on making toast.

What got me thinking was this gift voucher she won at a Christmas dinner in her local club.  It was a 10 quid gift card for the local hair salon.  She was so pleased with it as she could get a nice haircut and wash and look pretty for Christmas.

I did some browsing and found this site that sells gift cards.  They'll sell gift cards even for businesses that don't do gift cards.  How do they do it?  Well, you take their card and redeem some cash from them to spend it at the said business.  Clever or what.  I wished they do it in the UK.  Then I could buy Mum some gift cards for more prettying sessions at the local hair salon.