gotta present

[ghostjmf]

its a debit card. I dunno why this stuff brings me down so much. Oh yeah I do. Its because I spent all that time I didn't really have shopping for the special something for people whose idea of what to give me was money. Happenned before. They might as well have just given me bills. Don't get me wrong, I like it better than several gift cards I've been given in previous years that will allow me to buy a big expensive book at the book store in question some day, if book stores still exist then, & if the store lets me use them together.


There's this party my friends hold where instead of doing Secret Santa (each one picks one to buy for) or a grab bag (everyone buy generic gifts & everyone picks one) or putting a price limit on gifts, so its guaranteed that what gets given won't break anyone's bank, or just decreeing that you give your gifts privately, everyone is expected to give a gift to everyone there, including the people where that's the only time of year you see them. Chances are that if you decide this will break your bank, & opt not to go to party because of it, you will be delivered at a later date a big bag of gifts from people who thought you would be there, who you didn't buy anything for. Uh oh.


Then the people who see each other a lot crow over the very fancy thing their friend got them that they had to be dissuaded from buying for themselves because, well, their friend had already secretly got it for them. This always strikes me as so childish; we're adults, we shouldn't be at the mercy of other people's decisions when buying what we want.


I dunno why I would rather have something that's not quite my style than the $$ it would have taken to buy it. Seems I should prefer that, right? But money has always seemed to me like a bad present. For one thing, I like shopping for bargains that don't look like they were bargains. Unless my friends were in the exact same booth at the exact same Christmas Fair, they don't know that the expensive present I bought them maybe wasn't as expensive as it looks. With money, even a lot of it (card's activation fee literature stated fee for activating a small amount, but turns out its actually quite a lot), its not a gift, its just, well, money.

[SportsFan68]

I'm of two minds on this one. Usually I do prefer getting an actual present that somebody spent time and money shopping for, or more time and less money making.

But about a million years ago I was a volunteer behind the camera for the government programs of the local television station, and they gave all of us $50 in Chamber of Commerce "local dollars" at the end of the year, plus SteelersFanSenior sent $100 for Christmas. I instantly had enough money to buy a jacket for myself I had been coveting. This is approximately what it looked like --



The price was about the same as this one, which was originally $318.00 and ended up sale price $187. The one I bought ended up at $150 -- just right. I still love that jacket. So I'm torn, but I admit I don't have Ghost's dilemmas with regard to group gifting. Money or present, I'm happy and grateful either way.

[Beebs52]

It's difficult to buy often, because who knows what one needs? We all have so much "stuff" that random other stuff just adds to the pile. I mean we got kids a Best Buy card to get a dryer and other kidlet probably games. No idea what to buy by myself.

With that said, I do appreciate little quirky stuff, so, whatya gonna do?

[ghostjmf]

Beebs: No way I think you should have bought the actual dryer; they've got to pick it out to fit wherever it goes, what type they want, what color, etc, but they'll sure appreciate "this $$ goes toward the dryer".


I understand that. But much as I'd appreciate contributions for car repair & such, I'm missing the tchochkas of the season. (Unusual Yiddish word there in which both "ch"s are pronounced "ch".

[a1mamacat]

More and more, as the Boy and my nieces have aged, the gift cards comes into play, especially for my folks, as they just don't have the ability to go shopping now. I also get a 'gift card' usually, although this year, I got new tires, two weeks early LOL.

We had a Santa Exchange at work, and there were some very fun gifts, along with 3 'coffee shop' cards. You just know that some people were just 'too busy' to shop. I scored a beautiful L'Occitain gift pack and gave a bottle of red wine with a copper wine stopper.

[Bob Juch]

Beebs: No way I think you should have bought the actual dryer; they've got to pick it out to fit wherever it goes, what type they want, what color, etc, but they'll sure appreciate "this $$ goes toward the dryer".


I understand that. But much as I'd appreciate contributions for car repair & such, I'm missing the tchochkas of the season. (Unusual Yiddish word there in which both "ch"s are pronounced "ch".

Isn't it "tchotchkes"?

[ghostjmf]

On spelling Yiddish words in English:

You're supposed to hit whatever letters have direct English matches, so even w/o looking up the Hebrew-letter spelling (Yiddish, though a version of medieval German with some Hebrew & Slavic words salted in is written in Hebrew) I'd bet that "t" is supposed to be there.


But otherwise: There are some into-English spelling conventions you have to obey to get Yiddish-to-English dictionaries to work. This sucks on-line. In a physical book you can just keep looking 'til you find what you're looking for, but you can't usually get whole pages up in an on-line search.

Edited by me, who apparently can't spell in English either.

[Bob Juch]

On spelling Yiddish words in English:

You're supposed to hit whatever letters have direct English matches, so even w/o looking up the Hebrew-letter spelling (Yiddish, though a version of medieval German with some Hebrew & Slavic words salted in is written in Hebrew) I'd bet that "t" is supposed to be there.


But otherwise: There are some into-English spelling conventions you have to obey to get Yiddish-to-English dictioneries to work. This sucks on-line. In a physical book you can just keep looking 'til you find what you're looking for, but you can't usually get whole pages up in an on-line search.

Okay, in Hebrew it's צאצקע which transliterates to tzatzka.

[jarnon]

On spelling Yiddish words in English:

You're supposed to hit whatever letters have direct English matches, so even w/o looking up the Hebrew-letter spelling (Yiddish, though a version of medieval German with some Hebrew & Slavic words salted in is written in Hebrew) I'd bet that "t" is supposed to be there.


But otherwise: There are some into-English spelling conventions you have to obey to get Yiddish-to-English dictioneries to work. This sucks on-line. In a physical book you can just keep looking 'til you find what you're looking for, but you can't usually get whole pages up in an on-line search.

Okay, in Hebrew it's צאצקע which transliterates to tzatzka.

The Wikipedia article Tchotchke lists a number of alternate spellings and Slavic cognates. In Yiddish, it's טשאַטשקע (tshatshke). The Hebrew צאצקע is closer to the Slavic equivalents than to the Yiddish word.

[ghostjmf]

Wiki claims its originally Slavic. So even the Hebrew spelling, & various Yiddish pronunciations from various parts of Europe, are an open guess.

[tlynn78]

I fall a little on the side of gc's are okay. There are simply some peeps one just can't buy for. I have a cousin and his wife with whom we exchange gifts. She's the 'see something she wants; buys it' type. I got them a theater gift card and a restaurant gift card so they can have a date night - suspect I'll do the same for my boss and his wife.
I don't mind getting gift cards at all. Word of warning, however: if you are going to 'regift' a gift card, make sure it's one you haven't already used and then forgotten you used it. I received one last year from a former co-worker (who I was NOT expecting or wanting anything from - I hate it when that happens!) that had a face value of $25, but an actual balance of $11. lol

[ghostjmf]

My problem with the gift card thing is its got to be a gift card at a store/restaurant/online vendor I actually regularly spend money at, or it just sits there in my pocket. I have maybe $36.00 worth of Barnes & Noble cards at this point, I think I checked that they don't expire, but I'm going to want to buy a decent hardcover book & have a place to store it. I've tried to palm these off on friends/relatives who regularly buy books (I go to the library, folks) & have been told "no, you use them"). The local indie bookstore I also have an unused card to tells me the card is only good for their books, not their coffeehouse stuff (or I'd have spent it long ago). I supposed B&N has the same rule; ought to check that.


I guess I prefer this debit card with money I can spend anywhere the best, but I'll have to say, if my friends wanted a big thank you they should have put the amount on the card-packet. Instead, there was all this stuff about a $4.95 activation fee (which apparently they paid, as I didn't have to) & a list telling me $4.95 was for a $25.00 card. I called the card co to check, because I'm that kind of person, & this is a $100.00 card, folks; now I'll have to thank my friends more appropriately. One (a couple & an non-coupled friend were together on this) is a friend who cat-sat for me in an emergency, but wouldn't take any $$, so I have a standing offer to treat them to dinner. I will probably be paying for it with their gift card.


To be completely mercenary about this, I spent $31 on presents for the couple & $16 for the non-coupled friend, so I feel I owe them $53 of something. Which I wouldn't feel if they'd bought me real presents of whatever value. Plus I spent a lot of time hunting for tchochkas/tchotchkes I thought they would like.


(A person at this party I know a lot less well I gave a $3.50 scented designer-type soap, & they gave me a nice jar of designer-type marmalade with the $4.50 price left on it, but I don't feel I owe them anything!)


Its called a "Vanilla MasterCard". I had to be persuaded it did not have to be spent at some store called "Vanilla" that I've never heard of. I was picturing "Valerie's Vanilla" or something.


There are a whale of a lot of rules for gift debit card that Vanilla MasterCard wants you to listen to. The most important of them is that many card-swipe gas stations will put some kind of massive hold on the card when you swipe it (for probably more $$ than is in the card), so the thing to do is give it to the person inside instead & tell them "I'm pumping $10.00" or whatever. I told them I was pumping $20.00, then only pumped about $12.00, & they tell me the balance is automatically credited back to the card. They gave me a printed receipt for the $12.00. We'll see. I am so anal I've got to exactly fill my tank so I know what mileage I'm getting, & I knew $10.00 wouldn't do it. How stupid of me.