What to give to the "don't buy me anything" person

[ShadowBall]

Basically I only have three people to buy for this helliday season - my BF, my best friend and my mother. BF and Friend's gifts are already purchased (more or less), so that leaves what to get my mother. She always bitches that she wants nothing, but then she won't listen when I say I want nothing because, according to her, "you NEED something to open on Christmas!" I think this stems from her need to show to others that she's not so poor that she can't afford to give her child a good Christmas. Thing is I'm an adult and she has no relatives or friends to show her imaginary wealth off to now because she's disowned them or they've disowned her.

I want to get her something...not just shit for appearance's sake, but something practical. Mom always bitches about how much her back hurts, so I'm thinking I'll get her one of those back massage cushions. She's still on her diet kick, so maybe some diet cookbooks. She has a dog that barks constantly, so maybe a muzzle for him. And possibly a gift card to the grocery store or Wal-Mart or something.

Basically I don't have too much money this year - I have a client project lined up, but the person doing the writing is dragging their ass and I won't have the money in time for Christmas. Another client is kinda dragging their ass too.

I could maybe make stuff...I made her a bunch of earrings for her birthday, but she only has worn maybe one pair of them. I've drawn stuff, but it usually ends up stuffed under the couch or something since there's not enough room for stuff.

Any ideas what I could get for her? Goddammit, why can't she be easy to shop for? She likes movies, books by a certain author (don't know her name off the top of my head), flowers/gardening, and cooking.

[Rapscallion]

Book token?

Rapscallion

[Jester]

You've already identified several gifts that she would enjoy and find useful, i.e., the massager, diet cookboosk, muzzle, etc.

I see no reason why you can't go with one or more of those.
Also, if she likes reading in general, amazon or Visa giftcards always work. I know they do, because that is what Mom always gets me. And this is a good thing...I am tough to shop for, and Mom is basically saying to me, "go buy what YOU want."

A note on gift cards: they are only impersonal if someone (A) wants a particular gift, or (B) they are for something that is not an interest of the giftee. For example, good gift cards for me would be amazon, Bed, Bath, and Beyond (not that I need any more cooking shit!), a cycling store, or something with the NFL, whereas horrible gift cards for me would be Home Depot, Bath and Bodyworks, an art gallery, or a jewelry store. Those would be gift cards from people who truly know nothing about me,and thus those would be highly impersonal.

And remember, in this age, with the internet, gift cards can be very, very versatile.

[houdini]

I often do help-cheques for people - my friends have just had a baby and I didn't want to buy them more baby crap that they won't use, so I did them a "babysitting" and "house-cleaning" card in the style of a cheque, and told them to give me a week's notice when they want to "cash" it and I'll come round. I also did my Mum a spa-day one for her birthday, to be redeemed whenever she felt stressed (and I put a bit of money aside to buy the day whenever she wanted it). Maybe you could do something like that? It's not a traditional present, but it's a thinking-of-you present.

[thansal]

My standard fall back is food.

Something interesting, and in her case low calorie/whatever her diet is.

[bhskittykatt]

The ideas you have lined up sound good.

Also, you could consider maybe doing something like cleaning her house, taking her out to dinner, taking her to the spa, etc.

Hubs complains I'm hard to shop for, 'cause there's never any thing I really want from him. (At least, not in his budget!) I always tell him just to plan a nice date or something, and I'm good. I prefer that rather than some piece of crap that's going to take up space in our already-cramped apartment. (For my last birthday, he took me to see Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie live! For his birthday last year, I took him to the zoo because he'd never been to one before.)

[Seshat]

My fallback is hand-made whatever. Including home-cooked food.

It can be well worth the time to learn how to make treat foods and candies; especially to make diabetic-friendly treat foods.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, I have baked loaves of bread for people. Nothing like a good homemade loaf of bread.

Bread is cheap to make. And you can fancy it up, too.

[MaggieTheCat]

Seconding, thirding, and fourthing the suggestion of homemade food. The adults in my immediate family (my parents and my brothers) basically don't want gifts and told everyone last year not to get anything for them. Well, I still wanted to send stuff for my bros' kids, so I threw in some homemade candy and cookies for the adults and they all went wild. They loved it. I'm probably going to do something similar this year.

[ArcticChicken]

Last year I bought some really nice chocolate chips and made chocolate-coffee bars.

[Lindsey]

Amazon gift card is always great since she can use it for pretty much anything. If you need to get her something tangible too, buy her a mug set with hot chocolate or a box of pretty candy and include the gift card in a holiday greeting card with it.

[ShadowBall]

Here's the thing with my mother...she's internet-retarded. If I got her an Amazon card, I would probably have to sit down for three hours and hold her hand while she shops because she has no idea what the hell to do online.

I also can't cook worth a damn, and anything sweet would likely go untouched because OMG sugar is fattening. Hell, I got bitched at yesterday for making pudding with low-fat milk. Besides, anytime I make anything homemade, my mother complains about how this or that could taste better. So it'd be a waste since I'd likely end up taking homemade food to my BF because it'd go stale before my mother ate it.

I'm hoping like mad I can go see my friend out of town since there's a book store with a whole wall of cookbooks and I bet I could find something good there, but odds are I won't be "allowed" to go since I was "just" there in October.

Cleaning her house...meh...if I knew it would stay clean longer than 10 minutes and if I knew she wouldn't bitch that I'm cleaning it "wrong," I might consider it. My mother is a slob and basically anytime I've cleaned the house in the past and made it look really nice, she'd shit it up in 10-15 minutes because the blankets were folded wrong or pillows were misplaced. Basically she can take 4 hours' worth of cleaning and turn it back into ground zero in the blink of an eye. This goes for any room in the house - bathroom, living room, kitchen, basement. She's worse than a child - it's like she sees a clean room and has to charge full-force at it to make it a mess again because I guess she's more comfortable living in a pigsty.

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. I'm sorry I had to shoot so many down - it's just I know my mother and many of these things would either be impractical, would not be eaten, or would get shoved under the bed (or worse, thrown in my room). Books, movies, gift card, and the cushion might be what I stick with. I'd love to maybe make her a blanket, but thing is I don't know how to use my sewing machine yet.

Another possibility is some kind of good luck charm, whether it's a rabbit's foot or one of those angel medallions people stick in their cars. She's also Catholic and occasionally goes to the casino, so anything of that nature would be helpful.

I may make her a homemade card like last year. Last X-mess, I painted her a card and put the corniest poem in there I could think of and she bawled over it like a baby because she thought it was beautiful.

[RealUnimportant]

I know this won't be a popular suggestion, but if she doesn't want you to get her anything why not do just that? I'd much rather not get given stuff, there's never anything I want & the stuff I get given is 99% crap; even my SO tries to give me things I've never shown any interest in, & we've been together 8 years! One birthday she found this expensive, intricately detailed book on a subject that quite frankly appauled me, and I had no way of keeping the intense disappointment off my face... She'd put some deep thought into rationalising it as something I'd like, but it was all based on 3rd level tangents.

I also don't like gift cards of any flavour, as I rarely shop at a single store often enough to get adequate use from them; if you're going to give me something that's "as good as cash," just give me the cash so I get to pick where to spend it.

[taxguykarl]

My MIL is that sort of way. I won't use anything, she says. Well one year, my wife gave her a Sam's Club bale of TP. Yes, she did use that as we had hoped.

[Seshat]

If she's Catholic, consider giving her a rosary?