I got a bit annoyed at a mother-to-be who registered somewhere and everything on the registry was mostly unnecessary (expensive) stuff. It is ok to ask for unnecessary stuff when you already have everything else but the mother was strapped for cash and really needed the necessities, not the niceties.

Now here is something tacky... it didn't happen to me but my relative did this to some of my other relatives... you ask your family to help you move but on moving day you don't even have anything packed and then you sit and watch as your relatives pack stuff for you.

how about asking a family member for help cleaning the overwhelming amount of clutter from you home- only to not help them clean up your mess, fight them all the way on the things that needed to be purged (like expired canned goods that had no label) - only to turn around and pull everything out of the garbage and donation bins and put them back where they started the moment said helpful family member leaves. ooh, i was mad.

I've got one for you.

My moms side of the family is big, so at Christmas we draw names so we dont have to buy for everyone. The limit is about 20 bucks.

Nothing wrong there right? Practical and makes sense.

Here is the tacky part.

My then dh was picked by my cousin and my uncle was picked by this same cousins wife.

Christmas came around and no gift. New years came around and no gift. Valentines day came around, no gift. Then at the end of February my mom gets a package in the mail. Inside is a shoe box for my uncle and a shoe box for my then dh.

Inside these shoe boxes? Armor All for your car, tube socks, cough drops, and a package of pens that were broken.

UH???

I later found at these were all leftovers from her mission trip to china!

The next year, same family, I drew my other cousins name and his wife drew mine. We all kinda go around and see who gets our names. I spent a month looking for a c.d. my cousin loves. It ended up costing more then the 20 dollar limit. What did I get from them? A ceramic santa potpourri thing from the dollar store.

Needless to say we no longer do this.

i always get ripped off on the draw a name w/ my in-laws too.

Sounds like this person has serious issues with a hoarding compulsion

Not being invited to the wedding or reception or shower, but to the "post-wedding BBQ where we can collect presents from everyone we didn't invite to the wedding"....

SFJ - That happened to me too! We drew names and I didn't get a gift for christmas and neither did someone else. Happened to be a relative and his wife, neither of them bought gifts for anyone but they happily collected the gifts. They never should've drew names if they didn't want to give a gift. I don't do name draws with my family any more.

Nelie, we had that same moving situation. We were asked to help move DH's aunt and his GM from Iowa to Oklahoma. We used our own vehicles, trailer, gas, paid for our own meals.(To top it off, it was in January and we were freezing our butts off and trying to avoid the ice on the highways). When we got to Iowa, nothing had been packed. We were told ahead of time that it was a small 2 bedroom duplex that we would be moving and that everything was ready. It turned out to be a 2 story house which there was no way the stuff would fit on the trailer. The GM was mormon and had a humongous room full of stored canned food that would have taken up the whole trailer. DH was pretty furious since this trip also costed him his vacation days at work. The GM and Aunt also brought back 2 old clunker cars, (one of which I had to drive since the GM no longer had a license to drive). The car I was driving blew the transmission on the way and costed her over $1200.00 to fix which was more than the car was worth. Needless to say, a second trip to get the rest of the junk was required. We didn't offer to go the second time, DH's mother and his sister went back and got their stuff. With the cost we were out, the car problems, the second trip and such, it would have been WAY less expensive for them to have used a moving company. My DH still refers to it as the Trip to **** and gets pi@@ed when he thinks about it.

I'm from a big family and we do the name drawing thing at Christmas too. One year my sister got my name, she followed me shopping while I admired a blouse. She got me that blouse as a gift. I later returned to the store and bought that blouse for myself, not knowing she had drawn my name. When she found out that i had already bought the same thing, she kept the blouse for herself but never bothered to get me anything else. Whenever we draw names now, we leave her out.

Oh, I have another tacky story. I don't know if this is a common practice where you are, but I got invited to two different baby showers (for the same individual) where there were also a concurrent candle party and a cosmetic presentation--where the consultants for each were saying if we guests didn't want to buy anything, could still buy for the guest of honor. I didn't like being blindsided by these people at all. I'm sorry, but I don't feel like candles or make-up are a suitable gift for a mother to be, I'd rather buy something for the baby.

OK, I have to admit, I HATE the dollar dance too, but dh's family always does it and despite my instructions to the contrary, there it was at mine. I guess it is a midwest thing

I agree completely. I don't like the entire concept of home parties. The last thing I want to do is invite my friends into my home and then have things there for them to buy. Entertaining should be about giving and making people feel comfortable.

The dollar dance was also done at my wedding (I always thought it had hispanic roots?) and my aunt was the first to actually pin money on my veil--I was pissed! It disrupts the married couples 'first dance' and even though we had the emcee ask people not to go up to the dance floor until the 1st dance was over, they did it anyway

glory - yes there is definately a hoarding problem w/ her. and it is one of her lesser problems. *LOL*

my best friend did the dollar dance at her wedding. i agree it's kinda .. well.. it felt kinda country to me. plus i was also obliged as maid of honor to dance with the groom and stuff money into his shirt - well where the **** is a maid of honor supposed to stash cash? in her shoe? it was awkward.

OMG yes, i agree, that might be really one of the tackiest practices ever. If I'm ever invited to one of those, there's no WAY I'd go.

About the name drawing thing- WOW. Some stories! I've only seen that done once, the first time I met part of my girlfriend's extended family, and it seemed like a really nice idea... because they all got something nice. But I can only imagine how terrible it must be, going the other way.

Regifting- HA! these stories are great.. i don't know how I'd be able to keep my big mouth shut!


And all these moving stories.. my goodness... what is wrong with people??

Wow I started this post last night and got pulled away by the kids

tacky - yup we've done the "go to help move" and NOTHING is packed.

tackier - not only was nothing packed, they had asked dh to "pick up beer on the way" which we assumed meant "because we are busy packing will you pick up the beer that we need to buy and we will reimburse you when you get here" NO.

tackiest - not ONLY did they not reimburse us for the beer, they took the leftover beer and hid it and when they ordered pizza for the group who helped them move they took up a collection to pay for it. And kept those leftovers too.

tacky gift - receiving a used deck of playing cards for a wedding gift.

tacky baby shower. A coworker who had older kids spent most of her pregnancy bemoaning how she hadnt planned on a third so she had gotten rid of all her baby stuff. So we threw her an elaborate shower as did her church and her friends ...3 showers. She had registered at BRU and target and people were going in together for some big ticket stuff - cribs, etc. Only to find out later that she hadn't gotten rid of any of her baby stuff until AFTER the showers were planned, and then she started e-baying her old stuff. And she returned the crib because she still had one and it didnt sell on ebay.