Weirdest gift ever

[Mermaidsdaughter78]

My NMom made herself a photo calendar with all pictures of her friends and acquaintances. She got a bogo and gave the free one to my husband for his Xmas gift.

When I told her it was weird she said it's "customary" to send people calendars with photos of people that they don't know and that I made her feel "worthless."

She has been trying to pick a fight for weeks because Christmas. It's crazy making

[Leonor]

Hi Mermaids daughter!

Oh, we have a long and rich tradition of truly bizarre Christmas "gifts" from disordered relatives.

What man wouldn't treasure a leftover calendar filled with photos of his ... mother in law?

I cannot even.

@Catofthecanals, do you want to start this year?

[NarcKiddo]

I dodged a bullet this year. A couple of months ago my mother ordered me a gift of costume jewellery which she apparently thought would go with all my clothing. She told me there was a delivery delay. The gift has now got lost in transit and the company has discontinued the item so she cannot obtain a replacement. When she told me of the gift and the company it was coming from I had a glance through their jewellery section (they don't sell much) as I did not even realise you could get jewellery from there and I wondered what sort of stuff they sell. Most of it is inoffensive but there was one bracelet I utterly hated. When my mother described the lost item it turns out to have been the one I utterly hated. It is so completely not me, and not like anything I would wear. Big and ostentatious and would just get in the way of everything and trail in my coffee.

In theory the gift is not bizarre. But I have plenty of examples of the bizarre, too.

[moglow]

When I told her it was weird she said it's "customary" to send people calendars with photos of people that they don't know and that I made her feel "worthless."

Customary... For who?? Never heard of it and I've heard some weird stuff over the years. That's one of these "oh. Wow. Thank you for the calendar."   moments.

[Cat of the Canals]

When I told her it was weird she said it's "customary" to send people calendars with photos of people that they don't know and that I made her feel "worthless."

Customary... For who?? Never heard of it and I've heard some weird stuff over the years. That's one of these "oh. Wow. Thank you for the calendar."  moments.

Well, just today PDmil texted my husband a photo of the 94-year-old mother of her 4th grade best friend. So maybe sharing photos of people no one else knows is specifically customary among PDs, lol.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Sounds like a new tradition! 

[Mermaidsdaughter78]

It's so tempting to send her a calendar filled with random strangers for Xmas next year!! Lol

[Poison Ivy]

Cat of the Canals, I interpret your mother-in-law's texting of the photo as an invitation or directive that your husband respond with, "Wow, Mom, you look so much better and younger than her!"

[Cat of the Canals]

Cat of the Canals, I interpret your mother-in-law's texting of the photo as an invitation or directive that your husband respond with, "Wow, Mom, you look so much better and younger than her!"

That's an interesting possibility. I've never known her to fish for compliments, but her social skills are so poor I often struggle to figure out what she's getting at, so maybe that's an angle I've been missing all along!

[atticusfinch]

I know this must be super horrifying for you, but I couldn't help laugh at what a narc sort of gift this is! I could absolutely see my mom doing something like this. I'm so sorry, especially that she tried to gaslight both of you into thinking it was a perfectly normal gift. I've also decided lately that one way my narcissistic mother gets out of taking responsibility for her behavior is by always making her feelings somehow "bigger" than the person she's hurt. So I find that after she hurts me, I wind up comforting *her* and attending to her feelings and mine get lost in the shuffle (no wonder I have a bunch of issues with burying my feelings). Of course it wouldn't do any good for me to bring this up to her, but once I noticed she does this, I try to do better about not completely neglecting my own feelings.

Christmas has always been a bit hard in my family too. My mom notoriously gives the weirdest gifts, and only since I became an adult did I find out what it is like to get a gift from someone who made a sincere effort to know me, which made me realize even more what a deficit my mom has in this area (probably because empathy is such a struggle for PDs). I don't know if it is part of the grieving process when having a parent like this, but the last few years I've just made peace with the idea that my mom will never be good at giving gifts. It doesn't make the hurt feelings from her insensitivity go completely away, but adjusting my expectations and those of my kids/family has really helped.

[Cat of the Canals]

Cat of the Canals, I interpret your mother-in-law's texting of the photo as an invitation or directive that your husband respond with, "Wow, Mom, you look so much better and younger than her!"

That's an interesting possibility. I've never known her to fish for compliments, but her social skills are so poor I often struggle to figure out what she's getting at, so maybe that's an angle I've been missing all along!

Update: MIL brought up the photo of this random old woman to H again, but this time she got weepy and said, "It made me realize that I haven't had a mom in a long time!" So she was doing the usual waif routine. I should have known. BTW, her parents were well into their 70s when they died, so like... a pretty normal age, both lived a full life. But of course MIL will try to play the "poor pitiful orphan" card.