On 7/17/2017 7:17 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 7/17/2017 5:17 PM, Julie Bove wrote:
>
>>
>> But the worst part for me was the gifts. My dad loved to shop and he
>> loved bargains. So every year I would be overwhelmed with hundreds of
>> gifts and all of them hard to open.
>
>>
>> For instance, one year I wanted a Barbie House. What I got was a
>> Skipper house. Neither of my parents could understand that Skipper was
>> a smaller doll than Barbie so none of the stuff in the house would fit
>> Barbie. She was just too big to fit into any of the rooms pr use the
>> furniture. We couldn't return it to the store either because my dad
>> insisted on putting it together. He was convinced that once I saw it,
>> I'd love it. But I didn't and neither did my friends. None of us had a
>> Skipper doll and one of us wanted one either. So somehow this was my
>> fault and for years afterwards I was chastised because I didn't like
>> the gift. Every Christmas they would bring it up. And I think to this
>> day they never understood what the problem was.
>>
>
> I've seen that situation. Tough situation, really. The kid wants a
> particular item but the parent thinks the bargain buy is just as good.
> They would do better buying nothing in this situation.
>
What a thing to whine about. How old was she, 8 or 9 years old at the
time? And still complaining about it after all these years?! Let it
go, Julie. A gift is a gift. Hard to open? What a thing to complain
about.

Thankfully my mother knew I didn't really care about things like that.
When we lived in Bangkok (I was 9-11 years old at the time) there was no
way to buy toys like the Barbie Dream House unless she ordered it from
the Sears catalog and had it shipped overseas. That was expensive! So,
no Barbie house, no Skipper house. No problem.

Sure, I had Barbie dolls before we left the States. I had to leave them
behind. At Christmas my mom bought me books (ghost stories, mysteries,
things she knew I liked). Puzzles. Construction paper and pastels. I
created some nifty little paper houses out of the construction paper.
Colored with the pastels.

I doubt Julie would have been interested in any of those things. She
wanted the Barbie House, dammit. So sorry.

Jill