Due to the unfortunate circumstance of my gender, if I don't specifically tell people what to get me I end up receiving a bizarre collection of useless things which I just throw away or give to a charity shop the week after Christmas. I'm talking about things like earrings (I have never had pierced ears, yet I have been given these as a present several times!), clothes (I don't wear clothes I didn't choose myself), perfumes (I don't wear perfume), wine (I don't drink), make-up (I have no idea how to apply it) and various beautifying things which make my skin flare up in rashes. Once I was almost given tickets to a spa, of all things. Perhaps people are trying to tell me something. If I were male and received socks and remote controlled helicopters instead, it would be slightly less awkward, but instead of wasting everyone's time (not least of all, my own) I do provide a list upon request for the benefit of those people who like me enough to want to buy me a gift but don't know me well enough to choose something suitable. It's handy that Amazon sell so much nowadays that even fairly esoteric products can be easy to procure; besides, I know my mother-in-law reads books she's giving away before wrapping them so it might trigger her as-yet-undiscovered love of manga...
Since my tiny house is full of so much anime stuff, it's genuinely inconvenient to store things I don't want or like ^^; I don't use girly handbags, and upon clearing out my cupboard I counted no less than eleven of the bally things that I'd slung in there in the past when people gave them to me. Erm, it's kind of them, but I don't need eleven 'fashionable' handbags when I have a bag already. Really. They were all relocated to a local charity shop unused.
It's unromantic but I prefer to be genuinely happy when I receive something, rather than having to start thinking about how I'm going to tactfully throw it away.
R, the ungrateful demolisher of tradition