Welcome Abbeyjo; Nice of you to let us know you are around, thanks for all the info. I am not anyone's mother but I have some wonderful nieces and nephews that I love to death and they reciprocate. It is truly a wonderful thing. I have been gardening for years and have been a member of GW almost since the beginning. There have been many changes as you can see by the ease of posting, posting pictures and the forums. There is also the availability of information on plants, diseases, etc. The round robin forum seems to be taking the place of the "Garden Party" although that might still exist, I have not visited there in quite a while, if it does. The MNF group is "Make New Friends" which is open to anyone interested in any robin. Most of the other robins have become more accepting of new members but there was a time when new people were not as welcome so this group was started to allow people to experience a round robin without all kinds of rules. Each host/hostess picks a theme and makes their own rules. It is really lots of fun and the best time to join a robin is in the growing seasons because then you trade plants. Not sure where you are from but here in the great state of Maine we have four seasons, summer, almost winter, winter, barely winter. We love summer for obvious reasons. Come visit the MNF swap in progress and think about joining the August swap. Welcome again. diene

I love gift shopping & try to put a lot of consideration into the individual(s)/event involved. It just makes me happy when I see their faces light up when I hit it just right. I've had a few misses but, fortunately, not many. Christmas '09, my DDIL was tired & stressed. She'd had a difficult year with both her mother seriously ill & I had also contributed to the family's health concerns during '09. They had moved twice with 3 kids in one year, had a job relocation, & their car's engine blew up. For Christmas (and with lots of physical help from DH), I put together a "Here's A Few of My Favorite Things" basket for her including philosophy Hope In A Jar, Micro-Delivery Peel, Purity, a Godiva chocolate candle, a terry cloth wrap to hold her hair up when she gave herself a facial, etc., good quality nail files & clippers, Ojon Swa shampoo & conditioner, spent a few hours making her a hand-painted "Do Not Disturb" sign for the bathroom door, & tucked a package of cookies in with the other stuff. I wrapped the items in a set of new extra fluffy white towels & put everything in a Peterborough picnic basket. I had fun & she must have called me 6 times just to say what a great gift it was & that every time she hung that sign on the door & turned on the shower she knew she had to call again to say, "thanks". But, I have the time to fuss putting things together & because we don't have to buy for dozens of people I can comfortably spend a bit more per person. And, I also don't adhere to the rule of doing for everybody equally at the same time. So, I can spread out the expense over time so everybody gets something special...just not at the same time. About 10 years ago when our kids reached the age where they were starting their own families, taking on mortgages, & working long hours getting their careers established I wrote them each a letter explaining to them that it was my preference that instead of giving me gifts they each send me a hand written note telling me what had gone right during their week or share a funny story of something they'd recently experienced. Now, a decade later, I've got a wonderful collection of my kids' memories that someday when I'm gone they'll get to re-read. Each holiday they share, in these letters, personal things that don't get talked about when we're together. I don't respond to their letters, per se. I find a way to acknowledge something they've written if it's appropriate & always thank them repeating how much it means to me. But, it's lead to an unspoken closeness with my kids that I love & can tell that they feel the same by the words they write. I think responding to their letters would be embarrassing for them. It's just this little "secret" I have with all 3 of them. They tell me their fears but also what they've accomplished. I've learned more about each of them through these letters than in any conversation. I can't tell you how much I love getting their Christmas & birthday letters. Sometimes though they surprise ME! Once I received a cooking class gift certificate at Johnson & Wales from one of my kids as a gift tucked into his letter to me on my birthday. Along those same lines, I also told each of them when they had their own families I expected them to spend Mother's Day with THEIR family & NOT come to visit me. I had my time. Now, it's THEIR turn. I think it helped by giving them permission from me for what I knew they all would want...to spend Mother's Day with their own family. They each call me around Mother's Day but not always on the day itself. Gift giving/receiving can take so many different forms. It means something different to each of us. Problems come in when two people have different expectations. My deceased MIL was a tough one around gifts...I never was able to understand her expectations. As a result, I believe I failed to live up to her desires. I tried everything from handmade items to 18k gold...just couldn't get it right. I finally decided it wasn't my gift choices that were wrong. She just had some type of personal thing in her head around gifts that she didn't share so nobody could please her...maybe, that was the whole point. She wanted to believe we "couldn't get it right". Who knows??? I don't like gift cards although have been known to use them. On my grandson's 16th birthday I gave him a gift certificate for a year's gasoline. (It was an gasoline credit card I allowed him to use for a year.) He'd just gotten his driver's license & it seemed appropriate. Another time one of our kids was taking a get-away weekend to celebrate their wedding anniversary. I asked some innocent questions about their plans & then tracked down a nearby good restaurant, purchased a gift card, & made arrangements to have it placed on their pillow at the hotel. To this day they do not know how they ended up with that dinner. :) Anyway, I love giving gifts. Trying to fit the gift to the event/person is fun for me. I would hate gift shopping if I felt it was an obligation or that I had to somehow keep each present similar to what I got others. Nobody knows what to expect from me, nor when. Sometimes, they might receive an inconsequential Christmas present & then unexpectedly get a mystery package in February. Other times, they might get an elaborate Christmas present & just a book of Dunkin' Donuts certificates for a birthday. They all know though that as the world goes around and time passes their number comes up. Because I try to put a lot of personal thought into each gift I just am not able (mentally or physically) to come up with something just right for everybody just because the calender says it's a certain date. For those presents that are sorta obligatory like weddings of not too close friends, baby showers for the daughter of a second cousin...that kind of stuff...I stick to tradition. I've even given wedding present gift certificates...a gift certificate to a picture framing shop near where that person lived comes to mind. I didn't know the people at all...had never even met them. We used to receive lots of, IMO, inappropriate invitations to weddings of DH's staff's family members. Hard gifts. For a baby shower where the Mom to be isn't somebody I know well, I like to give a high quality blanket. Hard to go too far wrong, IMO. I usually buy white. I don't care if it gets dirty! I just make sure it's washable. lol Oh, also once I give a gift I forget about it. I don't care if somebody gives it away. If I were to care one way or another it would, IMO only, no longer be a gift. Gifts are not supposed to have strings attached to them. My Mom told me that gifts with strings were not really gifts...they were salaries. If my DDIL would have chucked last year's Christmas present I would have thought, "Well Tricia, guess you got it wrong that she was stressed, needed some alone time, and something to pamper herself in the process of being alone would be good. Think harder next time her number comes up!" :) This is a fun thread & in answer to the original question...it would not hurt my feelings if you returned a gift I'd given. I would probably feel badly that I'd failed to hit the right chord but that would be my fault...not yours. I never buy anything from a registry. I don't even look at registries. /tricia

The short answer: No, you don't need to bring a shower gift. A shower gift is tied to a shower you were invited to. If there was no shower, or you weren't invited to one, there's nothing to make up for. You didn't skip anything — the event simply didn't happen on your radar, and that's not a gift obligation you owe. The longer answer, for context: Traditionally these are two separate gifts for two separate events. But that rule assumes two things — that a shower actually took place, and that you were invited to it. Neither applies here. Etiquette doesn't require you to retroactively gift an event you were never part of. A few things worth noting for your situation specifically: You're traveling from California to Maine. That's a significant expense on its own, and any reasonable couple understands that. Travel costs are widely considered part of your "gift" in spirit, even if no one says it out loud. A monetary wedding gift is completely appropriate — and honestly, for a nephew you're close enough to travel cross-country for, it's a generous and welcome choice. Don't double up out of guilt. Bringing an extra "shower gift" to the wedding itself would likely just confuse the couple, since there was no shower to attach it to. It could even read as an oddly large wedding gift rather than a thoughtful gesture. If you want to do something extra, a nice card with a personal note means more than a second gift. Something about welcoming your nephew's new spouse into the family, or a memory from when he was growing up, lands far better than an extra box. One caveat: If it turns out a shower did happen and you simply weren't invited, that's a different situation — but even then, the polite response is to let it go, not to compensate. Being left off a guest list isn't a debt you owe. So: bring your wedding gift, enjoy the trip, and don't give the shower question another thought. Hope the wedding was lovely, Vicki — and if anyone else is in a similar spot, feel free to share how you handled it!

If it's really gotten to the point of obligatory gift cards, it's really not gift giving IMO. If you have the time and money, then I'd find personal gifts (even inexpensive ones) are usually the best ideas for Christmas time. But I think gifts should be given with no expectation of receiving anything in return. I think there are 2 kinds of people... those who like to give gifts and those who don't (or don't have the time or money to). Kind of like there are 2 types of people that bring stuff to Pot Lucks.... those who take the time to bring something homemade, and those who just bring swing by the store on the way and pick up some soda. There's not really a right or wrong; but there's two types of people. If you don't like giving gifts, that's fine but you should be able to accept a gift graciously. And those who like giving gifts should know not to over do it on those that may not want or be able to to recipricate. To me, Christmas is about giving, but because you want to not because you have to... and NOT just for the kids (when you make it just about kids and their toys, it commercializes it IMHO, and it also teaches the kids they don't have to recipricate). If it's a time of love and sharing, everyone should be in on it and it's nice for kids to see that (and for them to be able to help pick out a gift for Uncle Tony). Now those gifts don't have to be expensive... they can be cookies the kids make or homemade ornaments or cards...oh wait, that may take too much time. It's sad that the spirit of Christmas is lost... because people simply don't have the time to put any thought into anything... But they have time for other things.. Sorry, but I think a lot of it is about priorities and selfishness. God forbid you should have to pick out a real gift for your mother! Quite honestly, I think the gift card people have won...they almost make you feel bad if you do get them anything other than a gift card. And, I know all the teenagers want is money or gift cards... but Kuddos to those aunts and uncles who think outside the box and get them something else on occasion. And, if it's really at a stage where all a kid will be happy with is cash/gift card, then maybe they should fall into the adult-no-gift category.