How can you get this situation fixed without causing a fuss in your relationship?

1. Drop really obvious hints.

Ladies, I’m looking at you here.  Don’t just say, “Wow, it would be so cool to have a George Foreman grill.”  That will go right through our heads and we won’t even register it.  You need to be super obvious.  Talk about the George Foreman grill constantly.  When we’re cleaning the grill plates of our crappy imitation George, mention that the new George has removable plates that can go right into the dishwasher.  Print out pictures of the George Foreman grill that you want.  Take a naked picture of yourself hugged up on a George Foreman grill (not with George Foreman, that would be creepy).  Put them in places like on the refrigerator door or on the counter where you’d put the real thing.   Be a broken record.  Us guys can be really dense and you want to be sure that we get the point.

2. Agree not to exchange gifts.

Boo!  This is no fun!  But seriously, if you want to save money and not deal with crappy gifts anymore, not having gifts at all will seriously help in both of those.

3. Spend the money you’d spend on gifts on an activity.

Let’s say that you’d normally spend $100 on your guy and he’d spend $100 on you.  Why not take that $200 and go out for a super fancy dinner where you get to wear your best clothes and get to have a water waiter, a wine waiter, and a food waiter?  Or maybe Hotwire for a last-minute room at a really swanky 5-star hotel and have a vacation right downtown?

4. Do something for other people.

Why not agree to help the less fortunate?  Okay, it sounds like lame when your inner kid is like GIMME PRESENTS, but really, you’ll get the warm fuzzy feeling of helping others.  Decide as a couple what charity you’d like to help out.  Maybe you want to donate to the local animal rescue or adopt one of those starving kids from TV.  Whatever you decide, you’ll know together that you made a difference.  Plus it gets us off the hook for having to come up with something for you, which takes a LOT of pressure off our shoulders

5. Have “the talk.”

If you really want presents and the hinting doesn’t work, you may have to get down and dirty and duke it out with words.  Ask in your nicest voice possible why your guy chose this particular atrocity as your gift.  (Oh, and don’t use the word atrocity.)   You may find out a really sweet story behind the ugly sweater, or that they thought you were dropping hints about something when you really weren’t.

Get it all out in the open girls and you will find yourself getting better gifts in the future (or at least not stressing out your guy!).

So what do you guys think? Which of these strategies do you think would work best for dealing with a bad gift giver?