Houston, we have a gift problem

[andrewducker]

One of the things remaining on our slowly diminishing wedding to-do list is "Make a gift list."

The problem being that there's very little we actually want. It's not like in ye olden days when a wedding was the point where children moved out from their parents and set up their own home, needing sheets, plates, etc. to get them started. We've been living together for two years, we've both been living away from home for many years, and we have pretty much everything you need to run a home.

Julie's currently clicking through the John Lewis website, looking at crockery and trying to decide if these are things we actually want people to spend money on. I've stared blankly at the numerous other tabs, thinking "Well, yes, a 93" TV would be lovely, but I'd feel actively guilty if people spent cash on a new TV for me when the current one is great."

The things we do want feel like normal household improvements. We'd like to replace all the curtains, because they suck. We need a new kitchen, because it's godawful. I suspect we're going to say "Please give us vouchers, and we will use them to replace our curtains and kitchen appliances." But we can't even say "Please give us a new dishwasher", because the whole kitchen needs to be ripped out, and that's not happening until the PhD is finished (a month-ish after the wedding), and we don't have anywhere to put a dishwasher for a month.

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Seeing this reminded me of the similar dilemma bunn and I faced. We actually managed to think of plenty of stuff we wanted, even if not much of it was stuff we needed.

In fact, I even managed to find our list from thirteen years ago:
1) Bookends
2) Adoption share in an animal at Chester Zoo
Our favourite animals are:
sand lizard
tawny frogmouth
serval
maned wolf
3) sharp chopping knife
4) 8in sharp carving knife
5) Debenhams Combi cube salt and peppermill acrylic
6) flatbottomed stainless steel 27-30cm fryingpan - must be dishwasher safe
7) 2 Large wicker laundry baskets - 'Ali Baba' style
8) 2 electrical extensions with 4-way multiplug
9) Mathmos lava lamp
10) Night sky globe
11) plasma globe/lightning ball
12) big outdoor candles
13) stuffed swordfish
14) water bubble column lamp
15) miniature pocket binoculars
16) soapstone or Zimbabwe stone hippos
17) Gift vouchers - Virgin, Masai Mara, HMV
18) book tokens
19) Djungelorm (2-meter furry snake) from IKEA
20) Braun Oral-b electric toothbrush
21) Proper dartboard and darts
22) Toilet brush (anything other than dark wood or pink plastic!)
23) 3 storage jars
24) Star Wars lego
25) Cordless kettle (preferably dark blue)
26) Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible - must be yellow! (bunn isn't content with two sports cars)
27) Scale model of a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible - must be yellow!
28) Dremel Multi
29) Anything over 400 years old EXCEPT spurs or riding equipment
30) Anything clearly identifiable as being made in Cameroon
31) A stone or bronze hare (not rabbit)
32) Blue wine glasses
33) A hollow clear glass human head - c£7 from Staks
34) Aqua mini clock blue or Zeitgeist thunder clock
35) Boots spacetimer radio controlled digital alarm clock
36) Past Times Gothic mirror
37) 5 sticky clothes rollers for removing cat fur.
38) Electronic desktop barometer
39) pruning saw
40) 6-string pullout clothes airer
41) 6-pack tall tumblers (hi-ball)
42) Halogen desk lamp - black or chrome.
43) Red or blue wastepaper basket
44) Ratchet screwdriver with swappable heads
45) Guide to British Insects (illustrated)
46) Large black stapler with lots of staples
47) Sheepskin rug
48) up to 4 large photo albums
49) Tandy - phone socket lightning protector
50) Tandy - 10m phone extension kit
51) Full size stereo headphones - the soft, leathery kind, not the hard stick-in-your ears kind
52) microphone
53) snipe nosed pliers
54) wire strippers
55) insulated tweezers
56) antistatic wrist strap
57) The growth of the American Republic Volume 1 only (we have vol 2), Morison, Commager and Leuchtenburg
58) History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
59) Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe - £30
60) Penguin Atlas of Ancient History - £8
61) Star Wars - A Visual Dictionary
62) The Campaigns of Alexander - Arrian
63) Oxford Companion to Classical Civilisation
64) The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien - (with Ted Nasmith illustrations, hardback)
65) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -Vol 3 The Lays of Beleriand
66) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -Vol 5 The Lost Road
67) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -Vol 4 The Shaping of Middle-Earth
68) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -Sauron Defeated
69) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -The Treason of Isengard
70) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -The War of the Ring
71) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -The Peoples of Middle-Earth
72) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -Morgoth's Ring
73) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -The Return of the Shadow
74) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -The War of the Jewels Vol 2
75) History of Middle-Earth - JRR Tolkien -The History of the Lord of the Rings
76) The Punic Wars - Nigel Bagnall
77) Journey to the Vanished City - Tudor Parfitt
78) The "Agricola" and the "Germania" [of] Tacitus - Cornelius Tacitus
79) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon
80) The Lancaster and York: the War of the Roses - Alison Weir
81) In Search of the Trojan War - Michael Wood

[andrewducker]

There are some remarkably cool items on that list. It could almost be a treasure hunt!