It’s coming up to that time of year when we are all looking for Christmas gift ideas and it seems to get more difficult every year. I always try to find gifts that the recipient will like and use no matter what the occasion but we all end up with gifts that gather dust.

Carla, one of my friends recycles unwanted and unused gifts every year. That’s a good idea in this age of recycling, but she came a cropper last Christmas. The year before she received a large gift basket containing lotions and potions from a well-known beauty product chain. Carla put it in her gift recycle box because she is allergic to that particular brand, sneezes every time she uses the products. If it had been another brand she would have been delighted but there you go.

Last Christmas she was struggling to find the time to shop for gifts having just given birth to a little boy, so the gift recycle box came out. On Christmas day she prepared a festive dinner for ten and after they had eaten the gifts were presented. When Carla’s mother in law opened hers; instead of the expected smiling thank you Carla received a frosty look.

Feeling uncomfortable Carla said “I thought you would like it I know that you use that brand”. “Yes I do” replied her mother in law “So much that I gave the exact same basket as gifts to all of the women in the family last year, they were made up especially for me”. Carla now makes a note of who gave her the gifts in the gift recycle box and vows that she will never recycle to her mother in law again.

I have received some amusing gifts over the years, but not for the reason that you might think. One year my mother gave me a slimming recipe book and a big tin of chocolate biscuits – quite a contrast. Maybe with the slimming recipe book she was hinting and with the chocolate biscuits she decided to give me a treat before I had to suffer on a diet.

The chocolate biscuits went down well but the slimming recipe book is still on my shelves gathering dust. Not because I haven’t been on a diet since but because although the recipes look really tasty like many other slimmer’s recipes they are based on meals for 4 people and not for 1, which would be more useful to the many go it alone slimmers. I’ll always keep the recipe book because whenever I see it I smile so the gift does come in useful after all.

Last year on my birthday my 4 year old grandson gave me a set of plastic trowels for my garden. He chose the trowels, he was trying to be helpful bless him. I’d had problems with my garden fence getting knocked down or blown down in the wind for several years and I lost interest in gardening. The garden became very overgrown and had fascinated my grandson even as a baby – one look and he would stop crying.

What he didn’t know was that I had already arranged to fork out a king’s ransom for a much sturdier new fence, the weeds removing and for most of the garden to be pebbled over. Now there is a very tidy patch with a few flowers down the side of the garden path instead of the jungle that it was. When my grandson sees it his eyes light up, he believes that his gift of plastic trowels worked the magic and I’m not going to disappoint him and tell him any different.

A not very amusing gift came from my ex husband on our first wedding anniversary. There I was expecting a romantic surprise and when I excitedly tore the wrapping off the surprise was a chip pan. As I don’t like fried food I think that particular gift was for him not me. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but that wasn’t the way to my heart.

Looking back I think that my favourite and the most useful gift that I’ve ever received was a kimono. My brother and his wife brought it back from Hong Kong one Christmas and I’ve got to admit that I was disappointed at first. I had been hoping that my gift would be a duty free bottle of Pernod ungrateful beast that I am.

My kimono was tucked away unused for a couple of years and saw the light of day again when I was going on holiday to Paris. I realised that it was perfect for trips; it was light and didn’t take up much room in my suitcase – a necessity for me because I always take too much baggage. It was an attractive and comfortable way to protect my modesty and my husband thought it was sexy too!

That kimono lasted for years and was brought out whenever I went away on a trip and whenever I wanted something more attractive to wear than my old towelling dressing gown – if you know what I mean! So sometimes unwanted gifts can turn out to be extremely useful and enjoyable.

This year at least one person on my gift list is going to get a kimono and as my kimono has now worn out I’m going to treat myself to a new Oriental kimono and I’m sure that it will serve me just as well as the old one.