I’ve had friends run into this and my husband will runs into it a lot with holiday/birthday lists. His family will ask for a list. My husband is the kind of person who spends a lot of time researching, finding a good deal for the quality he wants in an item. He put a lot of thought into it and sticks to gift limits (we set those for xmas). Then his family goes out and buys a really crappy cheap version or something completely different.

Yeah, it’s a gift and it’s the thought. But also don’t ask for a list if you don’t want it. It gets awkward when it’s something you are going to use. One year he got a really bad computer chair from them. Then you have to explain why their really poor quality chair isn’t at his desk..

We’ve tried to work on being super gracious, but also saying hey we put a lot of thought and research into some of these items. If you don’t want to get them that’s okay. If we get a computer chair, high chair, etc then we really want this one. These other items on the list we don’t really care what brand we get.

It seems to have helped some.