Happy Birthday! What do you get people these days ...

Open to all. Post ideas or things you've gotten for your family & friends!

 

Wife's birthday is just around the corner. She's turning 28 this year, not materialistic which drives some of the difficulty. We don't celebrate the little made up holidays (valentines or sweetest day), so generally a gift idea has to be meaningful. I'm more of a "gift that you can use" person.

We are in need of a new knife kitchen set and she's mentioned it more than once, thinking of something along those lines. Any recommended brands out there and better ideas are welcome.

 

I’m a big fan of https://www.messermeister.com/ and they are having a sale right now.

if you want something amazing - @gosolo has the dream knives though if you want to go the custom route .

 

I mostly buy people beer for their birthdays.

 

All depends on the person

Many years ago - when elderly grandmothers would come into the music shop looking to get their pre teen grandsons a gift (nothing over like $6-8) we would usually suggest a Black Flag or similar band cassette to the cheap ass old ladies - or we’d suggest a nice poster - something completely wholesome and appropriate for a 4 year old - then give them the PG-13 babe across a car hood poster rolled up. Years later I realized how badly we f’ed up by creating what we now call millenials.

Based on the damage inflicted by smartasses like myself and the unintentional ruination of our future - I suggest we stop the practice of birthday gifts altogether.

Birthdays were just something dreamed up by some guy who wanted more stuff anyway - so he made up this whole story how he was born to some virgin in a stable to make us feel badly for him and to get us to bring him gifts every year anyway.

Let’s end this silly tradition now and start celebrating more important life events like our inevitable shortcomings and failures. Same with weddings and such - why give someone a gift on the supposed happiest day of their life ? Save it for the divorce 3 years later when they can really use the kitchenware after they lost their house and all the furnishings to some ungrateful cheating shrew - that’s when they need your gift anyway.

 

I fail to see how Black Flag or pictures of hot babes could be responsible for ruining millennials. If anything, I'd expect the opposite.

 

We didn’t either - but we failed to see how granny gifting them this stuff would turn them against it by creating an association that it must be “granny approved” and therefore the definition of uncool.

Instead they turned to things hated by their grandparents and latched on to those things instead. Laziness became cool - accepting hand outs became acceptable and why own a car when you can just ride a bike everywhere. Seriously - if you had told my grandparents you planned on taking some “me time” and didn’t see the point in owning a car - they would have thought you were “soft in the head”. They worked 40 hour weeks and then came home to run a 100 acre farm to feed themselves. Not owning a vehicle meant you had no transportation anywhere and would be walking to town like a common bum and vacation is what you took when you visited family in another shitty rust belt town at Christmas every other year.

 

I get something that I have been looking at but wouldn’t buy for myself. For example, I got a Yeti cooler one year that I like but would not spend the money to buy it for myself. Solo Stove was another example.

 

Damn, bro. Funny tho.

 

This is only coming from personal experience, but when you start off by saying, "We are in need of..." I feel like I have said those words out loud when thinking of what to get my wife, and it ends up with her saying something to the effect of you got something for yourself. You know your wife better than anybody, so it very well could be what she wants, especially if she's mentioned it more than once, but to your point, it has to be meaningful. If you think a new knife set is meaningful, go all out!

 

Can't go wrong with liquor.

 

If you’re 18 and over or not a niece or nephew you get bupkus. Parents excluded; they get B-cards and maybe lottery tickets.

I really don’t care for birthdays. Over-rated, IMO.

I tend to celebrate X-mas more.

 

My wife got this for her last Valentine's Day, Birthday and Christmas present.