Mother-in-law insists her daughter-in-law use the gift cards she gave to her grandchildren to buy her dinner: 'She insists that whenever we use the gift cards, we take her with us.'

She bought her grandchildren a rubber snake as a gift. 

In my family, we have this concept called a "rubber snake." If you give someone a rubber snake, it means you're giving them something you really want, but it doesn't make much sense to them. For instance, if your little brother is really into trains, he would give his sister a rubber snake by getting her a book about trains for her birthday. It's not a crime to give someone a gift that's more suited to you than to them, but it shows a general lack of care for what the other person wants.

Sometimes people genuinely do have difficulty putting themselves in another person's shoes and genuinely contemplating what they would want as a gift. It can be really hard to buy a gift for people who are super particular about everything in their lives, from the way they brush their teeth to the exact thread count of their sheets. They might not appreciate you getting them a selection of face masks, because they are extremely particular about how they treat their skin, and the products you chose were not up to snuff. That's why one of the greatest inventions in the history of gift-giving is the gift card.

Gift cards are great because they can be spent however the recipient wants. As long as you know generally what store or restaurant the giftee would patronize, you really can't go wrong with a $25 gift card.