DH is poor gift giver. He thinks a lot about the person, then explains the reasoning for a specific present, so it is sweet. But the gifts are bad and overpriced. He also waits until the last minute to get something, often. (ok. Maybe not last minute, but the week for before christmas, day before or day of birthday).
After sweetly saying thank-you and using the gifts over the years, I finally put my foot down. Flipped out. No more presents with electrical cords. No more tech gadgets. Nothing over $150, that I haven't previously suggested.
Past presents as examples:
An iron -- because he saw how frustrated about ironing I was, and how much I disliked it. (Two thirds of the ironing was for his shirts. The true gift would have been for him to take over ironing his own shirts before we go out for dinner with my parents, or just hang his shirts to dry)
A vacuum (don't buy your wife a vacuum at Christmas, just, don't... buy it and bring it into the house on a non-holiday and wrap something else)
A wine cooler. (uses power and I tend to buy a bottle, drink a bottle, so only 1 bottle at a time in there.)
A plug-in coffee mug for the car $30, fell apart after 5 uses. Instead of a Contigo insulated coffee mug (on my gift list, not tech enough)
A car wash "ionizer"/ soft water sprayer -- because I got a "new to me" car the prior year that I liked, but he noted that I seemed to like washing cars because I would wash his, too, every month or two (he never did it, it drove me nuts if I had to take his dirty car sometimes). He wanted to get a present that related to something I must be excited about (the new to me car).
Here is a beauty -- I asked one year for a CD walkman with headphones ($25), to use while walking the neighborhood. This was pre-ipods. He bought a $480 mp3 player, circa 1998. Sound quality was.. not great.... In today's money, that would be a $650 tech gadget.
We, too, had wholly joint finances at the time. I was usually the only one working, and tightly budgeting the grocery bill and scrimping on my work wardrobe to afford extras, like a nicer fridge or to pay for my night school, and he ends up buying tech gadgets. Gah.
Took me 6 years to flip out. Put my foot down.
Best choice ever.