I usually just ask for money or giftcards so i dont confuse them with what exactly I want
I can't imagine! My family are very into gift-giving and gift-making; and I think each one of my family members would say with the purest honesty that they enjoy giving gifts more than receiving. We tend to get each family member one or two gifts and on top of that we play Secret Santa with our stockings (with a $50 limit) -- and we have to guess by our gifts who got our names. We do a lot of home made gifts (especially on leaner years). Last Christmas I crocheted a beret for my younger sister, she knitted me a scarf (it's really nifty: if you lay the scarf flat on a table and look straight at it you see only grey and white stripes, but if you look at an angle you see diamonds and swirls!). One year my older sister made us all home made scented soaps and candles.
I feel that Christmas isn't about getting what you wanted, but what you didn't know you wanted. If I want a to read another Agatha Christie I'll go out and buy it, but I'll much more cherish the copy of
The Stolen Child, a book I hadn't heard of, that my mother gifted me because she read it and knew I'd like it; my brother-in-law knew I was a as much a Bowie fan as he, so he compiled the 33 albums for me; my dad found a coffee mug with the Minister of Silly walks on the side and filled it with my favorite tea leaves; one year my sister treated the two of us to dinner and
Le Feux "Seattle's best female impersonator show," as my Christmas present. These are not the kinds of things I'd go out and buy for myself, but are the kinds of gifts I love getting and giving. And every year I spend November and December agonizing over what to make or buy my friends and family, but it's a wonderful agony, and it pays off on Christmas morning when I watch them unwrap their gifts