I had heard from my sister that my niece is really interested in trying to do some overseas traveling between high school and college. I'm making decent money and honestly don't have much to spend it on, so I decided that I would splurge on a big Christmas gift and pay for my niece and a friend to take a 1-2 week trip to Europe over summer or whenever that kind of travel is possible again. Since you can't put a trip in a box under the tree, I wrapped up a travel guide book as her gift and figured that I'd explain the idea to her after she opened it and we could plan specifics later.
Well, she opened the thing, and before I could say a word she scoffed, rolled her eyes, and informed me that a travel book is a lame gift. She then went on a rant in which I learned that I am a) too lazy to come up with a decent gift and b) so greedy that even though I make way more money than her parents, a $15 guidebook is still my idea of a sufficient gift.
After hearing all of this, I wasn't about to go through with the original idea of giving this girl a trip, so I just said "okay, you're right, sorry " and we all moved on. So now instead of having an all expenses paid trip to Europe, she has nothing but a guidebook and a belief that I legitimately just randomly decided to buy her a Lonely Planet guide as a Christmas gift for no reason. And I guess I saved a good $5K+ with one bratty rant.