My grandmother, who I have posted about many times before has in many ways gotten worse. Christmas is upon us and that means Christmas shopping. She has always been a greedy, cheap and selfish person. If it's not about her, she isn't exactly interested. She has always coveted anything that either my mother or I have bought ourselves. If I want that pearl necklace, Coach purse or whatever, it takes me a year to save up for it and buy it. When she sees it, she automatically asks if she can "borrow" it. Her use of the word borrow means that she is keeping it. Yes, she is that cheap and she has money to go out and buy whatever she wants and go on expensive trips but she wants someone else to pay for it. A phone call yesterday left me incredibly angry for some reason. Her words were that for Christmas, she was demanding that every one in the family buy her 2 bottles a piece of her favorite perfume. Not the little travel sprays, not 1 small bottle, but the largest available size. I had already gotten her gift, a travel spray of her favorite perfume and a scarf. She was complaining that she had no nice scarves for winter and I found a cute one that didn't break the bank. My Christmas budget is only $250 and I have to split that between 8 people. Take my word for it, you can get split $250 between 8 people and still give them nice gifts. I'm just sick of her greed and I work hard for my money and I can't blow it on an elderly woman who is phenominally cheap.
Give her the gift and if ungrateful, then tell her next year you will just send a card. If you had a girlfriend act this way how would you handle? My lesson, just because they are old and family does not give them the right to bad behavior. Make a donation to her fav church or charity in her honor and be done with this.
Don't feel bad or guilty. Enjoy the holiday and giving out of love to those who appreciate.
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If she's not bathing, but just just putting on cologne, I might check around to make sure she's doing okay. Does she live alone?
Try not to make how she acts about gifts into a snit, try to find some humor in it. If Grandmother won't accept your gift, tell her with a big smile that you will donate the gift to someone who would love to have it.
I have a vision of your Grandmother marinating in her favorite perfume so one can tell if she had been in a room 5 hours earlier.... wearing a lot of makeup especially rouge, heavy lipstick, and blue tinted hair. [meaning no disrespect but trying to throw some humor into it].
Some people like to portray themselves as being wealthy when they are not... or not want to spend the money when they are older feeling they need that money for their late in life care, which can be very expensive.
And I had noticed with my own parents, I would always hear that this cost $5 back when they were younger, when today it cost $50... so that can be part of it, too.
Honestly, no one needs those large bottles of perfume, but maybe for Grandma it could make her feel like she will live a few years longer.
What you bought for your Grandmother sounds perfect. If she is grumpy with it, so be it. Just smile and realize that is just how she is, she isn't going to change at her age.