I guess we all have bought or made something for someone as a gift that we thought would be a wonderful present only to find out that the recipient did not like it at all. This is my little story of a gift gone wrong -
I have two grandkids that have birthdays in July - a granddaughter that turned 12 and a grandson that will turn 10 soon. A few months ago, I saw an ad on TV for personalized M&M’s. I went to the M&M site and it had a lot of different options. You could choose from many colors, choose professional sport team logos, choose from various sayings, put your own sayings on them or have your own photo printed on the M&Ms. The personalized M&Ms were not cheap as there was a rather large minimum order for them. I got some kind of a discount, but even then with shipping it cost me around $90 total for two orders.
I thought the grands would get a kick out of having their photos printed on M&Ms. So I put in two orders - one in pink M&M colors for granddaughter and one in blue M&M colors for grandson. We had to transfer the photos we wanted to have printed to some site and then we could download it to the M&M site and preview what it would look like on the candy. I thought both grandkids’ pictures looked darling and knew they would love getting them. About half of the M&Ms had photos; the other half of the order said Happy Birthday and had their age on it.
I make them birthday cakes each year. Both live out of town several hundred miles. I made my granddaughter’s cake with icing rosettes around the top and put an M&M that had her photo on each rosette. I put some that said Happy Birthday around the bottom. It looked so nice (at least I thought so!). I kept thinking I couldn't wait for her to see it as she was going to think it was so neat!
We get to her house and my husband opens the cake carrier and show it to her. I was a few feet away and honestly thought she was going to say something like “How did you get my picture on an M&M” or “How cute” or (hopefully) “I love it”. Nope, didn’t happen! The first thing she said was “Ewwww that is so creepy”. I’m thinking ‘Whoa, what did I just hear?’ She then said it was so weird to see her face on an M&M. She said it would be like being a cannibal to eat it. She then calls over her older sister to see it and she also says that the idea is creepy. Older sister takes a picture of it to put on her face book page because it is so strange and asks us “Why would anyone want to do something like put a photo on an M&M?”
Of course in the scheme of things, this is a tiny little matter of no importance. But it honestly took me by surprise. Of all the reactions I hoped to get, saying that it was a creepy idea never entered my mind. The M&M site had tons of examples of candy with photos on them - for graduations, weddings, and other special occasions. Even when I went back today to look at the site again, the thought that the photo M&Ms might be creepy never still enters my mind.
I am going to try again in a few weeks when I make my grandson his cake with his photo M&Ms on it. I sure hope I have a better reaction this time, but ya never know….
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