If you say you don't want her gift, she doubts your honest praise. If you take it home, you leave a big space in her sparsely furnished life. Others have learned to bemoan the lack of room in their freezers, closets, bedrooms, yards. Still others bring decoys and watch them bluster when our grandmother gives them her couch. Adolescents get the gifts from her that no one else will give.
Adults get a laugh, and a chotchke or two.
But everyone learns and relearns from it all that giving can be joyous, and receiving, a gift in itself. When my husband first met my family, a mild culture clash ensued. He had offered my sweetheart a sandwich, and when Rob refused, pressed him to eat. I could see an ethnic war start to simmer as Rob shook his head while my dad pressed on. Rob, quiescent, took a sandwich.