Weddingbee boards

My parents are well-intentioned.  They meant to buy me a really thoughtful Christmas present after I had a particularly trying year.  They went to Tiffany's and bought me a rather expensive piece of jewelry that I, well, hate.  

I'm not really a fan of Tiffany's in general.  It's high-quality jewelry, to be sure, but generally is a bit plain for my tastes (I will surely be that eccentric woman with a thousand articles of clothing and gaudy accessories on any given day by the time I'm 70).  This item in particular is blue and white gold and, well, I pretty much never wear silver or platinum or white gold, and if I do, it's certainly not with blue.  These are the little things that drive anal old me crazy.  Additionally, it looks not NEARLY as expensive as it was.  It honestly looks like something you might have picked up for $20 at another store unless you pick it up and feel and see its quality.  

I really don't want to disappoint my parents, particularly my mother, who thought she picked a great gift for me because the stone is one that I do actually have a history of liking very much (but that I frankly have too much of already in my very small jewelry collection).  She seemed really sad when my initial reaction upon opening it wasn't to freak out with excitement (which to be fair is never really my reaction to presents; it's just not me).  I did my best to seem pleased and then really thought hard about whether I'd be able to incorporate into my wardrobe.  I came to the realization that no, I wouldn't.  It's not going to get much use at all unless I buy a whole new wardrobe and change my personal style significantly.  Really significantly.  I don't want  to waste the money that they spent but I feel like my mom will be heartbroken if I tell her I want to exchange it.

Anyone have any advice?  When it comes to being tactful with situations in my own life, I suck.

@Goodie: No, not really.  I took a glance at the Tiffany & Co website and there was some nice stuff I guess but I'd have to go in person to a store and try things on and see what it looked like without the magical retouching powers of the internet.

@jo.lee It's not as plain as can be.  It's not adaptable.  It's plain as in visually uninteresting, but it doesn't go with much (which my mother acknowledged).  So that doesn't really work.  

I don't really own much jewelry and often lament to myself about how I wish I had a larger collection of jewelry.  So I hate the idea of a really expensive piece just sitting in my jewelry box when I don't really have any jewelry to begin with.

Maybe this is going to be considered "snarky" but, whatever. But you really should just be grateful for what you got. They tried really hard it sounds like. Just wear it when they are around if you need to, but jewelry doesn't always have to "go" with what you wear. I got a ring from my mom that I wear every day even if the silver and blue doesn't "match" what I'm wearing. Nobody notices anyway. One day your parents will be gone and you will really treasure that necklace they gave you. Until then, just be glad they got you something and have jobs that they were able to afford something like that. Both of my parents are unemployed.

@JoesWifey: Well, my dad lost his job this year (and got it back about five months later, but still), so frankly I was stunned when I saw that they had purchased it for me.  Obviously it was a lot of money that they could have directed towards other things, which makes me feel even worse about it being something I won't really get any use out of.
And maybe it doesn't bother you to wear jewelry in a color that doesn't match what you're wearing, and more power to you, but it does bother me.  That's a large reason why I got a second e-ring (the first one was a bold sapphire...and before anyone gets all up in arms about this, not that it's their business, I paid for the first one because I know wear it as a cocktail ring and paid in part for the second one).

Yeah, one day my parents will be gone, but a piece of jewelry isn't my only memory of them, and a piece I don't like surely isn't the fondest memory I have of them...by a lot.  I feel like my mother and I could have a really nice trip to the store together to pick out something else, and that would be a much better memory than the jewelry itself.  I just don't know how to broach the topic with her.

@ATP2011: Right, that was my first e-ring, which I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.  It was white gold and sapphire.  Then I wore it for a bit and realized it drove me nuts.  And got a yellow gold and Moissanite one, which is much more my style, and I love it.  I still wear the first one on my right hand from time to time.  Fortunately for me, the plating has started to rub off and it has a yellowish hue which I really prefer.  These are the sort of things that bug me.  I fully admit that I'm really too anal about it, but nonetheless it's not going to change.

Thank everyone who responded, critical of the idea of exchange or not.  It's nice to get feedback.  I posted for advice on another forum and just got straight-up flamed by everyone.  Honestly I don't get it.  I'm not trying to be an asshole here, I just feel like one because I know my mom wanted to get me a nice gift.  But what she purchased just isn't something I can imagine myself wearing.  This is actually a pretty common occurrence.  Whenever we go shopping together, we disagree violently about most things, and she's bought me stuff in the past that I didn't particularly care for but tried to wear anyway, just because.  I considered if this would be the sort of thing I could do that with, but it really isn't, and for the amount of money they spent, it just doesn't seem fair to stash it in the bottom drawer of my jewelry box.

@ATP2011: Ha, yes, it is very striking, and beautiful, and it's what I thought I always wanted for the most part.  I always thought I wanted a sapphire e-ring (I mean, since I was VERY young...just a kid, and I was the sort who NEVER thought about her wedding when she was a little girl so this seemed like something that was really right for me), and didn't care for sapphires in any yellow gold setting I'd ever seen them in, despite the fact that I am always in yellow gold otherwise.  Plus I had a little bird sitting on my shoulder in the form of my maid of honor, telling me that I totally needed to get a white gold ring because yellow gold rings were EW and so old-fashioned, and somehow I was swayed by that.  Besides the color thing though, the fact that it is so striking is part of the reason why I decided to get another.  I spend a lot of time on public transportation and in the city at night by myself and so on, and merely turning the ring so the stone was on the palm side of my hand didn't cut it for something so big and eye-catching in color.  It made me feel pretty uncomfortable in a lot of situations.  Because I'm relatively young, people often thought it was like a piece of glass or something too, which shouldn't have bothered me, but it did anyway.  Sigh.  I had just been saving up for it, since I was the one who proposed to my FI and figured that'd be an expense he wasn't prepared to take on, but I wanted a ring ASAP because I wanted something on my finger to mark that I was for sure taken.  FI said he wanted to pay for it when we bought it, but needed to save up to get me back for it, but when I got a new ring I told him to forget about it, obviously.  Plus we made payments on it, which I wanted to do to help build credit. So it was actually a sound financial move, if it had actually been the ring I wanted to keep on my left hand forever.  Turns out it wasn't.

...Okay that was a tangent.  

I see my mom a lot but it's usually just for a few hours and we don't really go out and do things together much these days.  I'm sure she'd love to take a shopping trip with me, in general. To replace her gift, heh, I don't know.

So I do think I'm going to bring up the topic of exchanging it for something more fitting, but I plan to wait a day or two so it doesn't seem like I ruined Christmas or anything (I don't know when she bought it, though, so I don't want to wait too long since Tiffany's apparently only has a 30-day return policy).  And hopefully taking a few days to think about it will make it seem more like I actually did put a lot of thought into whether or not this piece of jewelry will work for me.

@GoldfishPie: Lol...the answer would totally be yes if my camera hadn't been broken for the past several months. :(  I should probably get a new one soon.  I haven't put a picture of my newer e-ring on the bee either for the same reason.  Maybe I can upload one in a few days when I go to my FILs' house...I'm pretty sure they have a working camera.