Same here... Over 10 years ago my mom gave me a paper list of gift ideas for the whole family. I was supposed to cross off what I was buying to avoid duplicates. Didn't take long for me to write a web app to manage it. I rewrote it last year after 10+ long years of solid usage: http://www.gifttracker.net/

It's a slightly different take on the wish list "problem" in that mine isn't about getting gift ideas, it's about sharing lists and reserving to avoid duplicates.