I agree with many who have said that your friend may be completely overwhelmed by the pressures in her life. She may not have even "been there" opening the gifts but thinking of other things that she "should" have been doing.
I made a quilt for my first granddaughter for her baptism. Try as I might, I was only able to complete about 1/3 of the quilting in time for the party. So I decided to give it anyway, and finish the quilting another day. I wrapped it with the quilt back facing outward so that the Inside would be a surprise. I also tried to position it so that as much of the Quilting was facing up, and the quilting pins hidden. Well... when my DIL opened the package she lifted it up a bit out of the box and laughingly said, "you don't want her to have it with all these pins in it still, do you?" I laughed too and started to tell my story but stopped in amazement as she lowered the quilt back into the box. She didn't look at the Front of the quilt at all. She made no other comment. It was set aside and another gift was opened. Six years later, I still have the quilt in my sewing room. But that's ok... one day I will give it to my sweet gr'daughter - when she is older. I think that some people just don't understand that we put our hearts into a quilt. And that's okay...