I hope I don’t get something like last year. All I was given was herpes.
: returns the clap to the store :
So what DO you want?
Clap for the wolfman?
Don’t worry- I won’t ask.
No thank you.
Makes socks and underwear seem not so bad…
One year my (then) SO gave me windshield wipers. Yep, wrapped and under the tree.
And, no, he’s no longer my SO.
Only because he didn’t install them, right? 
Who’s gonna get you your windshield wipers this year, then?
Last year my sister spent stupid money she didn’t really have on a working R2-D2 robot for me. An extravagant and well-meaning gesture, certainly, but a) I’m not a particular Star Wars fan; b) the image of a 54-year old single man sitting in his empty house playing with his robot is not one I find enticing.
So I gave it to a friend who has a six-year-old son who’s mad about Star Wars. At least some good came out of it.
My husband’s parents have a habit of getting us well-meaning but awful gifts - I’ll have to come back to this thread after Christmas to remind myself that there are worse gifts out there.
As part of my mother’s denial and semi-senility I still occasionally get frilly clothes more appropriate for someone half my age, and she’s the queen of cheap polyester. Over the years I’ve gotten the surprised and delighted look down pat and I can open damn near anything without the WTF look showing up on my face. She also re-gifts and quite often sends us things that we had given her in the first place. My sister and I had a running joke for years where we sent her the same clock over and over to see how many times she could recycle it between the two of us.
One year a boyfriend gave me padded clothes hangars. Whoopie.
And one aunt was notorious for giving odd and strange gifts that she had purchased at garage sales, but they were not only so awful they were fun but we understood that she was doing the best she could with her severely limited resources, so they probably don’t really fit this category. Although I can still remember the year she gave me a red cheap, CHEAP vinyl purse that probably cost $2 new and was possibly the least fashionable handbag I’d ever seen – and I don’t do fashionable bags.
The ones that stick out in my mind were matching his and hers reindeer sweaters for me and my husband from his half-brother. They were both men’s sweaters and were obviously picked up off the remainder table after Christmas.
The other one was well intended, just intensely disappointing. When I was about 13 or 14, my mother started building me up about the wonderful gift she’d found. I was very excited and couldn’t wait to see what it was.
It turned out to be something like this: http://sunniebunniezz.com/shoppingcart/images/TBF001/bigpinkfeatherbird.jpg
Only not as cute.
I have a great tolerance for cold. My mother can’t stand temperatures under 80 degrees.
She would buy me wooly pajamas and bathrobes because seeing me sit there in shorts and Tshirts in a 70 degree room “made her feel cold.”
Wouldn’t that mean it was the right gift for you, then?
My stepmother’s parents had a friend who would give them the most bizarre gifts. It appeared that she would just gather stuff from her house and wrap it up, but the things she would choose! There was a pastry cutter that still had some pastry clinging to it, expired shampoo for grey hair, a datebook from the previous year (although I pointed out that it would be good in another 6 years), dirty socks, etc. And there were always like 15 different gifts every year, all of them culled from the various nooks and crannies of her house. Weird.
I got a dish towel once.
As my only gift.
Herpes…the gift that keeps on giving.
My MIL one Christmas got my husband a leather jacket. Me, I got a pair of size 5, Calvin Klein black pantyhose, with control top.
I don’t wear hose (almost never wear skirts)
I have never been a size 5, no, not even when I weighed 112 pounds in college.
I dislike black hose.
I got Post It notes. From my grandmother. At the time, I was married to my ex and my husband’s mother and father both worked for 3M, and Post It Notes were NOT something in short supply around our house, since 3M employees could load up on them at the company store…(back in those days I could always find Scotch tape to wrap presents at Christmas time - it may have been the only good thing from that marriage).
I wanted a dog, but the wife and I agreed that as long as I’m on active duty it wouldn’t be fair for the dog. We have cats, but they don’t require as much direct attention as a dog. So about 8 Christmases past my wife gave me this robot dog toy. It was the most annoying thing I’ve ever seen. It whimpered, it cried, and could walk but in a clunky mechanical way. Dec. 26 it was back in the box. I think its been in a footlocker since then.
I don’t even bother asking for anything for Christmas from my wife anymore. Because there was one Christmas a few years ago when she asked what I wanted and I told her. It was a PC game. They sold it at the PX where she worked at the time. I literally took her to the shelf and showed it to her. I told her thats all I really want this year. So the one thing I wanted was something she had 20 or so days to get for me at a place she worked at.
I got every. thing. but. that. :mad:
So now when she asks me “what do you want for Xmas?” I say “nothin’.” Which translated means “Why do you ask. You won’t get it for me if I tell you.”