Yeah, it’s that time of year again. And tomorrow I have a duty to advertiseThe World’s Most Useful Gift Catalogue at my church … hopefully in a vaguely interesting manner.
No problem - thinks I - I’ll just do a bit of a compare and contrast with some really useLESS gifts I’ve been given over the years. That ought to make for something vaguely entertaining.
Only issue is - I don’t think I’ve ever really been given any really useless stuff for christmas. Apart from the old favourite bath salts and talcum powder from elderly aunts - and that’s not interesting.
So I appeal to you dopers. Who’s received (or given, of course) something REALLY USELESS for Christmases past?
Slippers! Athough this may come under your heading of not that interesting. But my ex SO parents had a habit of sending whatever crap they hade lying around the house as gifts.
They did indeed send some more awful stuff but the bit I remember is the fuzzy pink sliperers. I don’t wear shoes when I’m indoors. Ever. Which they might not have know but one look at me says I’m not the fuzzy pink type.
But then they never have understood their owe son so why should they understand anything.
Sorry, just a bit bitter over what my SO’s perported parents have done to him. Didn’t make him wear fuzzy pink slippers, but so cluelesss nontheless
One of those inexpensive “personalized” magnets which one can find all over the place. They are presonalized in the sense that they have names on them, but they are mass produced. I was unimpressed–but what it really made it most useless–or most pathetic–was the fact that my name was spelled wrong on it. (My name contains the letter “K”, many people with my name have a letter “C” in it instead. I forgive people who write it the wrong way, but I see no reason to keep and treasure something lame which has the wrong spelling on it.)
A night light for reading in bed. I am single and if I want to read, I can keep the light on as much as I want.
A sweatshirt with Mickey Mouse Bowling. I don’t bowl, I don’t like Mickey Mouse and I don’t wear sweatshirts. And it was too small for me.
A wallet and toolkit combo. OK, I suppose either is useful, but it was bizarre that someone thought to package them together. And I get a wallet every year. I don’t go through that many wallets.
Yes, yes those *are * larger than life wooden shoes that say “Howard” on them. I have no idea what one is supposed to do with such a thing. They’ve been sitting in my closet for a year now, awaiting some poor unsuspecting Yankee Swapper.
A friend of mine has a competition with his sister as to who can find the most useless present. His sister held first place for a number of years by giving him a pair of socks with “David” embriodered on them - his name’s Eric.
He managed to claim it back however by buying her a chinese cookery book. Not a book of chinese recipies, but a book of recipies in chinese.
One year my cousin gave my parents and I each a pair of mitten-gloves–you know, the ones where the mitten part can fold back to reveal bare fingers. For my father they’re actually useful, but I’ve never worn mine except to see if they fit. I have no idea why he thought I’d want a pair
One year, my wife’s grandmother gave us a fiber-optic angel doll, a foot and a half high. It had these colored fiber-optic wires running up the back of the wings or some such thing, and would light up, even change colors. The torso was solid so it did not light up, but it had a light in its butt section that illuminated its large lower half. We never took it out of the package. We didn’t bring it home.
It raised all kinds of philosophical questions, like “why did someone invent this?” and “why did they think that anybody would want one?” and “how did the inventor get somebody to agree to mass-produce them and market them and carry them in stores?” and “does he still have 999,999 of them in the garage?”
A couple of years later, my wife’s brother said he was going to give it to his girlfriend as a gag gift. But he lied, and gave it back to my wife the next Xmas. It’s still sitting on a shelf in her old bedroom at her folks’ house. We use it as an example of the most baffling gift given or received. Why she thought we wanted one is beyond us, as is what we were supposed to do with it.
It does not, however, beat a box of Kleenex! That is exquisitely pathetic.
Maybe tied with the Kleenex is the flowery address book the same Grandma gave us last year. The one with the pages missing. I’m afraid the woman has no concept of gift giving.
My most useless Christmas present isn’t in the same class as a box of Kleenex (which, when you think about it, isn’t useless at all, just a really, really bad gift), but it is darn near useless to me - I got a rotisserie from my parents-in-law a couple years ago. It’s not useless at all; I keep any number of things on the box that I hadn’t opened until a little while ago. It wouldn’t have been a bad gift, if I had even the slightest interest in rotisserie cooking. Hey, my sister is getting married in April - who wouldn’t want a rotisserie as a wedding present?
I know I’ve mentioned this one before…I got a “collectible” doll from an aunt when I was about four. I couldn’t understand the point of getting such a pretty doll for Christmas if I couldn’t even touch it. It was either re-gifted or donated.
More recently, the most useless items I’ve gotten have been day planners. I’ve been in college six years (I changed my major), and I’ve been carrying a PDA since the first day…I don’t need a day planner. I donated all of them.
Someone gave me a four-function calculator for Christmas one year. While it appeared to be new, the add button didn’t work. I threw it away.
DianaG, something about those shoes just struck me as beyond hilarious-- I’m still giggling.
The most useless gift I’ve ever gotten has been spread out over a few years. I guess at some point my mom got it in her head that I needed a complete set of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the stop-motion movie) memorabilia. I’m talking figurines, snow globes, the works. These are really not collectors’ items, they are cheap and basically just good for taking up space. And I’ve gotten more and more of this crap every year, I’m sure I’ll get some this year too. It’s gotten to the point where I’m hard-pressed to contain my laughter when I tear back paper only to find Yukon Cornelius or Herbie the wanna-be dentist staring back at me. The thing is if I say anything at this point my mom will feel bad that she’s been getting me stuff I don’t like for years, and I really thought that the first year would be the end of it. So now I just have to grin and bear it, and load the stuff into boxes under my bed or in the back of my closet the day after Christmas.
I can’t really compare with these (you can’t beat the Kleenex), but I do have to add in a few words here just to get them off my chest in a safe setting.
My aunt likes to give ornaments. The kind that sit there on a mantelpiece or on top of a bookshelf and just look nice. And they do, but they are not exactly our cup of tea.
Her rationale is that she wants to give something that won’t eventually be consumed, or wear out and be discarded (for example, wines, liqueurs, clothes, a coffee maker, etc.). To her credit, her gifts are not cheap, mass-produced stuff you’d find at, say, Wal-Mart; nor are they “limited-edition collectibles” from places like the Franklin Mint. Her gifts, while not expensive Royal Doulton figurines, are usually very nice things, bought from fine gift stores or purchased directly from the artist. People who like that sort of thing would be happy to receive them, I’m sure.
But as far as we’re concerned, they’re useless clutter. We are polite and always thank her, but her gifts remain in their boxes in the closet unless she comes over. Which, given she lives a couple of thousand miles away, is not often. But when she does make the trip, first thing she does is to look for her gifts (“Oh, there’s the ___ I gave you in 1999; it looks good there…”), so we make sure to get them out. They’re useful for keeping family relations harmonious, I suppose, but useless for much else.
