For all anyone really knows, the box was mislabeled; it was wrapped in festive Hanukkah paper, after all. But the thought of giving anyone a smoke detector speaks of a certain amount of, I dunno, weirdness, especially since the members of my family generally give good presents.
Robin
Don’t.
Not my worst present but my husband’s. Last Christmas Eve his daughter came over at about 10 p.m., unannounced. She’d obviously come from a bar or a party – dressed to the nines and half in the bag. She handed me an envelope and said “This is for you and dad for Christmas”.
Inside the envelope was a $100 gift certificate for Cabela’s. Now that’s a nice gift, but it would have been nicer if it hadn’t been a re-gift and an afterthought. I’m 100% positive it had been given to her husband by his boss because he gives these out every Christmas. In her drunken stupor she thought “Maybe I should get something for dad this year. Hey! I don’t hunt or fish or wear anything from Cabela’s. I’ll give this to dad! And I’ll say it’s for both dad and Pam!” Bitch.
I’ve told this one before, but when I worked in NYC it was at a shelter organization for women with children. As such, it received material donations, which staff were instructed to not help themselves from. Secret Santa rolls around, with $10 guideline, and I pick my crush and get him a nice notebook and pen. I open my gift and it’s a velvet pouch thing from The Gap, which was one of the items donated in bulk. It was from my big boss, who made $90K and certainly knew about the rule. And she had the nerve to make up some story about how she picked it out because she thought an accounting person could use a velvet pouch.
It felt great dumping it in the trash in the subway. Bitch.
My mother gave perhaps the worst possible gift to my wife: a fancy new mop.
This was not (I think) done intentionally to be hurtful, my mom just really liked this new mop (a Swiffer), thought it was cool, and decided to share the joy.
My wife did not take this well. 
When I was 12, my parents gave me a brand new alarm clock. Wasn’t that nice? It felt so good to get a phone call from my friend that afternoon to hear her nice long list of fun stuff she got and then have her ask me what I got. An alarm clock! oh whee! That was my big gift by the way. I did get a skirt and a sweater and candy in my stocking with the inevitable orange that I hated but I always got anyway because the stocking doesn’t look right without an orange in the toe. The crazy thing is that stupid alarm clock worked for 20 years.
Three years ago my mother got me two shirts. She was so excited. One was bright turquoise with those funky “Indian” inspired patterns woven in. It looked like a cowgirl shirt. I’m not a cowgirl and never have been. It was beyond ugly. The other one was pumpkin orange and tunic shaped. I look terrible in a tunic and I never wear orange. My mother knows this. The older she gets the worse her taste gets. I tend to ask for kitchen gadgets (specifically by name and brand) and Home Depot gift cards these days.
And the first year I was married Mr. Woodhouse got me sleepwear. A long sleeved sleepshirt with Tigger on the front. We had spent hours at the mall, with me drooling my way through the Gap and Bannana Republic and he spent $35 on a sleep shirt at the Disney Store and was proud of himself. Luckily, he’s much improved and seldom misses that badly anymore (as long as we don’t discuss Mother’s Day this year.)
I really have low expectations in the gift department. It’s really sad how often I’m disappointed anyway.
Heh, one day I suddenly realized I was never, ever really going to get a truly exciting gift from anyone again - I am now a giver of gifts, essentially. I’m hard to buy for, since I generally buy what I want anyway …
That’s okay, because the excitement my 3 year old son gets from presents more than makes up for it. 
A couple who’d been family friends for years once presented me a wrapped birthday present with the statement, “We hope this will *inspire *you.”
It was obviously books, and I opened it eagerly, thinking: Maybe arts and crafts? They know I’m into writing, maybe it’s a book on getting a novel published? Or something on travel, or backpacking? Someone’s account of sailing across the Pacific?
One book was called “Low-fat meals in 30 minutes”. The other was this one.
Gee, I didn’t know I was fat. Thanks.
OK, a couple of my best friends are absolutely horrible at picking gifts. I mean, embarassingly bad. Seriously guys, pick up a bottle of whiskey and voila! the perfect gift. I love whiskey.
They went on a three week road trip from Alabama to California, hitting all the high points here and between. OK, I like vodka, but that’s just bizarre.
Then, for my birthday, they knew I like to cook and decided to get me some useless bullshit. I got a collander and a spray bottle for making my own cooking spray, since I eat healthy and this way I could make low-calorie cooking spray.
“You know Pam has zero calories, right? And is way easier?”
“uhhhhhhhh”
The year previous, I got an awesome orange shirt from Aeropastale that had been murdered with a hideous bright green Arial text reading “WORLDS GREATEST DAD.” See, it’s horribly tacky, just like me, so I must love it, right? I don’t have kids nor do I want any, by the way.
Ugh.
It wasn’t a horrible gift, in itself, but it did make me wonder.
Along about the second or third year we were married, my in-laws gave me a flannel robe for Christmas. Pink, knee-length, snap up the front, your basic duster. Nothing wrong with it, just not really my taste, and pretty much about twenty years too old for me. I would have just thought they didn’t know me that well and let it go. (And I did use it some.)
Except;
The same year, at the same time, they gave their other daughter-in-law a nice, pretty nightie, with some frills and such. Nothing too slinky, but feminine and attractive.
Made me wonder how they saw each of us.
Did they have a recipe inside entitled “How to skin friends and marinate people”?
My mom gave my brother and I those gizmos one year, too. She then went into pretty detailed explanations about all it various uses. When she got to the hammer she finished with, “because often times, that’s the only way you can get out of your car.”
Really, Mom? Often times?
I suppose the gift keeps giving though, because “often times” is still a running, private joke between my brother and I, one of many, which helps keeps us sane when dealing with Mom.
Ouch. I had a similar thing happen, only the other woman (Emily) was her other son’s new girlfriend, not his wife. My MIL got us both a gift basket with Happy perfume and various other cosmetics in it. That was what Emily had asked for. I had been asked for a wish list and happily gave one, but I was given Emily’s choice instead.
The only difference was that her gift basket had lipstick in it and mine had wrinkle cream. 
omfg. :smack:
maybe she knew she had just put a wrinkle in things, and wanted to give you a cream to fix it??
Many years ago I received an obviously used T-shirt, my then SIL thought I would like it because it had a race car on it. Besides the holes in both armpits and stain on the front, it was a size medium. I wore an extra large at the time. I stapled it to the wall of my garage and it was still there the day I moved out of that house.
Ouch, indeed. At least mine was more puzzling than hurtful. I guess sometimes you just have to laugh.
My husband and I got married right before Christmas, went on our honeymoon, then went to the in-laws. The tree had what seemed like hundreds of packages beneath it. We gave the gifts we brought then had to sit there for something like an hour opening gift after gift after gift.
His mother was a manager of a Dollar General.
The gifts were all broken or chipped ceramic things. Like a sad clown candle holder. Or an angel with only one hand and one wing.
Gift after gift.
These were my brand-new in-laws and I was trying desperately not to cry in front of them as I kept having to open broken, tacky gift after broken, tacky gift.
Jeeze, what do you do with that? Take them all and have a ceramic smashing party?
I brought them home and apparently I blacked out, because I don’t even know what happened to most of it. Some I remember throwing out, and we used a few of the tacky but not broken things for a while. (There was a set of glasses that was warped but not broken. We used those until we managed to break them all. They were supposed to have something painted on them, but they were so bulgy and misshapen that the paint didn’t end up placed correctly.
Thus was born my hatred of knickknacks.
Did she know what she was doing? I mean, was she sincere thinking you’d like that crap? I am just :eek: that she would do that to you!