DH and I were just talking about this one. In my family, we pick names and spend around $25 on each other. Last year, I received a musty, dusty, banged-up wine glasses and carafe set from my SIL. It had obviously been sitting around for a long time in their basement and was probably a regift. We don’t drink at all; everybody knows this. :rolleyes: You can’t even really say that the thought was there. The year before last my husband got a used vacuum cleaner.:smack: Sometimes he will get an ornament, again used and not too clean. They aren’t hurting for money.
It seems like every year she picks one of our names. I’m the youngest of five kids. Last year I wanted to jump up and yell “What the hell is this?!” But I resisted. We’ve had the wine set in the basement for the last year, hopefully collecting even more dust.
Should I give it to her when I eventually pick her name? What would you do?
What’s the worst, most disappointing gift you ever found under the tree?
Leave a lipstick mark on one of the glasses… then return it.
Worst present I ever got was a backpack with barbie on it. I’m a guy. And when I got the present I was in highschool. Yeah right, I’m gonna use that… my aunt thought I’d like to have a backpack with a girl on it. It was pink.
Any time I ask for something technical I get the wrong thing. Folks just seem to think when I give a brand and model for say, a calculator, that they don’t need to heed that information and that any calculator will do. The problem is I needed a specific calculator for when I started college (mandated by the math department) and the Radio Shack model didn’t quite cut it.
CDs are a nightmare too. If I ask for a specific title I’ll get something by the same band but not the title I asked for.
I’m trying to ween my family off the whole gift exchange. I think if I complain and threaten to head out to Vegas on the 25th enough times maybe they’ll get the hint.
Chavardz, I don’t know why I thought that was so funny. There’s just something about picturing you walking around your high school actually wearing a pink Barbie backpack…
I just posted this in a Pit thread, but I’ll repeat:
I’ve got a gift to add to this list. My grandparents went to Spain and came back with a bunch of souvenier doodads for presents. My gift that year was a gold figurine of a Spanish Inquisitor (and no, I wasn’t expecting him). Which looked remarkably like a Klansman. Down to the hood. And didn’t have a little plaque on it that explained it. So I manage to sputter out “You…got me a KLANSMAN?!” And then they explained it, to this noted athiest, that this was a Spanish Inquisitor and I should appreciate it since I didn’t like Catholics…“You mean, like the ones who ran the INQUISITION?”
My first real Christmas with my soon-to-be ex-husband (and this SO should have told me something), when I was patiently awaiting the engagement ring he’d hinted about, I got…
1.) Hiking boots.
2.) A sleep sweatshirt with a giant pocket on it and my name airbrushed on the front.
3.) A pillow.
Yeah buddy, big clues indeed. I’ve never been so heartbroken and tear-riddled in my life.
Used underwear. With skidmarks. Well, only one pair out of six had visible staining, but that made all of them suspect. Plus they were a size 12, which in women’s underpants translates to roughly “gi-frickin-hugic.”
Yeesh. Nothing as bad as tighty-brownies.
From my sister: a t-shirt. 6 months after her trip to the Czech Republic. She had brought it back just as a general gift from there, but decided to wait and make it my Christmas gift. I’m guessing it cost her all of $3.
Or the miniature etch-a-sketch. Not a bad gift I suppose, for an 8-year old. Not entirely impressive for a 28-year old.
Or a small book talking about marine mammals. I have never once expressed any sentiment even vaguely resembling a desire to study marine biology.
Come to think of it, basically any gift from her in the last 10 years. You would think that after 30+ years of knowing me, she would have some sort of clue what I like. I anxiously await the magical moment this Christmas to see if she can top those items.
You have no idea how funny I’d look. Back then I was 6’10’’ and weighed 265 lbs. The backpack was small, pink, had cheesy pockets and Barbie on it. I’d look funny allright.
Go ahead and post jesleigh, I need to know other people got bad gifts as well, it’ll ease my suffering.
Actually, it was a long time ago, and I love my aunt, but I was pretty distraught at the time.
The cheesy-whore colors makeup boxes that you would let your daughter play with provided you wanted her to look skanky. It was a pimple just waiting to happen.
Let me preface this by saying: I kill plants as a hobby. Yes, that’s right. Plants come into my home, take one look at me, whither and die. Every year for the past 15 freakin’ years, my MIL (whom I really love very much) has given me: a potted Hyacinth. I’ve tried explaining to her that I’m no good with plants. “Oh, but these are easy to grow!” and then proceeds to tell me how to “force” bulbs. Well, excuse me, but I have kids. I do enough forcing on a regular basis. Enough with the freakin’ hyacinths, already!! Also, one year, she got me a shirt that was cute, but about 4 sizes too small. I said “Boy, this is kinda small”, “The lady at the store said it would fit”, was her answer. WTBloodyF?? The lady at the store doesn’t know me!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!
Mine was a gaudy print, like you’d buy from a fairground vendor, of an airbrushed collage of western movie stars with the legend “ALL MY HERO’S [sic] ARE COWBOYS” in a $100+ custom frame. What the hell was that all about?
I reused the frame, so it wasn’t a total loss, but I had to act happy when I opened the gift. Humiliating.
I don’t think any of my Christmas presents have been bad enough to post. When we were little my mom did buy barbies and barbie accessories for my sisters and I to share. I hate barbies and if I played with my sisters, I got beat up. She did make up for it by buying me my own books every year.
The first year Mr. Congo and I were together for Christmas, his brother bought me a carafe. I thought it was odd since I didn’t drink coffee on a regluar basis and I didn’t even own a coffee pot. Maybe it was foresight on his part. 2 years later Mr. Congo and I moved in together and the carafe got regluar use since he drinks about 3 pots of coffee a day.
The worst ever gift I ever received for any occassion was one of the only birthday gifts I got from the sperm donor (my mother makes me call him dad). He gave me a pencil. It said Jesus loves you. It was already sharpened. He gave it to me in June. My birthday is in January.
I don’t have any particular memories of an actual bad present, but I do remember one occasion where I THOUGHT I had one. I was all of six years old, and wanted a bike desperately! I opened one of my presents…a bike chain.
I completely lost it. “But…but I don’t have a bike!” I was so horribly disappointed, I started sobbing.
My dad went into the garage and wheeled in a new pink bike with a banana seat. (I remember that bike fondly.) Of COURSE they weren’t being so ridiculously cruel as to give me a chain and no bike, but little-kid-me didn’t make the connection at the time.
I suspect my parents were trying not to laugh their asses off at me now, though I didn’t notice at the time.
Mr. Congo just told me that one of his friends from high school was given scratch tickets for Christmas one year. They were from his grandmother. They were already scratched. None of them were winners.
My ex-husband got me a CD player for “our” car that he’d been eyeballing for a long time. I never even drove it- I walked to school and he drove the car to work and all around every day. I was ****ing FURIOUS, returned it to the store he bought it at, and went on a shopping spree with the money.
I’ve never been so heartbroken and tear-riddled in my life.
