oh yeah. . .got one of these from my grandmother-in-law one year too. . .
Before I tell this, I want to say that my grandmother is a wonderful woman who has given a lot of fantastic gifts–handmade baby blankets and quilts, lovely clothes, and she even made my wedding gown. This just happened to be an aberration. (Oh, and it wasn’t Christmas, it was Father’s Day!)
She presented my Dad with a nostril hair trimmer! Not only that, when she brought it to him, she was actually USING it! Guess she thought he needed a demo. UGH.
Nothing says “love” more than telling someone, “You’ve got really hairy nostrils. Give this booger-infested trimmer a try!”
My MIL has found religion as her new hobby. Every gift now contains some sort of Bible verse or Christian lesson of some sort.
I wish we could find some sort of Bible exchange registry. . .
This didn’t happen to me (thankfully) but to some cousins of mine. I was there to bear witness.
Like everyone else in this thread, I have a great-aunt who is notorious for her awful dollar store gifts. One year, one of my aunts decided to go shopping with her for everyone’s Christmas presents. I ended up getting a cute Old Navy purse thanks to my aunt, which was definitely my best present ever from my great-aunt. However, my great-aunt’s gifts to my aunt’s daughters were … somewhat lacking. You know those ads in Parade and other similar magazines that feature those godawful supercutsy dolls and teddy bears for “adult collectors” at exorbitant prices? Well, my aunt cut out pictures of the dolls and pasted them to scraps of cardboard. I distinctly remember that one was of the Princess Diana Bear. That was the present for my cousins. They were about 8 and 10, so they were old enough to realize that they had been given a horribly shitty present but young enough that getting good presents really mattered. On top of that, my great-aunt’s present for my aunt was a picture of my aunt in her college cheerleading uniform - you guessed it - pasted to a scrap of cardboard. I felt so guilty that I got a good present.
Oh dear Og, I think we just got first runner-up.
Lisa-go-Blind, were the pictures of the bears and dolls the actual gift, or were they, “This is what you’re getting, it hasn’t arrived in the mail yet” gifts?
Nope, the cutout pictures were the actual gift.
Y’kow, what with so many of these presents being from elderly relatives, I think at least some of the givers may be either Socially Clueless or Actually Physically Unable To Think Clearly Enough To Give The Other Person A Decent Gift.
Although some of them do seem spiteful as well.
My sister and I got married the same fall, a few months apart. That Christmas my new husband actually asked me for a nose hair trimmer, and I was aghast. No way, said I, offended. What a horribly unromantic gift for our first real Christmas together! No nose hair trimmer for him.
Well, on Christmas Eve we’re all opening presents and my new brother-in-law opens up… a nose hair trimmer from my sister. I just burst out laughing because I’d so sternly read my poor spouse the riot act on what an awful newlywed gift it was. My sister wasn’t sure why I was laughing, but the absurdity of it got to her, too, and pretty soon we were all in danger of wetting our pants. I managed to squeak out that I refused to buy it for my husband, and my sister gasped that her husband, like mine, had specifically asked for one. You kind of had to be there, but it was one of my better memories of that first Christmas.
As for authentically bad presents, I got it in my head one year that it would be a great idea to buy my Dad some of the food he really liked. Like Corn Chex. I think my mom talked me out of it but I was seriously close to putting boxes of wrapped up breakfast cereal under the tree.
My grandmother was the QUEEN of terrible gifts.
For my sixteenth birthday, she gave me a “rolling ruler” like this one that still had the garage sale $0.25 sticker on it, and it was broken. Along with this thoughtful gift, I got a pair of size 0 pants (I’ve been a 14 or above since I was ten) and a ripped tshirt with a pink horse head on it, that was four sizes too small. I figure she thought I was my cousin, who is 6’5" 120 pounds and a crack addict who likes pink and horses.
I got a doll from her every year. I hate dolls and I have since I was old enough to push things away from me in the crib. I love stuffed animals, though, so it’s not like I was hard to buy for.
For Christmas about five years ago, I got a tshirt, size 5x, with puppies with christmas hats on the front, and the back ends of the puppies on the back. She “wanted to make sure it was big enough, because I’m so fat”. I’m a bit overweight, yes, but DAMN. My mother and sister in law got the same thing, with kittens instead. I took it home and my roommate and I stretched it over the dining room table just because we could. My brother got a sweat suit with a really nice hooded sweatshirt, my father got something equally nice. She told us over and over, she doesn’t like girls and that the boys are more important.
Is it wrong to be glad that she’s dead?
No, but it might be polite not to say so in front of anybody who might have liked her.
Oh, nobody liked her.
She was a drill sergeant during world war II and I guess the training stuck.
Her sisters still bring up mean stuff she did to them during the depression. Yes, 70-odd years ago.
I thought this said “No, but it might be polite not to say so in front of anybody who might have killed her.”
(I’ve probably posted this somewhere on the SDMB before–it’s so pathetic.)
When I was a kid I desperately wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. I’m not sure why. I may have even been too old for it. At our house the Santa presents were never wrapped. (For another post-is this unusual? Our were never wrapped.) So my brother, sister and I went to the tree and there was an Easy-Bake Oven. I was thrilled. I was picking it up, really happy, and my dad said, “That’s for Margaret.” My sister, four years younger than me. I can’t tell you how awful it felt. I can still feel it now, age 46. I had to put the gift down and pretend like I was happy for her and pretend like I was happy with my presents, which I do not remember at all. I do remember there was a book called “Freckles” about a boy with freckles, which I could never bring myself to read. Who cares about freakin’ freckles?
She hardly ever played with the Easy-Bak Oven. I’m sure I got to use it, but IT WAS NOT MINE. Years later I bought one at a rummage sale “for my daughter.” She was not interested. We pushed the baking pan in too fast and the batter sloshed over onto the lightbulb (which was what cooked the food). So it was a mess and we ended up throwing it out. But, to this day, I still want to buy a new one. Also, when I go to the grocery store and see those little (Jiffy?) boxes of cake mix and cornbread mix I feel like buying them because they are so special.
Other bad presents: I’m the church organist. Once (many moons ago when I was in college) the choir gave me a bottle of Shalimar cologne (I HATE that fragrance–but I have a friend who loves it so it was re-gifted) and a scarf. I NEVER wear a scarf, and it was weird colors that I NEVER wear, like chartreuse and yellow.
Once I said something to my MIL about collecting brass candlesticks (read: Baldwin). So she gave me a set of three fake-brass candlesticks. Really cheap and not shiny. After years I got rid of them. Then a couple of years later I got three more from her. If I ever want something she will get it for me, but usually pretty cheap. Like a huge stock pot, but made of a thin metal so stuff burns unless you are careful not to turn the heat up too high and you must stir a lot.
But sometimes she gives me something really great, like an iced tea maker which I used so much it wore out, or clothes that I wear until they are frayed.
She has also told me that if my husband and I ever get divorced, they are going to keep me instead of him, so basically she is pretty cool.
Darn it! I always mess up these posts by not paying attention. That was not the worst gift, it was the worst non-gift.
Okay, I’ll tell you a couple of bad ones. My husband is kind of thrifty. (an economist, has a Ph.D., wears clothes that are falling apart, won’t wear a suit to work, etc.) So if I ever talk him into giving me anything really special he will say it is for “Valentines, anniversary, birthday, Christmas for the next four years.” That kind of crap. I usually agree to it but I don’t mean it. I mean, how long are we going to say that my Mini Cooper is my Christmas present? To hell with that!
So one year I must have gotten something really special, I don’t remember what, maybe a special ring on our anniversary. So for Christmas I got a first-aid kit (to take camping and to keep in the car) and I also got some duct tape, or, as some people around here call it, gray tape.
One year I showed him these purses I really liked. So there was this present that felt like it could be a purse. The right weight and size. So I open it up and it is an Opus stuffed animal! (the penguin from Bloom County) Now I really liked that comic strip, but geez! I think that same Christmas I got a present, unwrapped it to find another present inside it with the tag saying Mr. Lillith’s name on it, and he unwrapped himself a package of tennis balls! How nice! This was the year that I got this wonderful rocking chair from western North Carolina that I wanted, but he would not give me the thing I really wanted to go with the rocking chair, a little baby. For the little baby I had to wait seven years until we could afford it. This was hard because all my friends were having their babies and I had to wait until I was 29 1/2 years old to have mine. On the other hand, we had a little house, he had a good job, we had health care and I was going to be able to be a stay at home mom for “a couple of years” that turned into eight years and I still am not working full-time because I want to be there for the little baby, now aged 16 1/2. So I guess being married to a cheap economist is okay. Except that poor girl has to wear her coat in the house because we can’t turn the heat up to over 67degrees. I finally got her a beautiful blue robe for Christmas so hopefully she’ll take her coat off.
But I digress…SORRY!
:smack:
:: sniff sniff ::
Here - Easy Bake oven, mint condition, just for you!
(actually I see those in thrift stores all the time, not mint, but still)
My Mom had a record player story like that. It was given to her brother instead of her.
I can’t recall a terrible gift, but some of my grandmother’s do come to mind.
The champ was a pair of men’s bikini briefs with the words “magic wand” on the front. I don’t think she had any clue as to the connotations, though, and I keep them even now – it’s amusing to find them in my underwear drawer.
She also once gave me something I had given to her, but she was over 90 at the time and was just trying to get rid of things.
Once, I got her husband a styptic pencil. I had about $20 to buy presents for about 20 people (this was back in the 60s, where that wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds) and I think I was down to my last 50 cents. I had no idea what a styptic pencil was, but it was in my price range, so I picked it up. Since I was still around 12, I got some dispensation.
Ow! Diet Pepsi out the nose! I think it would be more polite to say so in front of someone who had killed her. I’m sorry your grandmother was so terrible she’s funny, FilmGeek.
Anyway, back to the OP, Bruce_Daddy’s vibrator story reminds me of the year (before we were dating) my dear innocent husband got a big personal massager for his mother’s girlfriend. One of the big pulg-in ones with a bend in it so you can massage your own shoulders. To this day, the thought “I gave a vibrator to my mother’s lesbian lover” has not crossed my husband’s mind. I *so * want to point this out, but I mustn’t.
My mom actually got me an Easy Bake Oven when I was 21 (I think it was to make up for all the poor Christmases we had when I was growing up, like the one when our presents were stolen [as harmless mentioned above]). She even got a big accessory kit with a little rolling pin, tiny mixing bowls, itty bitty muffin tins and papers, little cookie sheets, and a ton of mixes. There were even little wedding cake pans and tiers!! I honestly think that was the best present I ever got. Go get yourself one, Lillith Fair! You deserve it!! 
My experience of Burger Rings was that they tasted more ketchup-flavored than meat flavored. Maybe ketchup with a mild overtone of grilled beef.
Darn good, actually.
At my previous job I had a co-worker friend from our Australian office who used to bring me Burger Rings and Tim Tams whenever she came to visit. Yum!