Here in Colorado, Hardees didn’t exactly go out of business but they were all renamed Carl’s Jr. You know Carl. He’s the one of “Don’t Bother Me, I’m Eating” fame.
Sorry about the terrible comfusion.
My brother got me 50-cent earrings. I didn’t mind that they only cost 50-cents, but I wished he wouldn’t keep bragging about it. We weren’t kids, either.
My first Christmas with my boyfriend, now husband, he didn’t get me any present at all. He said he thought he didn’t have to. This year he’s going to get me lots of stuff!
Next time he brags about the earrings, just tell your brother that no good deed goes unpunished.
Getting a subpeona for Christmas was probably number one; getting a drunk between the headlights on the way home from gramma’s house is number two.
Number three was busted plumbing under the sink, in case you want to know.
Gotta be the year that my second oldest sister got me and my 3 younger sisters nearly identical gifts: one t-shirt (mine was Winnie-the Pooh–I’m not a Pooh fan, my 2 youngest sisters are), one sports jersey (mine was the Chicago White Sox–I’m not a sports fan in general and not a baseball fan in particular, I did follow the Bulls for several years, including that one. My 2nd youngest sister, BTW, is a rabid Sox fan) and one frilly flowery nightgown (I wore flannel PJs at the time, and never anything with flowers on). Additionally, I am 6-10 years older than my three younger sisters, and it was insulting to be classed as one of the “children” (I was in HS, they were all in elementary school). Especially since she had gotten everyone to write out a wish list for her to help her shop. Plus I had actually gone out and bought a gift for her that I knew she would like without having to refer to the list she’d taped to my parents’ kitchen wall.
Two years ago, from my aunt and uncle, I got what had to be the World’s Ugliest Sweater™. Opened the Kohl’s box and found a powder-blue sweater, size XL, with a snow scene with sledding kids and a snowman. There were also large (palm-sized) snowflakes scattered randomly over the portion of the sweater not occupied by the snow scene. Might have been okay for a six-year-old kid but not for a 26-year-old adult. So I took the damn thing back to Kohl’s.
The girl at the Returns desk couldn’t find the sweater in the system in order to give me a refund. It took a ten-minute search by her supervisor before they were able to confirm that that particular sweater hadn’t been sold by Kohl’s for three years! I sighed – typical for my family. Okay, then, just give me my refund. How much? The salesgirl looked sheepish, then muttered, “Three dollars.”
THREE DOLLARS?!!?!? For Christmas, you give me what is not only the world’s UGLIEST sweater, but it’s been sitting in the box in your closet for three years (implying some serious re-gifting), and it’s worth a grand total of three dollars?!? I almost had an embolism.
I then took the three dollars, went to McDonalds, and used it to buy most of a Big Mac meal deal. (It wasn’t even enough to cover the cost of the whole meal.)
This is why this particular aunt and uncle now only get a card from me every Christmas. 
Cash.
Oops. Thought that said ‘best’.
I guess the worst was when my uncle, in what I am assuming was a misguided attempt to appeal to my interest in psychology, gave me a copy of “10 Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives” by “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger.
I think my brother’s all-time worst had to have been the time my great-aunt sent us clothing and had apparently forgotten that he was (is) MALE. He opened his package to find a little pink-and-lavender striped shirt with bows and a pink skirt. Mind you, I also got girl-type clothing, and there aren’t any other kids she would have been sending gifts to, so she really just slipped on the whole gender thing.
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At the Christmas before I moved to Florida from Ohio, My step-monster gave me a very heavy sweatshirt with snowmen and snowflakes all over it, along with some hand-knitted wool sock/slipper things. I was moving to South Florida, where I would never need them. They never made it to Florida.
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Or was it the box of fire ants who invaded the box of homemade chocolates my step monster sent… without sealing and packing the box properly? I had to open that one out in the yard, carefully trying to avoid getting bitten by vicious, chocolate-crazed fire ants.
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Or has it been the useless stream of far-too-heavy-for-Florida-weather, cheap, reduced-to-$0.99, tacky trailer trash clothes which were not suited to my tastes, didn’t fit and still had the price tags on them?
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Perhaps it was the broken coffee mug and matching broken plate I got last year?
My step mom has some shipping issues. She evidently hasn’t been introduced to bubble wrap or the idea of sealing food in plastic. She tries, she at least thinks of me and I should be grateful. But my sister and I, every year, look forward to comparing which of us got the most thoughtless gift!
Whoa! You’re in Colorado? I thought that was where Dick Cheney was! Don’t tell me the two of you had a brain transplant! That’d explain a lot of things…
Every article of clothing ever given to me by my mother. (All others in the family feel the same, it’s not just me.)
Quick summary: Every article of green clothing I have is from her. She knows perfectly well blue is my favorite color. Has never given me anything blue.
I know a guy who received a box of “After Eight” mints from his grandparents. Now, sure a $3 box of chocolate from Shopper’s Drug Mart = thoughtless, but it’s the fact that they were half eaten that really sets this gift apart from the mass of “why did you even bother?” gifts.
[Homer Simpson voice]
Mmmmmm, classsy
[/Homer]
It’s not something I received, but my very ex-boyfriend got my parents a CHIA HEAD. The professor model, if you’re interested. My GOD.
My aunt and uncle always give me and my sister idenical gifts, I guess to eliminate jealousy or something. It was cute when we were little, but the matching sweaters look is getting old…
3 years ago, my boyfriend at the time bought me a bar of soap. Well, he says he did anyways…it was left in my bag at work, and I’ve always thought he took the blame for it because he knew I would forgive him easier than I would have any of the other losers at work. Too bad none of them realized that they all smelled like McDonalds too…
(By the way, to retaliate, I bought him shampoo for his birthday…people at work decided we both had issues!)
Hmmm… worst Christmas gift…
String, or nothing.