Hey, I got coloring books when I was in high school-I LOVE Coloring Books!
And my best friend bought her seventeen year old sister an Aladdin coloring book for Christmas, because her sister LOVED Aladdin! She was thrilled!
Really? Well, I never liked colouring books even when I was a little tyke, depite being an artist. Then, just as now, I was a draw-er, not a colourererer. 
A couple of years ago my in-laws gave me a case of motor oil.
I guess I had a puzzled look on my face, because they had to clarify for me, “It’s for your car!”
I pushed it over to my husband and said, “Guess this one’s really for you.” He does all the oil-changin’ in our house.
That was all they gave me that year, too. Whoop-dee-doo.
Yeah, I know, it was practical, but motor oil? Puh-leeze. :rolleyes:
One year my girlfriend of 2 years gave me a waffle iron…even though she had never seen me eat a waffle. (My brother really liked it, though)
I want to be the ugly sock-giver in my family.
The worst present I ever got was from a cousin, when I was around 12 or 13. Skunk house shoes. Hideous. I told her they were too small. Thankfully they actually were. She took them back and got me pink bunny rabbit house shoes.
Thrills. Then another year, a different cousin got me a bulletin board. Shaped like a hippo. Did I mention I was a fat kid? Ugh.
The first Christmas I was married, my mother-in-law got me a sewing machine. I mean, sewing machines are expensive and everything, but there really is no way to express here what a non-sewing-machine person I am. It’s like giving a fish snowshoes. My dad laughed his ass off.
My step-mother spent weeks building up my anticipation of my Christmas gift one year when I was in college. She kept telling me that I was going to love it. When it began arriving, I couldn’t believe that it was what she’d been hyping the whole time. I kept expecting something else to arrive, but it never did. My present that year (which I never mentioned to them that I got) was a subscription to Reader’s Digest.
MY CRAZY Grandmother sent me a deck of Old maid crards once. I was 30 yo at the time.
When I was 13 or 14 (so either Christmas 1981 or '82), my grandma gave me a cap gun. A Starsky and Hutch toy pistol.
I was underwhelmed.
Then, when I was about 17, my eldest sister got me a shirt. A silver shirt that looked as though it was made out of aluminium foil. I threw it away within hours of opening it.
From iampunha:
**A luggage strap.
Writing that thank-you note was an exercise in creativity. **
[/QUOTE]
It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that it was from somebody who should have known better – your grandmother, my mother.
And of course you remember that your sister got – drum roll – a luggage tag.
You did get a check for $50 from her, too, as I recall. But I’m not excusing her. She sent me a pomander ball once, which would have been okay even though I don’t use such things, but it was from Colonial Williamsburg or somewhere and came with a note about putting it in a “foul and stinking closet.”
She gave me a scarf recently, the kind some women wear with ordinary clothes. I don’t wear them, and it was a horrible color for me, so into the Goodwill bag it went.
And jewelry – she gives me jewelry. Which I don’t wear, except for a wedding ring. She also has been known to think I have pierced ears, which is so far from who I am it is not even funny.
I don’t see her much, so she has little opportunity to get to know me better than she does – but she did raise me, so you’d think she’d know better. Ah, well.
What?!?!? What kind of a child were you, that you weren’t happy to get bongo drums? I’d be happy to get bongo drums now, and I’m 27! I could understand your disappointment if it was an intended slight, like they were disparaging your sense of rhythm or something, but come on! Freakin’ bongo drums!!! What did they get you the next year, a pony?
My husband and I have the same ex-mother-in-law. She is by far the worst gift giver ever. One year she gave me a cheese board with a glass globe to put the cheese under. The board had knife cuts in it already. And she gave my husband a half used bottle of cheap cologne that had a ton of dust on it. REGIFTER!!! She sucks.
A ceramic statute of a life-sized pair of hands held in the prayer position, painted a bright yellow.
I’m not particularly religious.
Oh, I don’t know. With a little sign under them –
– they’d be great on the mantelpiece.
Daniel
<hijack> So you’re married to an ex-husband of a sister of your ex-husband? Is her your brother too? :D</hijack>
Mine was someone else’s gift. The gift was good, a decent point and shoot camera and I really like it and was sincere in in thanking the giver, my dad for it. Then my sister opened hers, he remembered that it was supposed to me mine, and so we had to switch. I can’t even remember what mine was, just that I wanted the camera more.
An ex-boyfriend from high school had asked me what kinds of things I liked for Christmas (when we were still dating). I told him a few things including sweaters, thinking maybe he’d pick out some delicate, lovely angora or cashmere number. Nope. He went to Sears and picked out a sweater, alright. It was bright blue, like turquoise blue, made of cheap cable knit and crew-style. It was the right size, but something about the neck opening wasn’t right and I couldn’t get it over my head. It was like he walked into the store thinking “sweater” and picked out the first one he saw. And he wasn’t a poor kid, either. My mom and I laughed about that one for years.
Last year my mother-in-law got my husband and I some kitchen items, including this fancy, gadget-y thing that looks like a giant rubber stamp, and you use it to cut or grate very hard cheese, like parmesan. I can’t imagine in my lifetime being in a position where I not only bought a whole hunk of parmesan cheese, but couldn’t figure out how to slice or grate it myself without the help of a contraption like this. It’s still untouched in the box and is going to get regifted.
This year for my birthday, my (crazy evil bitch of a) grandmother sent me a package containing:
-An unsigned birthday card. (So I can sign it and send it to someone else?)
-A small piece of wood covered in wrapping paper attached to a sappy poem about how this gift is a box you can never open, a gift filled with my love. I know for a fact this has been in her house for at least twenty years.
-A postcard of my town.
-A small booklet called “My Bible Companion.” She knows I’m not religious.
-A package of picture hangers.
-A pair of Halloween socks.
I think she walked around the house picking things up and putting them in the padded envelope.
All I could do was laugh for ten minutes and then call my mother and tell her that Grammie needed to be commited. She must have told my aunt, because a week later I got a birthday card from her with a check inside and a note saying “We didn’t have any picture hangers to send you, so this will have to do.”
If I saw that on a mantelpiece I’d about die laughing.
Last year, my in-laws got me some Old Spice for Christmas. Oh the holiday spirit was with me that day, I can tell you.
The worst present I ever got was from a rich uncle who I despise with every fiber of my being. I was about ten years old at the time. He got me this hand held “electronic” baseball game. I put “electronic” in quotes because the only electronic thing is did was to randomly light up an LED at one of the bases when you pushed the button. You had to manually turn a dial to mark which base you were on, and how many runs you scored. I later saw it advertised in a catalog for $5.00. I would have vastly preferred the cash.
This requires a little background…
My mother married a man who is still very close to his deceased wife’s family - they’ve been in his life over thirty years. They also LOVE my mother. So I go to Thanksgiving and Christmas at my stepfather’s dead wife’s sister’s house. Follow that? Good. (I think I win the most-dysfunctional-family award.)
It’s taken me awhile to get adjusted to this family. The grandmother, my stepfather’s former mother-in-law, is certifiable. She gives “plate gifts” at Christmas, which she puts out when her daughter sets the table. Last year, my mother and I got Christmas ornaments that we saw on her tree the previous year. One was dated 1996. The others got toiletries. My stepsister got a travel tube of toothpaste that might or might not have been used. My actual present from her was a glazed porcelain box that was supposed to look like white wicker, with monstrous glazed porcelain poinsettias on the lid. My mom got a plastic plate shaped like a snowman from the dollar store. The biggest problem is that she actually puts thought into these gifts.
I am in no way blood related to this woman.
This year, for Hanukkah, Airman and I got shish-kebab holders for the grill that look like long cages. We also got car-safety hammers so we can break the windows and cut the seatbelts in case we get trapped.
My mother needs help with her gift-buying.
Robin