Ho, ho, ho, pandas, what did Santa leave for you under the Christmas tree this year? Was it the present that you wanted? Or maybe it was Krampus who visited you and left you with a big pile of disappointment?
In that case, don't be too sad knowing you're in good company. These people from the r/AskReddit community have found some duds under the Christmas Tree too. The user SwirlyStarrs asked netizens to share what's the worst gift they received and the answers ranged from cringy to downright offensive. Perhaps Krampus possesses some people to gift empty boxes and library books that are soon to be due?
We were lucky enough to be able to chat with the person who posted this question on r/AskReddit. SwirlyStarrs agreed to have a brief chat with Bored Panda and tell us more about her reasons for posting this question.
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The Reddit user SwirlyStarrs tells Bored Panda why she asked other people about their worst Christmas presents. "To be honest, I was inspired by having trouble getting a gift for my grandma. She's so difficult," the Redditor says.
The amount of answers involving horses surprised the author of the post. She even left a comment under one of the posts: "A surprising amount of these stories include horses/ponies." SwirlyStarrs tells Bored Panda that she was somewhat shocked by how many answers there were about horses.
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Some people feel a lot of pressure during the Christmas season because they feel they have to get the right gift for everyone. The Redditor says that ideally, giving gifts shouldn't be this way.
"I don’t think gifting in and of itself should be a lot of pressure, but it just is sometimes," she admits. "I think it's worth it if the person likes the gift that you spent so much time on." SwirlyStarrs also says she believes she's a good gift-giver. "I love getting people gifts, and I feel like I’m decent at it."
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Let's face it, when it comes to Christmas presents, we've all received a stinker or two. I, personally, never know how to react without offending the giver. True, in some cases the gift might be so offensive and cruel that you might want the culprit to get some of their own medicine. But what about cases when the person didn't mean to offend and just missed the mark?
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Diane Gottsman, an etiquette expert and founder of the Protocol School of Texas told CNBC that adults should accept unwanted gifts with grace and class. She claims that we're not thanking the person for the item itself. "You’re thanking them for the effort. The gift is secondary. It's the thought and the effort and the love that counts."
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How to react face-to-face depends on your relationship with the giver. If it's not a family member, a simple "thank you" is enough, even if you don't plan on using the gift. If it's someone close to you, you might want to let them know politely.
If it's an item of clothing that doesn't fit, ask them if you can switch it for the right size. Gottsman says you wouldn't be out of line when asking someone you're relatively familiar with.
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Gottsman also told CNBC that you should write a thank-you note to the person who gave you the gift. Doesn't matter if you think it's useless or bad – you should still thank them for thinking of you and putting in the effort.
After that, etiquette dictates that the item is yours to do with as you please. You can either donate it or re-gift it. Be careful not to hurt anyone's feelings with re-gifting, though. Gottsman has a saying for these instances: "I always say, regift in another city."
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My ex got me, a 6’3” guy, a women’s medium white hoodie. I was so mad about it. She has a habit of getting others gifts that are really for her. I wore the s**t out of that hoodie. Time to mow the grass, time for the white hoodie. Need to fix the car, yep time for the white hoodie. She was so mad. Glad she’s an ex.One particularly tough year, many years ago, I was battling cancer, (all good now) hubby worked part time to look after me and the kids so money was super tight.
Hubby and I decided not to do gifts for each other, every thing we saved for Christmas went to the kids and to the meal, there wasn’t much of ‘everything’ to be honest, but we made it work. Kids were young, young kids don’t need much to feel special, so we had that in our favour.
A few weeks before Christmas, We went to a charity dinner for people doing it tough and were all given Christmas gifts. Most people unwrapped it then and there, but we took the gifts home to put under the tree as there wasn’t much of anything under our tree. We waited for Christmas Day, saying it’ll be extra special to wait. It made it look at lot more festive to have more gifts under the tree.
I was delighted to have something wrapped under the tree for us parents, I felt sad that I couldn’t gift hubby anything so this was the next best thing given the circumstances. We didn’t expect much but the mystery and excitement of what they could be added a little Christmas magic for us.
The gift for hubby and I from the charity was our only gifts that year. The day finally came, it was time to unwrap!!!! Hubby got a men’s toiletry set. I got a little pamper set …. Wellllll the packaging said it was filled with bath salts and lotions - but it was empty, yup an empty box.
Someone had either donated it to charity empty, or a volunteer took the products out. Either way, the charity didn’t check to see if the stuff they wrapped actually were ok.
I was so absolutely devastated but faked delight for the kids about the pretty box it came in. I didn’t expect much, but that was nasty! What a way to kick a family when they’re down!!!We were pretty poor growing up and my dad got injured on the job. It was the first Xmas since the injury settlement and my parents were having a new two story house built with a chunk of the money. I was twelve at the time and all I wanted and asked for was a guitar. I knew guitars were exspensive so I asked it to be my only gift. Christmas morning my little brother and sister start opening gifts, nice toys, games ect. My first gift was a single wash cloth. Second gift was a single towel. Next was a shower curtin... My mom had used Christmas to redecorate the bathroom for the new home and wrapped each item and just put my name on it. After the third wash cloth I stopped opening gifts and asked if they got me a guitar. They said "no because you'll just get bored of it". I asked if I could exchange the bathroom stuff to buy myself some games of something. I was called ungrateful and hard to shop for. I ended up using my college money to buy a guitar a few months later and my parents refuse to buy me any more gifts for birthdays or xmas because of the inccident so they just give me a card or cash. This was 30 years ago and they still refuse to buy me gifts. I now teach guitar to kids for free and have made a lot of friends playing in bands.First Christmas with my dad, his new wife, and her kids. They opened designer handbags, DVD box sets (this was almost 20 years ago), electronics, etc.
I got: a bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo. No matching conditioner.
My sister got: A Hanes 5 pack of granny panties.
My stepmother is…not a nice lady.My husband is a guitar player. He gives me music equipment that I don't know the purpose of. Of course it's for him. So since I'm an avid gardener I give him gardening tools for Christmas.I was the adopted kid so I always lowkey got the bad end of the stick but Christmas 9 years ago was the worst.
My grandparents were loaded, my parents, not so much. My parents told me they couldn’t afford to keep me on a phone plan and come to find out it was because they were on my grandparents phone plan. I really wanted an iPhone 6 so I would finally have a reliable phone when I was working, driving ect, and I was willing to pay my part of the monthly bill, I just needed someone to buy it for me because at 16 I couldn’t get it on my own.
So Christmas comes around and I got a small box wrapped up and it was an iPhone6 box and I was so excited I started screaming and hugging my grandparents, so I ripped it open and inside was a note that said “never judge a book by it’s cover”. I didn’t cry that day but I cried for weeks following. My grandpa recorded it and posted it on Facebook and still, 9 years later, shares it every Christmas for people to laugh at. I don’t remember anything else I got for that Christmas but I do remember my cousins getting a lot of really great stuff from their list that year. It still upsets me, but that’s ok.Someone in the extended family repeatedly gave me alcohol and shot glasses when it was well known I’d quit drinking. They did it maliciously thinking I’d fall off the wagon. What they didn’t understand was that I quit drinking because it was giving me anaphylaxis. If I started drinking again, it’s not like I’d relapse; I’d die. That s**t gets worse each time.My ex husband got me Pyrex portable dishes. Seemed fine. Until the day after Christmas when I went to the bank and discovered those were the free gift when you opened a checking account. Turns out he opened a secret account, too! Wasn’t that sly…My ex husband was 15 and went for his first Christmas with his s****y father, new stepmother, and her two sons. His dad says, (speaking to the three boys), “Come out to the garage for your big Christmas present!” And there were TWO off-road motorcycles. One for each of HER boys but nothing for him. This pattern repeated throughout the years. I hated his father from day one and if he’s still alive I hope he’s dying slowly of painful cancer.A gift certificate from the spa hotel he was at on Christmas Eve with another woman. I found out because he took me there for breakfast Christmas morning and surprised me saying he had rented us a room so we could enjoy the hot mineral water . When we got to the room it wasn't made up yet so I went to the front desk to let them know. That was when I was informed that they didn't service rooms that were carried over for another day. Yeah, the same room and the same bed he had f****d that wh*re in just hours before. Sick a*****e.A one person tent and lantern from my MIL, we were struggling to pay the bills back then and she said, in front of of everyone, "this is in case you guys get evicted". We had 3 kids at the time.Nothing. One year, we were pretty poor due to my mother's insane spending habits. But she managed to scrounge up enough cash to get my little sisters and little brother a few things. I however, had nothing under the tree. And nothing in the stocking. My mom just acted like it wasn't a big deal, and I should be happy I still had a roof over my head. I was 12. At the family dinner later my mother had a new one ripped in to her by my grandmother when I was asked what I got. So maybe I did get a little something...When I was about 10, all I wanted was a VCR. Asked for it all year. My hateful grandmother who raised me put a bedspread in a VCR box. I’m 47 now but I’ll never forget itMy husband is an incredible human and talented at many things - but he gave me a truly hilarious gift once! For our very first Christmas together, 2004, we were young and broke (22, in grad school). He was so excited to give me my gift and he presented it proudly in front of my family. He got me a mini sampler of perfumes, a book, and a box of high-end chocolates. These are all great gifts on their own, but ironically, 1.) I’m allergic to most perfumes/colognes, 2.) he had already given me the exact same book a few months earlier for my birthday, and 3.) I’m lactose intolerant.
I was honestly touched by the thought, but the irony was too much - my sister burst out laughing. It’s still a joke in our family, but we were all so charmed by the fact that he’d gone to multiple stores and was so proud. Poor, sweet guy. We’re happily married now…but he definitely knows to avoid chocolate and perfume!I had an ex take me to the mall and dismally demand I “pick something because he didn’t feel like trying to guess what I’d like. We’d been together for seven years. I didn’t pick anything, and a few days later he became single for Christmas.Slim fast shakes from my mom when I was 14.A Christmas card that said "roses are red, violets are blue, youre a jew, so no Christmas for you." Grade 4 truly was a special time.A fire notice from my job. They put that s**t in a gift box.Not me, but my cousins (sisters, aged about 5 and 8) got a small bottle of Johnson's Baby Powder. As a JOINT gift from their great-aunt. SMH. It just smacks of "She's old, Rusty, she and Uncle Louis don't have a lot of money so she takes things from around the house and wraps them up."An eviction notice from my parents before I was 18.A taxidermy cat. I was like 9.
I had a grandma who was notorious for giving the worst possible gifts you can think of. So on Christmas Day I go to open the one from her and it’s literally a taxidermy cat. Now, me as a child, I specifically was horrified by taxidermy, I love animals and didn’t understand the whole reasoning behind it. Long story short I opened it up and immediately burst into tears, I was completely traumatized and my parents were so confused on why she would give me that.Bottle of wine from a friend who knows 100% I don't drink alcohol, especially wine.I dated a guy in college for almost six months who was really into civil war history. I bought an old Confederate dollar bill on eBay, went to Michael’s for some cheap fabric backing and a frame, framed it myself. Wrapped it and tied a ribbon around to make a bow.
He gave me a seashell from his family beach trip over the summer. From before we had met, so it wasn’t like “oh, I found this seashell and thought of you” - it was just something he already had knocking about in the back of his closet. Dude was from a wealthy family and he threw money around like it was nothing, but he couldn’t even be bothered to put the seashell in a gift bag.
I broke up with him the next day.A gift card with nothing on it.I was in debate my freshman year, it was a blended grade class. The teacher arranged an optional secret santa for the class. One of the seniors got my name.
Exchange day comes around and I get a $20 gift card to Starbucks. Cool, he didn't know me that well so a gift card was fine.
At the time I'd never had Starbucks so I was happy to try it. Went to get something and found out there was $2.73 left on the card... he literally just gave me his used gift card. D**k.Got a crucifix one year from my grandmother. The same year I told my family I was atheist.On Reddit Secret Santa I spent time and quite a bit of money selecting and sending something cool for my secret Santa.
The person who got me sent a dirty sticker and a ripped piece of paper saying “sorry I forgot to get something and I don’t have money anyway so here’s a sticker don’t be mad”.
Like cool dude - you could’ve backed out and I would’ve been assigned to someone else. I just thought it was kinda inconsiderate and mean.A huge bag of disposable pink razors paired with thick off brand pads to open in front of my entire extended family.My dad got me a snow shovel and even wrapped it and when I opened it up, he told me to go use it on the driveway.I got perfume samples, the kind you find embedded in the pages of magazines, and two 99c cans of shaving cream. My stepmonster was irritated I wasn't more appreciative of her "practical" gifts.
My stepsister got a horse.An empty box, apparently the look on my face as a kid was the present my family needed.A blouse my MIL pulled out of her closet. I made her squirm by asking for the receipt so I could exchange it for a different size. She said she must’ve misplaced it. B***h.Earrings from my boyfriend... when I didn't have pierced ears. And when I saw the box, I thought it was a ring and he was proposing. AND when I reminded him I didn't have pierced ears, he returned them and kept the money.A half used bottle of bubble bath. Used I know because it had ran down the sides of the bottle and dried.A ziploc bag of muddy buddies, with fruit flies all over them.
A bag of tortilla chips, they were stale.
Another ziploc bag filled with nail polishes, all old and separating.
Those were all the same person.
A GF at the time was yelling at me about giving her a stupid and thoughtless gift, before tossing their gift at me and stomping away. They gave me a book. A beaten-up, used book. I know it was used because I was the original owner of the book, and had lent it to her months before.Not me, but my MIL gifted someone a library book that had to be returned in a week.A German, meat based cookbook from my now ex mother in law. She knew I had become vegetarian and disapproved. The thing was, I dropped it at Goodwill the following week and a couple weeks after that she asked if she could borrow it. That would be the pair of Christmas socks where they claimed "one sock was for Christmas, and one for my birthday" while laughing hysterically. My birthday is the 24th. A runner up to worst gift was a rubber band ball (i was 16) and it wasn't a gag gift.. tied in place with the book I gave my mom - 2 years later, regifted to me, as she said she didn't want it, and if I didn't either to just throw it away. It was a memory book. I canceled my birthday and only started recently doing holidays again for my kid.My ex gave me a blank dollar store photo album with some of the pages labeled and told me my job was to fill the album with photos of us. So basically he gave me a homework assignment for Christmas.Peanut butter filled pretzels.
I’m deathly allergic to peanuts.I was a third grade teacher. One of the student’s moms had her own business selling sex toys at home parties. She gave me a vibrator, which I opened in front of the whole class, because the girl insisted I open her present. Mom wrote me a note that said it would keep me warm on cold winter nights.I was five. My grandmother got me a solar powered/hand crank radio. I didn't have any interest in the radio. I had no interest in letting it charge in the sun. I had no interest in cranking it.
Worst part is my cousin and I are two months apart in age. We always go the same gifts from our grandma and they were always so strange. Now we send each other strange Christmas gifts each year in her honor.A toothbrush. But here’s the rest of it- when we were kids (me, my 2 younger brothers) always got toothbrushes for a stocking stuffer. One year we opened ours and ran into the bathroom to change our old ones out. Cue my youngest brother & me reaching for the same toothbrush. We looked at each other with HORROR. We’d been unknowingly using the same toothbrush as the other for months.Ok I was 6 at the time. So it was Christmas and I did the usual, screaming "ITS CHRISTMAS WAKE UP EVERYONE!" then I went downstairs to check under the tree to see if Santa left me any presents. Underneath, there was a present wrapped in baby blue. It felt soft like cloth. I didn't think much of it and opened the box. Inside there was a baby sized baby blue Onesie that said "Baby boy" then there was a note for me. It said "Congratulations (My name) you are going to be a big sister!" That present still is a pain in my a*s to this day (Don't worry I also got a kitchen set)My entire life my parents have teased me for enjoying soggy cereal (I don't like things that are too crunchy and I prefer a texture closer to oatmeal). I don't mind the teasing; I think it's funny too and have made a lot of jokes about it myself. I just like my cereal soggy, end of story. Christmas morning, my brother opens up the novelty bowl which keeps the cereal and milk separate. I thought it was a neat invention, but I remarked jokingly that I would never use something like that, because as everybody knows I want my cereal to be soggy. My parents gave me a withering look like I'd deeply offended them, and my dad told me something along the lines of "Don't be rude". Little did I know they'd bought one for me as well, and I was VERY confused when I opened it. It was not a gag gift, and my parents were genuinely annoyed that I didn't like it but I couldn't pretend otherwise because I'd already blown my cover by commenting on my brother's bowl. The gift itself wasn't insulting or stupid, but the way my family suddenly collectively forgot something that they'd teased me about for 20 years was weirdly hurtful. I still don't get how that happened.A kitten. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my cat and I'm so happy I have her. But when my mom got her for me it was a poorly thought-out surprise. It was even a surprise to my grandparents, who I live with, and had no idea they'd be getting a cat in their house. She also didn't provide a litter tray or litter, or cat food. So my Christmas became a fetch quest of trying to get together everything the kitten needed, with all the shops closed.An omelette pan to “make my husband an omelette on Sunday mornings” from my mother-in-law for my first Xmas in their family. She died the year after and we divorced after 13 yrs because he cheated. Good riddance to all of those nut bars.K-cups, like the cheap gift set from Gordmans around the holidays….followed up by an acknowledgement that I don’t own a keurig.A set of used, mismatched, still dirty kitchen knives in the box for a nice set of knives from my MIL.
What do you even say to that?We went over to my grandma's to wrap presents. So we were wrapping gifts for our cousins and vice versa (she was old and bedridden. We were wrapping such cool things, poly pockets, Barbies, easy bake ovens! I was so excited to go over for Christmas to see what she got us. I opened a container of hand sanitizer… like a gallon sized container of hand sanitizer. And that was my only gift… I was 9.Socks when I was a kid.
Now I want socks.my grandma knew i loved cartoons and animation and my uncle, who loved family guy, knew i HATED family guy with a passion. so he told grandma since i was a adult and loved animation that she should get me some family guy PJs. I could not contain the loathing i felt opening them and seeing peter gryphon looking at me and my grandma waiting for me to cheer like i have been all night. Turns out my uncle did that to get 2 presents from grandma that year cause he knew i would hate it and not want them so he took them.My dad got me a gun when i was really young. I just wanted a f****n barbie or something.I was told going into Christmas that we were broke and I shouldn’t expect much if anything. Which I was fine with tbh. We chose to celebrate at the grandparents so no gift openings at home apart from some chocolate in my stocking from dad.
At the grandparents I open my gift first. New set of pajamas. I was 13 so they were nice but not something I was really excited about.
Everyone else opens their modest gifts. Parents grandparents cousins aunts and uncles all had a few gifts each. Usually my grandparents hand out checks to everyone $100-200 each grand kid but this year they said there was no checks. Instead there was a big surprise.
My mom hands my sister a card the final gift.
Inside was a photo of my sisters new $6,000 Horse, which was big so we had to get a new $8,000 horse trailer and because the horse and trailer were so big a new $24,000 truck was needed.An Atari 2600.
My dad had basically no involvement in my life but thought that getting a nice gift would make up for it. He got me an Atari 2600 for my birthday in July and had given it so little thought that he got me another one for Christmas because he forgot that he had already bought one for me.
I know people who obviously had it worse but this was the moment I realized at 8 years old that my dad didn’t give a s**t about me.Me- stepladder. Brother at 5 years old. He loved sweaters. Opened a box from aunt who was a great knitter. Very excited until he lifted sweater, found out it was a vest. “Where are my sleeves?” Poor kid cried hysterically.I had asked my boyfriend of four years for a nice (not cheap, but certainly not expensive) digital camera (this was Christmas ‘07). I researched the kind I wanted, priced it out, told him all about it.
On Christmas day, he hands me my gift and I excitedly open it to find….. a camcorder. He says, “so we can record concerts and stuff!” He spent more money on a camcorder that would never make it into a concert without getting taken by security, than the camera I had been talking to him about for a few months.
We ended up breaking up 8 days later… not due to the camera/camcorder, but I realized he didn’t listen to me or take my opinion into account for the four years we had been together. I guess ultimately it was a great gift because it opened my eyes to a lot of s****y things he was doing.I once got a notepad from my mum that she'd clearly nabbed from her cleaning job in an office. That was the only gift.
She would normally spend thousands on my younger brother's (different Dad's). They'd have a pile of gifts waist high, spanning the entire living room.
I got a notepad.A pack of all yellow highlighters which I was gifted because I “like art”.
I was a little kid and my great aunt was well meaning, but losing her marbles.We did a “white elephant” gift exchange thing growing up, my family would do it every year instead of having to buy a ton of gifts for the family. So all the adults would buy one gift, and extras so the kids could each get one gift each as well.. I was 13/14 at the time, and I got Dr Pepper chapstick, and a big toy wooden pencil. It’s funny now, but back then seeing my Brothers and Sister get money, it was devastating.I don't drink coffee. My (now ex) partner didn't drink coffee either. My (now ex) mother in law knew this. She knew this because every time she came over, she would complain that we didn’t offer her any coffee, and we would explain that since neither of us drink coffee, we didn't have coffee.
Well, one Christmas she gave me ...
... a coffee maker.Nothing. Which is what I got from my now ex-husband for 2 decades.My biological mother showed up christmas eve after no contact for two years and gave me pet mice. I already had a pet cat there were no supplies.
I think she just did that to be petty and inconvenience the family.AAA card. I’m epileptic and can’t drive.From my (now ex) husband. A Christmas card addressed to him with his name crossed out and mine wrote in and a massage envy gift card with scuff marks so it looked old and had $5 on it.I got braces when I was 12 and my mom told me that was my xmas present that year. I think I got them early in the year too.. ?A purple, polyester pantsuit when I was 15. It looked like it was for a 50 year old woman. No offense to 50 year old women. This was in the mid-seventies.A receipt for my favourite perfume I my husbands pocket just before Christmas.. Unfortunately I didn’t get the perfume. Long long long story. Long long long marriage. Short story.A half full bottle of Tabasco sauce.5th grade. 1981. We had a grab bag at school. You were supposed to spend .75 to $1. Teacher gave us time to play with our gifts for a while after we opened them. The other kids were playing with Matchbox cars, Chinese jump ropes and coloring books.
I got a 50-cent McDonald’s coupon and a quarter.I got a shirt from one of my aunt's. It was a short sleeve flannel shirt with a sweatshirt hood on it. She thought it was perfect for me because she thought that I wore ugly clothes.One of my co workers was given a large bag of pistachios. He was my secret Santa and gave me a snack bag size of pistachios a week later at the company meeting.A washbag jam-packed full of small sample shampoos, conditioners and body washes that had clearly been hoarded from the givers’ hotel stays.Novelty ties. My SIL buys me one every 2nd year. In the 30 years I've known her, has she not noticed that I NEVER wear a tie??A borat mankini.My cousin once gave me some aftershave. I have a full beard. And he realized this as I was opening the gift, ha ha.
We had a good laugh.Age 7 crocheted coat hangers. my step grandma got all the grandkids normal gifts. Mine was a dozen metal coat hangers crocheted over. I still have one 30+ years later out of sheer spite. Now that’s a long term resentment.A broken ornament. No, I’m not even kidding. My grandpa’s wife (not my grandma) gave both me and my adult cousin blown glass ornaments, only mine was broken inside the bag. Now I wouldn’t’ve cared had my cousin gotten one and not me, we were adults so it didn’t matter. I opened it and she was like “I know it’s broken but you can fix it right?” It’s a blown glass ornament, no, I can’t fix it, and even if I wanted to I’d cut myself trying to. She knew it was broken and still gave it to me. Needless to say she’s not the brightest.During my high school years... when I was in the formative moments of forging a political viewpoint... A TON of my relatives gave me a bunch of books written by a certain biased political commentator that definitely leans strongly towards one side of the political spectrum over the other. Not gonna name names, but... yeah, it was very obvious that they were just trying to influence my political ideology to match with theirs.
And then as an adult... I went to the complete opposite end of the political spectrum.I purchased my SIL some really dope harry potter themed office accesories for her first new job out of college. Shes's a diehard HP fan and they were super classy, not chidlish at all. Spent almost $100 on her Christmas present and several hours deciding.
She got me one of those cheap $9 holiday bath gift sets from walmarts gift section. I have severe psoriasis and these kinda things give me a flare up because they are heavily scented with cheap ingredients. I thanked her and when I got home threw it in the trash. I now no longer bother buying presents for anyone except my absolute closest friends and my own immediate family.
I honestly would have preferred to have gotten nothing under the premise of she didn't have money then a very no-thought gift that showed how little f***s she gave about me!This is actually a fantastic gift, but I think with context you'll understand why it sucked.
A skateboard.
When I was about 12 years old, my dad (whom I saw a few times a year) bought me a skateboard after I had expressed mild interest. I think I had admired a certain skateboarder and said it looked fun. I don't remember ever saying I wanted to pursue it myself or asking for one. I am notorious in my family for having poor balance and coordination, and I have virtually no depth perception.
He knew how to skateboard, but he lived almost 9 hours away and I saw him a few times a year because he worked and had 5 kids with his new wife where they lived, so he couldn't really give me lessons. No one else in my family could skate, we didn't live anywhere near a skatepark, and there was no one older than me in our neighborhood who could mentor me. I lived with my grandparents, one of whom worked full-time out of town and the other thought skateboarding was a horrible idea.
So I just had this board that I couldn't really do anything with. I tried to teach myself, but with poor balance, coordination, and depth perception already, I never even managed to stay on the board without holding onto something. It was such an embarrassing gift because it was a reminder of how my dad wasn't in my life, knew little to nothing about my interests, and how crappy my brain and body worked together (I was undiagnosed autistic).
editing to add: It really sucked even more when he later taught my stepbrother and little brothers (who lived with him) to skateboard and put my little sister in ballet classes like I always wanted but was "too uncoordinated" for.Worst was a present that never showed up. They told me “It’s on the way”. They being the people who were the givers. Never saw that present. But the worst present I received was a “special” homemade organic bar of soap. It lasted one showed and fell apart in the beginning of shower #2. From the same person.My brother in law for 3 years in a row now gets me these like “desk toys”. They’re almost like fidget toys, things to pass the time while at work.
And he doesn’t even get me like one or two, he gets me like a whole box full of them. I have no idea how or why this started. I always just say thank you and immediately put them in the box to donate.One year, my MIL got me a pair of nice jeans. They were nice and well made. The issue was that she got my BIL's wife 4 court side seats to an NBA game. She got my other BIL's girlfriend a weekend Spa trip for her and 2 friends. How can your MIL tell everyone she hates you without actually saying it out loud.As a teen, my dad didn't have much concept of technology and largely assumed that equal cost was equal value. One Christmas, he bought my brother an iPod and bought me iPod accessories of roughly the same cost. He spent the same amount on both of us and I didn't have the heart to tell him that my gifts, without an iPod to use them on, were entirely useless.Nothing. When I was 7 I would read The Giving Tree every time I went to the store with my mom. She would come find me and see that I was reading it. That Christmas at our one present on Christmas Eve tradition I open mine to find the book. Not thinking straight! Or like a 7 year old I stated, ‘I didn’t want this.’ This made my dad angry. He took the book and “scolded” me. I was then told I wouldn’t be getting anything on Christmas Day. I did not.A very stinky hair iron quilted heat pad. Used. From the 80s. Smelled like actual pee and cheese.
Someone forgot their secret Santa gift and the after school program dug around in storage to find me something ($10 was the gift price) and found the stinkiest thing in the world. I would have been happier not participating. Everyone got the coolest gifts, I got a piece of soggy stinky trash that had burn holes in it. It was damp. Literally wet from the bottom of the storage shed.
It was an important lesson as a kid:
1) if you forget secret Santa gift, it’s ok, but you MUST step out and not participate.
2) I put all my excitement into giving gifts that I forget I’m getting one!From my girlfriend’s grandparents (I was 17/18 at the time), they bought me… a toy magnet.
Not even a decent strength magnet, but one of those ones that are 99% plastic in the shape of a horseshoe with the remaining 1% consisting of a tiny little bar magnet at each end.
This thing didn’t even have enough magnetism to pick up a single paperclip.Collection of hotel toiletries ("But they're Louis Vuitton!" and a loaf of sourdough bread with a tin of tuna. All in the same year, from my husband's family.
The only person who was happy that night was the cat. He likes tuna.Not me but this girl I knew was gifted birth control/spermicide stuff by her family.My ex was the absolute worst gift-giver. One birthday I received a $60 milk frother—neither of us drink milk. ETA another birthday gift: a custom license plate with a fish on it. But the best-worst gift? A box covered in assorted Christmas wrapping paper scraps, and with one of the bulb ornaments from the tree taped on top. Inside was one lime green bath towel… and a Glock. I know people say “it’s the thought that counts,” but I think that assumes the thought count itself is greater than zero lmaoA gift exchange at work.. was given 2 cups from a Baileys gift box. No Baileys. Only the cups ??Last year my MIL gave my partner and I multiple fancy gift bags, tissue paper and all, very obviously full of random clutter she had cleared from her spare room. Not like nice extra items to give away, truly just useless odds and ends.
Made even more obvious because that month she had been talking a lot about how she was finally going through and decluttering, like it was a big conversational topic with her every time we met.
On the bright side it kind of helped me get through to him that maybe she was a little weird and sometimes rude. Cracked his wall of only-son-mummy-denial lol. A year later his boundaries have gotten a lot healthier. So I suppose that’s a good gift.A couple years ago my older sister got me some Summer's Eve feminine spray. I mentioned I had a yeast infection the week before. Um thanks said no one ever.2007: first Christmas as an adult where I have a boyfriend. I got him some decent presents. I hand them to him, thinking he's gotten his for me hidden somewhere. He turns to me and says "Remember how I upgraded you laptop with better RAM?" "MERRY CHRISTMAS" - not something I cared about or needed in the slightest.
2006: new boyfriend. I tell him about my s****y Christmas present the year before and that I just want something to open. I should have been more specific. The night before Christmas he asked to borrow my wrapping paper and some boxes. I was kind of miffed that I had to supply my own boxes and wrapping paper, but at least he got me something. Or so I thought. Christmas morning comes around and he has a huge a*s box for me, which I proceed on open. A smaller box. Inside of the smaller box. And so on, until I got to a f*****g pill bottle. On the pill bottle was the following "IOU: $100 gift card to glamour shots."was around 10 years old.... i got a plant, a **poinsettia**, i was left without a word.... asking myself why i was punished when everyone else got cool stuff they actually liked even if it was not pricey stuff. a PLANT ? i had never showed any interest in plants !?
i still dont get it.Years ago my wife asked what I wanted for Christmas and I asked for a Kramer chefs knife and she agreed. Christmas rolls around and I got a $10 clock radio. F**k I was pissed off.BF gave me an angel painted on velvet. I hid it in the attic and went back to college. Parents found it years later when they sold the house and had no idea where it came from.From my mom. I got a bottle of Old Navy perfume. My sisters and my brothers girlfriend were given necklaces. Real gold necklaces. My gift still had the $10 price tag.Towards the bottom of my Christmas list I wrote "Nelly CD". My sister and I were big time snoopers and would find most of our gifts scattered throughout the house (other than the "big" ones, which to this day I'm not sure where/how my mom pulled off hiding them). Well, we happened to find a Nelly CD hidden in a laundry room cabinet, but it was a CD by pop singer Nelly Furtado instead of the intended CD by rapper Nelly. In the days leading up to Christmas I felt annoyed, and being a kid I couldn't hide my disappointment upon opening it on Christmas day either.
My mom took ownership of the CD and it featured heavily into the family car music rotation and played during all of our family trips, with my sister and I mocking my mom's blunder and mocking all the songs (especially "I'm Like a Bird") all the while. Meanwhile, we both secretly liked the CD and Nelly Furtado really blew up a few years later.A John Wayne movie box set from my grandparents. They meant well, but I don’t think I ever even opened it.Back when I was about 10 years old, my nana (grandma) got me a gift. God bless her soul but to me, when I look back I still think wtf.
We are Mexican, so for Christmas she got me not a Power Ranger, but a ‘Para Ranger’ the Mexican equivalent. I threw that poncho wearing son of a b***h as far underneath my bed as I could.Gloves for preparing dishes from my older brother.My little sister once gave me and brother used chapstick.A freaking pony.... it bit me every time I got near it. It was just an a*****e with a saddle. I gave that pony away and sold the saddle for 50.00.
