any clothing item from my Mother-in-law (queen of the matching shirt-pants outfits with matching shoes and socks). It could be the Christmas sweater vest that I wear one day a year (Christmas at her house), or the multitude of holiday socks, or the royal blue velour tracksuit that she gave me last year.

I don't have the heart to ask for gift reciepts so I can return the stuff.

The definitive thread on this subject is in the DST forum:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=12324

Never fails to make me howl with laughter. :)

The worst was when I was in college, and my then boyfriend gave me a men's XL long sleeve SC t-shirt and a youth Medium green fleece. I probably wear a women's small or medium. I guess he was being thoughtful because I did go to SC and was going skiing with his family for the first time ever that winter . . . but COME ON, men's xl and youth medium?????

The funny thing is I went to my parent's house over the weekend and my dad had on the SC shirt and wanted to know who had given it to him!

A portable electric air pumper.

A wall mirror shaped like a bare foot

I love my mom to death, but she is the most random gift-giver I've ever met. She likes to buy things just because they are on sale (don't get me wrong, I love a good sale, but she will buy a bunch of junk she doesn't need). One year for Christmas, she gave me a pair of bright orange shorts from Old Navy (they still had the 99 cent price tag on them :rolleyes:). I hardly ever wear shorts and I look AWFUL in orange since I'm fair-skinned. She's given my boyfriend a spice rack for his birthday. I've learned to be very specific with her about what I want, otherwise the results could be disastrous!

I also had a very quirky great aunt that would give me things like a single pair of white socks (that had obviously came from a package). Yeah.

I don't think I've ever received a really horrible gift.

The only thing that comes to mind is this book I got. My boyfriend's family (his mother's side) was having a family reunion and his mother invited me to join them. This was the first time I was meeting any of his family. As part of the festivities, they asked every guest/couple to bring one gag gift and one real gift. My boyfriend and I bought a pair of lacy, thong panties as our gag gift and this really cool wood puzzle as our real gift.

Now when the gift giving time came up, they handed everyone some monopoly money and told us we were to bid on the gifts. All the gifts were wrapped, so it was the luck of the draw, whether you got the gag gift or the real gift. When the gift I got was up for auction, it was obviously a book. I thought, it's probably a cook book or a nice art book, so I bid on it.

Now before I go any further, I should mention that his family is catholic. Some practicing, some not. One cousin is extremely devout. She is also a member of Opus Dei. She held up dinner that saturday night to take her 7 lovely children to mass (which pissed off Grandma to no end, who is also quite devout).

Anyway, I open the gift and it's a book about the Pope! The whole room errupts with laughter and I hear from the corner of the room "Is that the gag gift?" and cousin says "no, that's the real gift". Now, I'm not religious, neither is Mr. Pi Phi (even though he was raised catholic), and cousin is somewhat of a joke in the family. So I have a book, that I will never read, never keep out on the coffee table, the whole family is laughing hysterically and I'm trying to be gracious and polite, because this is the firt time meeting the family.

Oh man, I'm waiting for a certain SockPuppet to show up for this one and make my day.:D

Both of these made me laugh out loud at work so much that everyone in my office turned around and stared at me. :D:D:o

My mom once got me this sweater that she bought off a vendor. It was really really itchy wool, with a huge neon daisy in the middle of it.

My ex got me a bathing suit for my birthday two years ago, it was WAY too small for me... who buys a bathing suit for your girlfriend??!

My step-mom gave me an empty gift box one year. EMPTY. She said I could put my jewelry in there. :rolleyes:

two eggnog shots that expired a year ago, candy that expired 2 months ago and a free movie rental card that expired a day after I got it...all from the same person.

Sadly enough, my boyfriend ASKED me to buy him shoelaces this year. When I laughed, he said, "No, seriously.. I need some black shoelaces." He never wants me to spend a lot of money on him, so it.. kind of makes sense? :rolleyes::p

The worst gift I ever received was a sweatshirt with Eeyore on it. This probably would have been fine if I was 5, but...

I was 17.

This isn't the worst gift, but everytime I think of it, I crack up.

My dad's mom remarried before I was born. He was a pharmacist, and hoarded away the money. As kids, my cousins and I would always get $7 for Christmas. For years, we had no idea why.

Our Step Grandfather passed just after we all finished college, and this came up at our funeral. My cousin, who is a Nuclear Engineer, introduced his hypothesis. "There were seven of us cousins, at $7 each. He wanted to keep gifts under $50 each year". Conclusion...it takes a guy who got a perfect score on his SATs to figure out that our step grandfather was el cheapo weepo.

Oh my god, I'm so glad this thread was bumped just so I could see this post and the link.

I only got halfway down the FIRST PAGE and was in tears laughing - I literally had to click out of it and take a break to compose myself! High - larious.

I think Disney sweatshirts were *the thing* when we were seventeen. I only say this because I have a similar story.

My mom was an AWESOME gift giver. Most of my favorite outfits came from her at Christmastime (and I'm still wearing them two years later but that's because I'm the same size and most are professional-type clothes that sadly haven't gotten a lot of use - I need a damned job!). She always knew the perfect gift. Plus, sometimes I like practical things, like crock pots, irons, ironing boards (no joke I've ASKED for all of those) and tools. She always got the perfect thing.

One year, I open up a present, and it's a Grumpy sweatshirt. My mom starts laughing. She says "I knew you were going to hate this, so I figured we'd donate it this year, but I couldn't resist. They were in the Juniors section at Kauffman's, and all these broads were fighting over them. I saw one sitting over to the side, picked it up, and was going to give it to two ladies that were fighting over a medium. Then the lady saw it, called me a bitch, so I decided to keep it. Nasty people don't deserve to have 'the perfect gift' during Christmas. Not that I thought that this sweatshirt would in any way constitute 'the perfect gift.'"

That story, in my mind, makes it not the worst gift. My mom could never understand why people always got so mean during the holidays. She always refused to stalk people for their parking spots at the malls saying "We're healthy, dammit, we can WALK!" and she would tell people "Happy holidays!" if they pushed her around in a store.

One year my parents gave me a framed picture of themselves. They gave the same one to my brother. They were laughing so hard when we opened it that my dad was practically crying. It became my favorite picture of them, I even named it "Mike and Karen." It's moved to 3 cities with me.