Worst gift
 

What was the worst gift you have ever recieved for Christmas?:confused:

My dad's wife always picks out the most hideous things for me. Two immediately come to mind.. a black blouse with HUGE red roses all over it and a fake silver grooming set that sits on old ladies dressers.. a tray with a brush, comb and mirror. I think was like 26 when she got me that. ICK.

This year, she and my dad decided to get my 13 year old daughter luggage, since she's going to Europe this summer. She picked out the most hideous luggage I've ever seen. It looks like an upholstered couch in a 75 year old lady's house.. purple with this gold design embossed over it. HIDEOUS. "Since we know her favorite color is purple".. uhhh, so how about the very cute light purple luggage with black trim that is all over the place???

If I can find a pic, I'll post it later.

A HUGE pewter turkey platter. This thing was so big it wouldn't fit in our cabinets. Not only that, but we had flown home to Missouri, and I don't know how in the world we would get it home. It wouldn't have fit in our suitcase. We took it back to Famous Barr (now the evil Macy's!) and got stuff we actually got stuff we wanted.

Last year my aunt got me a "collectible doll". That's what it said on the box but this thing looked like the type of doll you'd pick up last minute at Walgreens. :mad:

She also started knitting two or three years ago. So last year, I also got a handmade neon oversized green sweater vest. :eek: :mad:

Oh, PLEASE post a photo of it!!! :D

Lovely. At least she'll be able to find it without a problem at baggage claim. It'll be the bag no one's claiming.

As for the worst present, I made the mistake of offhandedly saying to one of my college boyfriends that I thought those Dwarf stuffed animals from the Disney store were cute. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I was thinking Sleepy, Happy, Bashful, maybe even Doc. Nope, he decided to buy me Dopey for Christmas, shortly before I found out he was cheating on me.

I won't get into the crappy regifting that his dad did.

When I decided to experiment in the kitchen, my aunt got me a cookbook. Which seemed like a nice gesture, except the cookbook is meant for people who are on a low sodium, low cholesterol, low calorie diabetic diet. I was still in high school at the time. That same year, one of my sweet but slightly clueless guy friends got me a paperweight. It was clear and had blue liquid with palm trees and little gems floating around in it. You know those things they sell at the 99 cent store? He said he thought it was nice because I like the beach.

I wish I had the forethought to have taken a picture of it. That sweater vest immediately went into the to-be-donated-to-the-salvation-army pile.


ETA: Just realized that in my first post I put "handmade neon oversized green sweater vest". Yeah, that was supposed to be "handmade oversized neon green sweater vest". Oops. Apparently, just thinking back on that sweater vest has traumatized me so much I can't see straight anymore.

Aww, I think that's sweet.

I had an aunt who couldn't cook if Paula Deen was standing right next to her. Seriously, she made potato salad by pouring milk over cold potatoes. When we finally found something she could make well (macaroons), we kept her making those.

But I digress. One Christmas at her house, she showed us two cookbooks that friends had given her and said, "My friends must think I'm a gourmet or something - I always get cookbooks from them!" A quick look at her one shelf proved that to be true. None of us had the heart to tell her the real message that they were sending!

I'm fairly lucky - I can't think of anything too terrible I've received. Which means that this will probably be the year! :rolleyes:

Eventhough it was not a Christmas gift....When I graduated from HS my next door neighbors gave me shoe laces. I was like WTH?!?!?!

A bottle of Coca-Cola from a classmate in a Secret Santa exchange. I hate coke. I hate cola. I hate sodas in general. It was one of those classic bottles. I put it in the freezer. It eventually exploded. I was in the seventh grade- what did you want?

My nana in her old age always sends something that has good thought, just no practicality. There was expired pepper spray, tip keychain, and more. It's been this way my whole life.

Now if we're doing just awful gifts for other reasons, I usually always win the worse graduation gifts. In HS I received a membership to the ACLU from my uncle and his life partner (thanks, but all they did was call and ask me for money), I received a card saying my Dad's cousin had donated money to their child's private school in my name (umm gee thanks?), I've had lots of trees planted for me in Israel, and when I finished my Master's my grandparents gave me the free George Foreman they got for opening a checking account at the local bank.

My favorite nursery rhyme as a child was "Hey Diddle, Diddle" so one year, my favorite aunt made me a red sweater with a cow jumping over the moon, a little cat with a fiddle, and a dish running running away with the spoon. It was covered in sequins and very detailed.

The problem is that as a child, I would have adored it but I was 23 when she gave it to me. The look of horror on my face made my family laugh. Thank goodness my aunt was not there to see me cringe.

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.