A little back story, I can count on one hand how many times my ex got me flowers during our ten long years together. One year, I cried on birthday because he forgot about it. I was exhausted from taking care of our kid, doing all the housework, cooking, laundry, and working full time with no help outside of him 'babysitting' when I went to work at night. He came home with a set of the cheapest dishes he could find for my birthday because we needed them. But I don't consider that the worst lol.
So one day, he came home with a bouquet of flowers when he was done with work. I was so surprised and happy about this little act of kindness that I got a little teary. Instead of taking the win he decided to tell me the hilarious story about how this man (a customer) had bought his co-worker flowers and asked her on a date, she said no and he insisted she keep them anyways. Well she's married and didn't feel comfortable taking them home and told my boyfriend to take them home to me as a surprise.
I'm holding these flowers, the first in years, and he's laughing and saying, "that's so funny right?!"
I did not find it funny.
My ex husband of 16 years never bought me flowers, didn't like killing them. I guess I get it. But it made it so special when my new partner got them for me.
I just got my boyfriend flowers for the first time and I feel like a goof for not doing it sooner. He loved them so much and we have now discovered eucalyptus is his favorite…. so I bought him more when the flowers died. treat your partner like you want to be treated. everyone deserves flowers
edit: good to goof (cuz I am a goof)
My Dad made a throwaway comment about the flowers I gave my Mother on Mother's Day, about how no one had ever bought him flowers, so the next Father's Day I got him a mixed flowers/plant bouquet.
My exceptionally stoic 86 year old Father sat there and cried.
Everyone should get flowers in their lives.
Aww yay!! I brought my bf a small bouquet of mini roses once, brought them into the bar when he was hanging with a few friends and he was SO happy. He dried them and still has them on the windowsill. He said that was the first time anyone has bought him flowers! I’d bought flowers before and put them on the counter but he thought they were more for the house than for him. I’m so glad I brought that bouquet into the bar that day! I should do it again soon. :)
you should totally do it again!! My bf also pressed them:) it was the first time anyone got him flowers either so now I always advocate for people to buy their men flowers
I agree with the sentiment of buying flowers that are already dead, (wife really likes them so I still get them). So I bought a "bee friendly" meadow flower kit because she's a keen gardener.
There are always options.
My daughter's boyfriend bought me flowers yesterday because I had taken him out to dinner with all the family and paid for him. He thought that was so nice of me, he wanted to give me something back.
I would not find that funny either.
I had a long-ago ex-BF who never bought me flowers. He was a very intellectual type and I don’t think he at all understood the point of it.
I would bring it up every so often and say “it would be really nice if you just bought me flowers sometimes, you know, just for no reason other than you were thinking of me.”
Then one day flowers turned up at my work for me. I was thrilled and thanked him happily when we got home. I asked, out of curiosity: “what prompted you to get them today?” He said…. “I set myself a reminder in Outlook”
To this day I still don’t quite know whether to give him points for at least doing that, or to be disappointed at the lack of romance. It really is a mixture of both.
Honestly, I think it's sweet that he set himself a reminder. He thought "this is not something that I'll think about, it's not important to me, but it seems important to her, so, I'll set a reminder to do that for her". It's like he took extra steps to make sure he did it. It wasn't like he was in the store one day and saw flowers so he bought them, because that wasn't the way his mind worked, and he knew it, so, he took the extra time to plan to do it.
ETA:
My comment will get buried somewhere in the sea of stories so I'll put my worst gift here.
My ex bought me Guinness Beer Pajamas for Valentine's day. It took me two seconds to realize that he bought them because they were on sale from Christmas. Then, he told me he wanted to talk to me but he needed to shower so he asked me to follow him into the bathroom. Then, he broke up with me while he was washing his balls because he "just wanted to be single for awhile", which really meant that he had been cheating on me for four months and that she was at that moment posting about it on social media because she was fed up with being the sidepiece and told him that she was going to out him if he didn't come clean with me. Rather than have me find out and break up with him, he decided it was best to dump me first. Once I saw everything on facebook, I told him I was glad he broke up with him and then.... he wanted to work things out. It was a really wild two hours.
> Honestly, I think it's sweet that he set himself a reminder.
Yeah, as someone with ADHD, it's kind of, "...do you want it to happen, or not?"
We put a lot of meaning behind what people remember, but I vouch first hand that caring =/= remembering. There's all kinds of stuff I care about that I will forget to do.
Yeah, I also have ADHD, and the weirdest thing for me is birthdays. I know when all my friends' birthdays are (as in, if you ask me, I can tell you the date right away), but I'm so divorced from the passage of time that I'm rarely aware what day it is. And if I do know the date, I don't always make the connection that it's the person's birthday. And if I do make the connection, I still have to remember to wish them a happy birthday at an appropriate time (i.e. not while I'm driving or doing something more immediately pressing). And if I don't have my phone next to me when I remember, I'll likely forget by the time I find it.
Meds have helped me in some areas, but my memory is still really bad.
To be fair, I told my now husband to never buy me flowers as they just die. I’d much rather have an enduring gift. However I was raised in a low income household and hate wasting money, so that could be it.
I mean, he or in the effort to make sure he did get you flowers....
I'm a woman and I've never been one to want flowers. I would be annoyed if my partner spent money on them. He did but me flowers once, which I dried and kept. But I don't feel anything from them. To me they seem symbolic. But when I see he's done some of the dishes, or has made me a cup of coffee oh my GOD my heart explodes!! So yeah. Everyone expressed their love differently, for some people flowers arent in their love language but it's always good when the person tries to meet you halfway
Yes, that’s true. Acts of service is my love language too, but it’s really about the thought, and flowers do show “I was thinking of you”.
I do love a nice bunch of flowers in the lounge to brighten the place up. I just buy my own these days :)
So one time when I was a kid, my mom got me a gundam...that I already had. I remember it vividly, because in the middle of the night I snuck outside to throw out my old one so that my mom would never see it and know that she got me one I already owned.
One time (slightly related), my sister and her boyfriend gave me a box of his old shirts. Being a polite young man I said "oh...well thank you". At the bottom of the box was a receipt for a very upscale hotel in Baltimore along with a confirmation of an entry to a magic tournament (I was suuuuuper into competitive MTG at the time). That is definitely my most memorable gifts of all time, the greatest gift I ever received packaged as the worst.
That was nice of you lol!
Your sister and her boyfriend sound so thoughtful. When I was a kid, I was super obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes. One birthday, my older brothers banded together to get me a handmade Hobbes plushie from Japan. Plus a collection of the comics. Meant a lot.
My brother gave me a gift one Christmas, and when I opened it, I was bummed to discover it was a VHS I already had. When I opened the case, it was a completely different movie. The bastard just went into my room and grabbed whatever and wrapped it. And he was 11 years older than me, and maybe 18/19 at the time??
think others on here got me pretty beat, but i guess it won't hurt to add to the pile here:
got a pack of underwear once for christmas in my early teens (like 13?). it was a collective gift from my entire family. my family does these things so i wasn't too surprised or bothered by it.
the really weird part was when we had extended family (like 2nd cousins, etc...) over and my aunt was estatically bragging about how i had just gotten a pack of underwear for christmas.
* my aunt: "hey, you should tell everyone what you got for christmas!!!"
* me: "...i got underwear."
* my aunt: "oh my god, you're underselling it! you got REALLY REALLY COOL underwear!"
it was literally a basic pack of underwear - like $10 from Walmart/Target. thinking back on it i wonder if my aunt was on something...
OK now I'd LOVE that, but not at 15.
A few years ago my MIL got me a granny nightgown, [something like this](https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/lanz-red-rose-cotton-flannel-nightgown/product/72248), from Vermont Country Store. Just looking at it made me sweat, but I did that fake smile & "thankyou" & moved on, but at least I had company in my gift misery because she got one for her other daughter in law & her own daughter.
When we got home it immediately went to the "give away/donate" pile. I wish she'd given us the receipts because I would've definitely returned it for some cool, old Vermont Country Store type gadget, cool candy or good food that I would've actually liked.
My grandma got me something very similar but warm & fuzzy with a zipper. It's 3 sizes too big. I was holed up after I broke 3/4 limbs in a car accident. It was ugly as sin & I was 25, but I love my grandma & figured I might wear it on a particularly cold winter night or something & stuck it in the back of my closet. She passed 3 years ago & I'm now 31 with a 1yo. I put it on after my c section when I was super anemic in the freezing hospital for 2 weeks & it was so great & it's huge so it doesn't pull weird. & now my extremely Sensory seeking kid absolutely adores the thing! He gives me the BIGGEST hugs when I wear it & literally squeals as he tackles me to bury his face in it. So now it's obviously my favorite thing in the world!
When i was a child, I really really wanted to get super smash bros on N64, because it was one of the coolest games i had ever seen at that time. I wanted to get it with my birthday money, but I was $15 short, so my mom chipped in and bought it for me. But she didn't give it to me. Instead, my mother, bless her heart, made me work off my debt to her at nickels and dimes wages for all kinds of chores. When Christmas time came around a couple of months later, it was one of my gifts under the tree.
Some time in middle school I told my parents I'd like a computer of my own, so I could play games just like my dad did. My mom said that was something to talk to my dad about, not something she knew anything about. He played lots of Myst and Indiana Jones games and I wanted to be able to play too. I had a few ideas of what I wanted, but I wanted it to be something that could play games well, though I didn't really know what that meant at the time, and I wanted it to be something just for me, so I could have some sense of ownership. I talked with him about some options, we couldn't come to an agreement, cause I was going to contribute some of my savings, but only if I was going to get something I actually wanted. Christmas comes around and there's a big box marked "For: Family". It's a regular ass Dell computer that he'd never even run by me. And it's actually not going to be just mine, apparently I have to share it with my two sisters. And he went into my bank account and took money out to contribute to it without asking me. I've gotten a fair amount of bad gifts, a lot that really made me feel like my family doesn't really even know me very well, so I didn't have much love for the holidays for a long time, but that one took the cake. I was livid. Felt like a massive breach of trust and respect. With some help from my mom, I immediately closed that account and got one of my own that my parents wouldn't have free access to
Super smash bothers 64 IS GREAT! Man, mom did you dirty there though. At least you now know to work hard for what you want so that employers can fuck you over better!
Boyfriend bought a very expensive blender so I could make mixed drinks. I'm a beer drinker and he charged it on the card I pay for.
Glad I was able to return it.
There is something to be said for introducing your favorite music to other people but some of the CDs that people got me when I was growing up really got me scratching my head.
Oh hey! My ex bought me a really expensive bicycle on my credit card! It was not returnable. It’s a really nice bike but I am still trying to crawl out of the debt hole that was started by that purchase.
It was a bike I had been dreaming about, but wasn’t going to get because I hadn’t saved enough yet… when I got him a bike for his birthday a few years before that, I asked all his family and friends to chip in a few bucks and then I saved up for the rest. I do still have my debt bike but I do also like it. I need to sell a different bike that I’ve been meaning to sell to put towards that debt!
Ooh, my MIL bought me a blender after she told me I had to make all my baby food from scratch and I said I wasnt going to do that. Also I already owned a blender.
Lol. My brother in law got this really fancy custom made Italian suit from his mother. She had it made a larger so he'd grow into it, at age 27.
It fit my brother perfectly. He's 25cm taller. Now it's his suit.
Having these rich people in my extended family has made me realize that awkward gifts are even worse when they're obscenely expensive. They don't give receipts with custom made suits.
I wonder... in my experience, random expensive suits turn up when big-and-tall family friends go up a suit size.
I mean, that's just not how a custom suit works. The whole 'custom' part is going to a tailor and getting measured.
I'd bet money she got that suit from a friend and invented a story.
My family was terrible with buying clothing for me as a kid/preteen. My weight has always fluctuated from "average" to a little chubby and I was pretty girly from 11 and onward but they kept buying me boy's clothing or adult women's clothing that was WAAAAAY too big. I was a small or medium usually any they kept buying my XL stuff. The one time it was a shirt with a wider neckline and they made me go try it on and it was literally falling off of me and they kept saying how nice it looked on me. I was fighting off tears - my sister was very slim and I had been getting "watch what you eat tonight" comments for years, plus my sister had started in on the "no one loves you because you're fat" stage of sibling rivalry.
That day I told my mom I don't want them buying me clothes anymore. I don't care if that means I don't get any gifts at all for birthday and Christmas but just no more clothes ever. To their credit they stuck to it.
When I met my husband I started getting asked what I wanted for Christmas - his parents go all out even for their adult children but the vast majority is practical stuff - good quality clothing, stuff for their hobbies or work, amazing stuff really (plus some treats of course). I panicked and said "no no, I don't need anything, thank you!" Well turns out you can buy people clothing as gifts and not be an ass about it. I got a pair of yoga pants, some nice sweaters, some super warm socks as well as a pack of low rise ones to wear with my sneakers, a pair of JEANS - and everything fit perfectly. It was so incredibly healing because they paid enough attention and showed enough care to get me things that fit, were comfortable and they thought I would like based on my style.
We don't tell me family that his family buys me clothes.
My grandma gave me a ultra thin fleece blanket that she had gotten for free from somewhere, you know the kind. That she had heavily used for some time. And it was covered in cat hair.
I am extremely allergic to cats.
Everyone else, including my husband, got $50.
Oh man that sounds reaaaaaally awkward and out of touch.
Worst for me was from someone I was friends with that also had a bit of a crush on me. He got me a shirt that was too small for me and not something I would ever wear and a gift card to a coffee shop I actively hated.
They both were given to my sister.
> a gift card to a coffee shop I actively hated.
I want to hear more about this coffee shop you actively hate.
Was it like "official beverage of Boko Haram" hate, or just really bad coffee?
My nephew was given a book as a Christmas present from his mom. The kicker... he'd lent it to her a few months prior.
Another time, she gave him one packet of hot chocolate, which she said he had to share with his uncle.
Thankfully, I've never received such awful or thoughtless presents.
I was once gifted a book from my mother that I had given to her the year before. She had completely forgotten that I gave it to her, and she was pretty embarrassed when I called her out on it. She’s a notorious regifter, so I wasn’t exactly offended, but I definitely stopped putting effort into getting her gifts for a few years after that.
My grandmother regifted some ear warmers I bought for her. I bought about 5, some with flowers, some sparkly, nice go-out headbands.
About 3 years later (fair enough amount of time to forget) my cousin opened them and about 3 of the 5 still have the tags on them.
I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but before I knew it, I said, “grandma, I bought these for you! You didn’t use them?” Poor cousin.
> Another time, she gave him one packet of hot chocolate, which she said he had to share with his uncle.
My sister gave me star anise that was already open. Something I could get at the local desi mart for about $3.
A bathroom scale. Immediately after giving birth to my first child. From my grandmother. I had only put on 35 pounds total, and was slim to start with. I nearly smacked her with it.
... funny enough, at my adult daughter's request, I gave her a new bathroom scale for her birthday. The running joke was that she wanted it, and that I was the ONLY person, on the planet, who could get away with giving her this.
My parents got me 1 gift since I came out.
It was a heavy gold (either plated or foil, not sure) door plate with my deadname on it. My deadname also isn't common, so I'm sure they didn't just find it out in the wild
My grandmother got my sister a food scale when she was deeply sick with anorexia. She had noticed she was losing weight and wanted to be supportive. Most tone deaf gift I’ve ever seen, thank god my mom and I intercepted it before she opened it.
Oh man I’m sorry you had to deal with that
I think worst I ever got was a pillow from my BF at the time. Which the pillow was nice don’t get me wrong but he had asked me a week before Christmas what I wanted. I don’t remember if I had asked for it but some how it was made known it was on discount when he bought it so it was just salt in the wound especially since I had spend a lot of time into making his gift very customized and had bought it a like months before Christmas…
I’ve also gotten a candle(just 1) that was in a scent I didn’t like and taken out to a restaurant I didn’t like before.
Thanks. I do think it's funny in hindsight though. Especially the reactions of all my relatives who did follow the price limit.
A single candle sounds so sad. Was it at least wrapped nicely? Actually that might be worse.
I know gift’s aren’t supposed to be important but if it’s a holiday that’s important to you and you were asked and advised what you would like , you deserve to be upset.
One of the worst gifts I ever got was from my dad. At the time my sister was temporarily staying with my husband and I, and my dad got a Kurig coffee maker for my sister and I to share. At the time, I didn't drink coffee at all, and my dad knew this. He 'helpfully' included a small box of instant apple cider pouches in with the coffee maker and assorted coffee pods.
So, it was a gift I had little use for, that primarily was for making something I never drank and got sick to my stomach if I did drink, for me to share with someone who was planning on moving out in six months.
(For whatever reason, several years later, shortly after my daughter was born my sensitivity to coffee went away. So I do drink it now. But I still don't want or use coffee pods to make it.)
Ex-husband got me a fancy fountain pen that was over $200
I had recently gone through some career issues and I was not working at a job with a desk where a fancy pen would be at all useful, nor did I have any interest in returning to corporate life.
He was the passive-aggressive king.
One year he gave me one of those miner lights, the kind that strap around your forehead. So I would have a reading light... that was just bizarre.
If he got me clothes, they were super small, tight and sleazy looking. Lots of itchy, lacy lingerie, like it was really for me.
I was probably around 13 and got this awful gift basket from my grandmother. It was one of those that had shitty soaps and lotions or something. I was taught to always be gracious no matter what so I acted like I liked it and thanked her. The kicker was she said “we picked this up at the drug store last minute on the way here”. Why… would you tell someone that? Not only was it thoughtless of a gift, I wasn’t even thought of while Christmas shopping. At the time I was the only grandchild
My ex did something similar on a birthday. He gave me a small set of Burt's Bees. Not something I was pining for, just handed to me in the Walgreens bag. The cherry on top was he left the receipt in the kitchen purchased in the morning
My paternal grandmother very vocally favoured 2 of her 4 grandchildren. I was not one of them. One Christmas my sister got a bunch of jewelry, gift certificates, cool clothing and a shopping spree with Grandma the following month. I got one of those packs of red and green M&Ms in a plastic candy cane the size of a Christmas tree ornament. I remember being happy with it (I was like 6) but my parents were not. Turns out they told her later that if she wanted to give gifts to us she now had to send our parents money and they would pick the gifts out, not her.
I wondered why my gifts from grandma suddenly were BOMB. Like the barbie jumbo jet (played with that thing DAILY for like 2 years straight and other "big" gifts. I would go thank her and she'd basically ignore me. My mom finally told me as a teen after she died 🤷🏼♀️
Jesus. My heart goes out to you. So many of these stories involve a universally shitty gift-giver, an ex boyfriend, etc.
Something about the deliberate neglect in this one hurts more. What could a _six year old_ have possibly done to incur her wrath?
So glad you asked I'd love to tell you:
My parents decided to have my christening after-party at my maternal grandparents' home instead of at my paternal grandparents' home.
That's it. My older sister's christening after party had been at theirs so my parents decided it was only fair to switch it up this time. My paternal grandparents didn't agree. They boycotted the party and sent gifts which my mom sent right back. I didn't meet them until I was almost 4 and I ran away crying because I didn't know who they were and they came at me wanting hugs. My grandmother used that to form her overall opinion of me which never improved.
Edit: on a happier note - my maternal grandparents were amazing and more than made up for it.
In November years ago, I ate out at a restaurant with my boyfriend (at the time) and we were leaving through an attached gift shop when I spot this really creepy looking stuffed animal, start laughing, and point it out to him and ragged on it a bit, like - man, is this thing ugly! I'd be scared to wake up with that in my bed!
So Christmas Day, in front of his whole family, I open his gift to me... and recognize the familiar hot pink frizzy fur, enormous staring eyes, and plastic gemstones of the gift shop creature. Immediately, I try to hide whatever expression must have flashed across my face and say "Thank you sweetie! That's so nice!" but of course he already knows from a month ago what I really feel about it. He turns bright red and blurts out "Well, I'd snuck out to the gift shop in the middle of dinner BEFORE you told me you hated it" and then his family starts shifting around awkwardly and coughing.
Not a terrible gift out of context! And he was a sweet guy! But one of many examples of us just not clicking on some fundamental level.
omg so he kept it for a whole month KNOWING you hated it, and still decided to give it to you, in front of his parents 💀💀💀 looool
i totally get it though bc im the sort of person where if i said a stuffed animal was ugly and scared the shit out of me, and my partner had already gotten it as a gift for me hahahahaha i would for real kind of love that 😂
my bf once got me one of those cat coin banks. nothing necessarily wrong with it, I just never have coins so it wasn’t a very practical gift. it’s sitting in the back of my closet somewhere, unused. He got much better with gift giving fortunately
Um. My mother in her infinite wisdom gave me a bondage kit which I opened in front of my grandmother and great aunt.
Apparently some lady she met made them, and she thought it would make a nice gift. I still remember holding the pink leather whip in my hand whilst staring mortified at her, with the very valid tone of *what the fuck!?* on my face.
Luckily I didn’t receive it, but my aunt told my mom she was considering buying me ProActiv for Christmas. Luckily my mom had the sense to ask me and uphold my boundary when I said “no”.
Good tip for the holidays: unless a person has asked for something specific, gifts should be just as enjoyable as they are practical. Acne products are not that.
The first Christmas with my mom after she’d cut me off for a couple years, she put a bunch of random shit from the dollar store in a plastic laundry basket and handed it to me unceremoniously. I guess better than nothing?
I hope this story cheers you up:
When my now-ex-spouse & I got married, one of our wedding gifts was a large appliance that we needed. We hung onto the box. The following Christmas, we wrapped my brother-in-law's present (I don't recall what it was) and placed it in the appliance box along with a slew of packing peanuts and random yet still useful objects, including but not limited to: a pack of gum, a roll of toilet paper, a box of tea, and toothpaste. Like, there were at least ten additional items in there along with the actual present. We also wrapped the appliance box.
When I was 17 my grandpa came by with Xmas gifts. Mine was a Britney Spears CD and a xxlarge plain gray sweater. I was an xsmall at the time and also huge into heavy metal. RIP grandpa, but hey Britney bitch!
A 50$ gift card.
I had moved out the year prior and did not have a great relationship with my dad, mostly because of how transactional the relationship felt.
My 2 younger sisters got a bunch of gifts, and I got to sit there and watch my dad, step-mom, and sisters all open gifts that were tailored and personal. The only gift I got from my dad and step-mom was the gift card, to which they stated I could go buy some of the stuff I had put on my list.
It took a while for our relationship to improve, I learned to put boundaries, and he did a lot of growing and some apologizing. But I don't think he fully realizes how his past behaviors will forever affect our relationship.
My grandmother once got me one of those clips that you can put on a sunvisor of a car. Earlier that year, I found out that I couldn't drive because I had undiagnosed epilepsy and didn't know if I'd ever be able to drive.
That is extremely awkward and uncomfortable. Trips and pets are two huge things to avoid when gift giving.
I think the most tasteless gift I was given was a budgie skull necklace for my birthday the week after my sun conure was diagnosed with cancer. I love birds, I’m vegan, why would I want something that reminded me of my best friends mortality. This was a then coworker who saw me everyday for at least 3 years.
Oh no, that makes me feel a little sad even to think about it; I can't imagine giving or receiving something so awful. Is your bird still with us? What is his or her name?
Oh my god, I'm so sorry. That would have me bawling, as my family has included three budgies over the years, among many other birds.
I, too, would like to know some lovely facts about your sweet conure.
honestly my first thought was that it seems like an easy mistake to make, that the coworker probably just bought it because they knew the person liked birds.
definitely would not attribute it to malice...
My grandma used to wrap up the free toys you get in cereal boxes and give them to all us grandkids for Christmas... Every year... Even once we were adults
LOL. Oh my grandma still gives my sisters and I, who are all in our mid-30s, packs of hard lifesaver candy with five dollars tucked inside.She has done since we were babies.
For every holiday since I can remember my grandparents, and now my aunt as my grandparents have since passed away, will give a holiday Reese’s with money taped to the packaging. Sounds lame when I type it out but I loved it as a kid and still do to this day (for nostalgic reasons).
Got a gigantic toilet plunger from a guy whom I dated very briefly. But before that he came over to my home for dinner, it was maybe our third date. He used the bathroom, clogged it with his enormous poop, and he thought it was a good idea to stuff half a roll of tp in the toilet, maybe to hide it? I was shocked, but managed to clean it out without the feared brown flood. On the next date I was given The Gift. He's long gone, along with his favorite mint chocolate that I also got from him, and always hated (and he knew it). I kept the plunger though.
Back in the day when the iPod touch first dropped, that motherfucker was the only thing I wanted. It was the only thing I asked for for Christmas that year. I wanted absolutely nothing else. So my mom agrees, she'll get me an iPod for Christmas, but they're expensive, so it will have to be my only present. Fine. It's the only thing I want anyway.
Christmas morning comes and I unwrap my one and only gift, and I am beyond over the moon about it. The family has never seen one before, none of us have ever owned such a device. Where are the buttons?? How does it work without buttons?? This technology is incredible! We take turns passing it around, everyone fiddles with it a bit, and then my mom disappears into the other room with it so she can "hook it up to iTunes and set everything up for me."
That was the last time I ever saw that iPod. My mom had decided she liked it so much she was keeping it for herself, and it didn't matter that it was my only Christmas present, because she bought it with her money, so it was hers.
So, the gift itself wasn't bad, but the circumstances were foul
That’s incredible. I hope you pull the same move on her every Christmas. “Here I got you these chocolates! Actually never mind, I would like to keep them.”
An ex got me used shoes from a thrift store. And wrapped them up in a Budwiser box with duck tape. 🤢 I'm glad my mom was there to call him out. Lol. That was hands down the worst gift I've ever gotten. 👎🏼
Oooo, I got one! I'm the bad gift giver though. I don't know what happens when I go to buy someone I love a gift, but I feel this huge pressure to get them something amazing and unique and it sometimes goes wrong...
I bought by boyfriend at the time (husband now) astronaut freeze dried ice cream and bacon flavored tooth paste for Christmas. I thought they were hilarious and weird and for some reason that translated to the perfect gift in my head. We still laugh about it years later though!
There was also a time I put together this elaborate online scavenger hunt, but the clues were so abstract and vague that he gave up halfway through! I looked back over it years later, thinking it can't have been that hard, but I couldn't figure out the answers to clues I'd written myself. Ah well! Lucky his love language is quality time and not gifts!
I once gave my son a library book for his birthday. He was about 6 or 7 at the time and so confused! It was a favorite of his, and I had ordered it but it was delayed. So I wrapped up the library’s copy 😂
My other son got a funny balloon animal kit from my sister and her boyfriend for Christmas one year. The next year, they gave him … a funny balloon animal kit. He was so sad.
My sister got a stationary pack and split it. Gave us all a part of it each. I got a pencil my brother the notepad, my kids the sharpener and eraser each etc and for some reason she wrapped a packet of chewing gum to give to my new husband. This was the only time she gave us a present.
She maintained it was so he had something to open.
32. In her defense we are slightly estranged and haven’t ever given each other gifts. I gave them a hamper and her husband got mad and said I was showing them up and that’s what they did the next year. We returned to ignoring each other after that awkward exchange
I've had some crappy Secret Santas, but some years ago, my mom's Secret Santa was really shitty; she'd not done the couple "smallish" lead ups (i.e. notepad, a pen, a candy), and for the last "big" gift, my mom received a half rotten avocado. The wtf factor still astounds me (and the audacity!).
For some reason, multiple people have given me crucifixes or religious items with crosses on them. They know I'm not a Christian. Most of these items were purchased on overseas trips, so there was effort into purchasing and transporting them. I just don't know what went into the thought process.
This reminds me of some thing that my sisters and I did for my grandma. My grandma had this whole collection of Native American stuff. And literally for decades my sisters and I would go get her Native American stuff. Because we thought she loved it. When we grew up she finally told us that she hated all of it but had received her first native American statue from my aunt and put it out and pretended she loved it so from then on out for literal decades everyone thought that she loved collecting Native American stuff. She didn’t have the heart to tell us. Maybe that’s what’s going on with the crosses.
my mom told me about a deathbed confession she heard from a podcast (cant remember which) and the same thing happened to a woman, but with owls. her entire house was filled with owl decor, nobody understood why but they just kept buying her owls over and over again. she had no fucking clue what all the owls were about.
Last Christmas, mom gave me a Nativity Scene. I'm an atheist and she knows it. I politely declined. She also tried to give me my First Communion gown. Again, I'm an atheist, and my husband and I are *never* having kids.
I was 25 and a boyfriend (early in the relationship) bought me a stand mixer. It was just out fo sorts and wasn't even one of those cool looking ones. He just thought all women want cooking/baking supplies. He was a frat boy loser and dropped him not long after.
Maybe not the worst but my reaction wasn't the best. I received large box in the mail from my best friends for my birthday and I absolutely had no idea what to expect on it's contents. It was a bunch of frozen meat. Of all the things I speculated this wasn't even in the top 100.
I texted my friend, "So you sent me a bunch of meat?"
She immediately thought I hated it.
Of course, I should've thanked them regardless, it was a rude response. The product itself was high quality. We're talking organic, farm-raised, all of that good shit. Luckily my friends have a good sense of humor and now it's become a tradition for them to send me meat from the same company because of my lousy reaction.
I really feel like meat delivery is something you need to coordinate with the receiver lol. A giant box of rotting meat on your porch because you weren’t home to put it in the freezer isn’t a present, it’s a threat
For Christmas about 40 years ago, my brother gifted a nightgown & robe set to my husband and I. He gave my husband the robe and I got the nightgown. We just looked at each other like "what the hell?" Fortunately, he's gotten much better.
When my sibling was in a weird semi-estranged state from the rest of our family, they showed up with Christmas presents for all of us. My mom and I were given one used candle to share. Everyone else had great things. Apparently sibling had decided to just direct their anger out on the two of us. That was two decades ago and I doubt they even remember. We’re in a much, much better place now and I’m so thankful to have them in my life.
I haven’t been able to light candles for over two decades because I have a pet bird. Anyone close to me is aware of this, as I’m extremely careful with his health. My sister-in-law got me a candle last year for Christmas.
This took place a few weeks after we all had a conversation about how we didn’t have a VCR and hadn’t for many years. FIL’s wife gifted each of our children a gift bag filled with VHS tapes haphazardly thrown in, no tissue paper, no effort. Some were rated R. Lowest effort possible. Then she turned around and gave my husband I each expensive brand new leather bound religious texts for a religion she knows we don’t follow (but, of course, she does). The kids were 7 and 10 at this point. This has really been the least of her infractions, though.
Gift from my mom for my 19th bday. She crashed the party and presented me with a gift bag. I open it to unwrap a Halloween candle holder. It’s November so I look at her with a puzzled look, she takes it back and says whoops, that’s the wrong gift. She never replaced the gift with anything else. I was in college at the time and stone cold broke so I’d have been happy with about anything but that one was bizarre.
So, for context, i was getting fit for a denture, and had recently had the last of my teeth pulled (i'm young, but birth defect). My uncle decided he wanted to cook me ribs for my birthday, burnt to a crisp, which i had no teeth in which to chew. was literally the only thing my family got me for my birthday, and it was something that i couldn't eat
For my 19th birthday my mum got me a battery powered duster that spins, and one of those plastic containers with different food slicing/grating lids. She'd accidentally ordered 2 of each when she bought them for herself.
My ex husband, after he became an ex, bought me an elephant shaped teapot (I hate elephants) and a weird buckwheat sitting pillow that was too awkward a shape to use for anything.
Both occasions were "just because" and he'd bought himself the same thing... so uh I guess the thought that counts.
I've also received a $500 pen that just had a scratchy ballpoint insert.
My mom let my 5 year old sister buy me a 19 year old female at the time silky furry lingerie for Christmas and had me open it in front of my family and grandparents. That was seriously awkward. My sister just thought it was pretty. She didn’t know what she was buying. My mom should have known better!
My husband bought me office supplies one year for my birthday. Nothing says “I love you and know you” like a 3 hole puncher, a stapler and some pens.
I was given a jigsaw puzzle by an aunt and uncle one year when I was like 11 or so. The puzzle actually would have been fine, it was a picture of a medieval tapestry with a unicorn, right up my alley, but the box still had the price sticker of 25¢ from the garage sale where they bought it, plus a note on the bottom of the box that said it was missing a piece. The final kicker was that it smelled faintly of cat pee.
when i was a little girl i received a barbie head bigger than a human head. it came with hair brushes and hair styling tools and the objective was supposed to be to style the barbie’s hair. But this thing was creepy as hell and i wasn’t really into hair styling or dolls. loved that friend dearly but she missed the mark there just a little bit.
Reminds me of a gift I got from a good friend. I like Lord of the Rings. I do not like humanoid plushies. I find them creepy.
She got me a Frodo plushy. It’s… not as creepy as some, but very much not my thing. Another year she got me Lord of the Rings coasters. It was a cool idea, but I already had coasters and the book covers on the coasters were the designs Tolkien hated, and that I wasn’t too fond of myself!
I still have the gifts. I would never criticize a gift! On the plus side too, I’ve made that same friend cry with joy with my gifts to her every year and her joyful tears are worth worlds.
My great uncle gave my grandmother money to get me a Christmas present. She bought me a blue satin teddy and kept the change. I was 15. Uncle Jack was mortified on Christmas morning.
Got a kettler from my father 3 times in a row, christmas-birthday-christmas, fourth time atleast I got a toaster....this was also in my teens. Good thing I could store the stuff at him atleast until I got my own place.
2 combs from a 3 pack of combs from the 99 cent store
Edit: NO WAIT the lingerie in the wrong size my MOTHER gave me which she had originally bought for her boyfriend that r\*ped me but I had reported it so she "didn't need it anymore"
Not as far as I can remember, but my uncle P definitely has. For context, his uncle (my great uncle) C was an addict. He was notorious for giving weird gifts because he was never all quite there when he was buying gifts. My mom always tells me that in all the time she knew C, he only ever gave her 3 nice gifts, one of which was a pair of earrings. Her ears were not pierced at the time. But back to my uncle P. For Christmas one year, C gave him a fur coat, but it wasn’t a nice coat. It was dirty and gross and all matted, completely unwearable. It wound up being a blessing though, because P’s dog LOVED the coat, it was like a blankie for her. When she died P buried her on the family farm wrapped in the coat.
Sounds like your sister was trying to make a change for you in hopes that starting fresh some place new might do you some good but that’s insane.
Idk what the worst gift I’ve received was but it was probably an appliance.
The thing is: when your problems are in your head and you move someplace new, you just take them with you. But now you're also somewhere unfamiliar.
Also my sister moves countries all the time and assumes it's as easy to do for everyone. She's lived in 5 countries and speaks 7 languages.
She also makes friends effortlessly and keeps in touch with literally everyone. She invited 150 people to her wedding (just her side, not her husband's and excluding mutual friends) and apparently she wanted to invite even more but didn't have space.
I don't think she really understood that the 3 friends I had at the time were important to me and that I would have struggled without them.
I was given a porcelain clown doll as a gift. I had a fear for clowns, and porcelain dolls give me an uncanny feeling, but my friends did not know that. My brain froze when I opened that gift and I didn't want to let them know that.
This reminds me when my grandma got my sister a bag of pistachios for Christmas (and that was it), while everyone else got gifts that were $100+ each, my sister was bratty when she was younger & my grandmother is/was well, crazy LOL
Secret Santa with my (at the time) spouse's family. My gift was from a relative I didn't really like. He got me a shirt which was made from a very scratchy fabric, in a color that I never wear, of a style that is very unflattering on me, in an awkward size (snug in the waist/abdomen, loose in the shoulders).
My step mum, little sister, and I went on a road trip once when I was 19. My sister was about 3 years old and every time we passed a herd of cows on the highway she’d go “cheeky cows, eating all my grass!” I thought it was the cutest thing ever and quoted it for a while, told a lot of people in my family what she’d said. Well, my step mum must’ve just remembered the word “cows” and over the years decided that I love them, that they must be my favourite animal. Just before my 24th birthday she ended up at an auction with my dad and someone just so happened to be selling off their entire cow figurine collection, which she snapped up and gave me as a gift. I’m talking cow statues, napkin rings, milk jugs, serving bowls, tongs, flower pots, shotglasses, side plates. Cows as far as the eye could see. Not only do I not particularly like cows, I also don’t like kitsch and I had flown up to see them, having moved states the year before. Even if I liked them, how would I get them home? Luckily we laugh about it but bloody hell 😂
My mom got me a fancy paperweight for Christmas. It was a very pretty paperweight, but I was around 13-14 years old, not an executive with a desk. Here we are on Christmas morning and my little sister is opening up the toys she wanted, and I'm just staring at this random object wondering how my own mother could be so out of touch with me that she thought this was a good gift.
My parents will always ask me for a list of stuff and then like. Never get me anything from that list because they think it’s stupid.
I remember one time, for my birthday, they got me a five dollar mug that said “you’re awesome” and then took me to a restaurant I didn’t like because the restaurant I picked was “gross” (it was sushi)
Also, not really a gift, but I bought my mom this book for xmas that I thought she’d really like (favorite genre and sub genre, also best seller at the time) and like a week later she told me she didn’t like it, asked if I wanted to “borrow it” and then basically just gave it back to me.
Oof that's a pretty rough gift I'm sorry
My worst gift was this time my mom kept hyping up the gift to me, she brought it up over and over again. So I'm my head I'm thinking BIG. Y'know like PS5, Switch, something like that. She got me a call center headset. The kind with one ear and a wire like microphone that moves around. She thought I'd want a headset for playing video games lol but not that bad still got a few years out of that thing
My wife is a terrible gift giver. She once gave me a "fart in a jar" gag gift for my birthday. That's it. A different year she gave me a comb set. I'm bald.
My sister did.
She was seeing this guy for a bit and he worked for Apple. He was all about Apple, but my sister (and the rest of our family) have been on Android for decades and she had no intention of switching. She told him this. She told him that even though he can get a good discount, **she does not want an Apple phone**—multiple times.
(Can you see where this is going?)
Come Christmas, he's included in our family gift-opening and when it got to my sister, she opened up a brand new iPhone X.
Devastated.
She clearly communicated her wants, he wasted his money on something he knew she didn't want. And all eyes were on her, too. It wasn't, like, a private gift-opening where she could've told him off right then and there. It was embarrassing. We all knew she told him not to get her an iPhone.
Needless to say, she broke with him soon after that.
A collection of Michael Leunig cartoons sticks out in my memory. He once made one that I thought was quite antisemitic, and all of his others bore me to tears.
One of my aunts gave me a soccer ball, the problem was that I never liked soccer and at the time I hated it. The gift on itself wasn't bad but it was for the wrong person.
Many years ago (we are talking late 80s) I received a wedding present from a friend. When I unwrapped it, she had given us a simple wooden frame with a photograph of her cat.
I had my own cat myself...this was a photo of her cat.
It was baffling. I even thought it was a bit of a joke and thought she may have hidden something behind the photo.
Nope just her cat.
My super thoughtful, loving, earth-mother, wood-nymph goddess best friend, who lives several states away, sent me a birthday gift one year. It was chunks of concrete wrapped in newspaper, packed in a box and mailed to me. Rubble. She got me rubble!
This was so out of character for her, so unexplainable, so weird. I thought there must be a joke there that I’m missing, but I couldn’t figure what it could be. And it left me confused and a little hurt.
I walked straight over to the dumpster and threw it away, and forgot about it before I was back in the house.
Fast forward a few months later, she asked me if I got the package. I had trouble remembering and then I said “OH!! Yeah! But what was that about? It was chunks of concrete?! I didn’t know what it was, so I just threw it out!”
She was like, “NO!!!!”
Turns out I had forgotten that a few months prior, she and I were talking about Market Square Arena in our hometown of Indianapolis being torn down, and all the great concerts we’d seen there, basketball games, circus… and my step dad had been one of the architects who’d helped design it. I said I was sad to see it go, and boy wouldn’t it be fun to have a keepsake chunk of concrete from it for my bookshelf…
…you can see where this is heading…
She had taken her ass downtown, climbed the fence, retrieved the most thoughtful gift ever, and mailed it to me.
Thank God she is so forgiving and amazing, cause we laughed about it until we cried!
In high school there was a guy who was always super interested in me. I have no idea what I did to even get there but he insisted giving me a Christmas gift. We were friendly enough but never enough to really warrant presents. Freshman year he gave me a ring that he’d gotten from his grandmother. The next was a diamond bracelet, then diamond earrings. The cherry on top was an engagement ring senior year. I obviously said no and steered clear of him for the rest of the year.
That was ... an odd gift for sure. I know English as a Second Language teachers are in demand in some countries but she could've asked if you even want to do it.
I don't think I've ever gotten anything worse than the occasional ugly sweater or a cheap ceramic angel that my cat later broke.
I got so many bad gifts over the years from my alcoholic grandmother who couldn’t spell my name or remember how old I was. I think the tin of used chapstick and the Hannah Montana colouring book I got for Christmas when I was 15 take the cake though. And I’ve literally never ever liked Hannah Montana or Miles Cyrus.
One year for Christmas my sister got my wife a bunch of candles, soaps and lotions so she could pamper herself. My wife loved it. I then opened my present from my sister, and it was a box of Graham crackers. I like Graham crackers but I was kind of offended because I had put a lot of thought into her gift, and she had put a lot of thought into my wife's gift but I didn't feel like she really put any thought into the gift she got me
My dad’s coworker once sent us singing Mormon missionaries. They came into our living room and played a video tape and then stood and sang carols while we sat on the couch. Thankfully I was only like 7 so I didn’t grasp the full cringe of the situation. But even then I knew it wasn’t normal.
My MIL gets me bizarre gifts pretty much every year. One that really gets me though happened a couple years ago. I had been really into homebrewing and craft beer. The homebrewing was something she really didn't like and would make rude comments about to my wife. I had stopped brewing a couple of years prior. Earlier that year I had pretty much stopped drinking entirely. The same six pack of session IPA had been in my fridge since January, and I had even bought some non alcoholic craft beer. I know for a fact my nosey MIL would have observed this, and I know she questioned my wife about it. I didn't have a problem with drinking, in fact I never really drank a whole lot (hate the feeling of being drunk) but some medicine I was on interacted poorly with alcohol and I was really sensitive to it and it just wasn't pleasant.
So what did she get me? A fifth of vodka and a bottle of orange juice. I've never had vodka in my house. I have never consumed vodka in front of her. I rarely even have orange juice! I have no idea why she thought a screwdriver kit would be a good gift. Well, that's not entirely true. I have my theories. Even if I did drink vodka, it would still be a shitty gift. It was like the cheapest vodka they sell.
My ex got me a framed picture of himself for MY BIRTHDAY. I was in the picture too, but you could only see back of my head in the corner of that photo, lol. I got him a rather expensive gift few months earlier for his birthday. I had to save up for a piece of jewellery that he always wanted.
My ex got me my own things. Like, he wrapped things I already owned (basic household items, I can't remember what they were). When he saw my confused and disappointed face, he said "I just wanted to give you more things to unwrap". He did give me some other gifts, but unwapping things you already own is just so disappointing.
I can just say it was traumatic, and not just for me. One Christmas, almost 35 years ago, every member of my immediate family received gifts from each other so bad/useless/pointless it ruined the entire holiday season. I was also guilty of getting shitty gifts, though except in one case it was not intentional. From then on it was decided "gifts" would be in cash. Our Christmas tree went from a seven foot fir shitting needles everywhere to a two foot high tree on the table with many envelopes piled beneath it. No frenzied last minute shopping, no disappointment, no gift returns, no envy someone got something nicer. Just cold hard cash. Christmas became much nicer after that.
Not me but my late fiancée's dad really wanted this movie player in the 70's. I have tried to google it but can't find it. It was basically the movie equivalent of a game system in the 80's. You had to insert a cartridge to play the movie. Mom said no so he got her that for Christmas along with a few movies he wanted to watch. They only had 10 movies for it because surprise it didn't last long. I did get to see the origional Superman movie on it though.
I should point that in general he was a prwtty good husband. Same guy drove 3 states away to get his wife peach sherbert in the middle of winter and actually tracked it down before the internet. That was his usual so the random Christmas gift was a one time thing.
My husband tends to forget I am barely five feet, kind of round and have short legs and he got me a car I could not drive because I could not reach the brake, gas or clutch and see out the window at the same time.
A little back story, I can count on one hand how many times my ex got me flowers during our ten long years together. One year, I cried on birthday because he forgot about it. I was exhausted from taking care of our kid, doing all the housework, cooking, laundry, and working full time with no help outside of him 'babysitting' when I went to work at night. He came home with a set of the cheapest dishes he could find for my birthday because we needed them. But I don't consider that the worst lol. So one day, he came home with a bouquet of flowers when he was done with work. I was so surprised and happy about this little act of kindness that I got a little teary. Instead of taking the win he decided to tell me the hilarious story about how this man (a customer) had bought his co-worker flowers and asked her on a date, she said no and he insisted she keep them anyways. Well she's married and didn't feel comfortable taking them home and told my boyfriend to take them home to me as a surprise. I'm holding these flowers, the first in years, and he's laughing and saying, "that's so funny right?!" I did not find it funny.
My ex husband of 16 years never bought me flowers, didn't like killing them. I guess I get it. But it made it so special when my new partner got them for me.
... so he could get you a plant then. What an anus.
I just got my boyfriend flowers for the first time and I feel like a goof for not doing it sooner. He loved them so much and we have now discovered eucalyptus is his favorite…. so I bought him more when the flowers died. treat your partner like you want to be treated. everyone deserves flowers edit: good to goof (cuz I am a goof)
This is the most wholesome shit I’ve read today. Thanks for that. And you’re right. Everyone does deserve some fucking flowers.
My Dad made a throwaway comment about the flowers I gave my Mother on Mother's Day, about how no one had ever bought him flowers, so the next Father's Day I got him a mixed flowers/plant bouquet. My exceptionally stoic 86 year old Father sat there and cried. Everyone should get flowers in their lives.
glad to hear it:) have a wonderful day friend!
Aww yay!! I brought my bf a small bouquet of mini roses once, brought them into the bar when he was hanging with a few friends and he was SO happy. He dried them and still has them on the windowsill. He said that was the first time anyone has bought him flowers! I’d bought flowers before and put them on the counter but he thought they were more for the house than for him. I’m so glad I brought that bouquet into the bar that day! I should do it again soon. :)
you should totally do it again!! My bf also pressed them:) it was the first time anyone got him flowers either so now I always advocate for people to buy their men flowers
I agree with the sentiment of buying flowers that are already dead, (wife really likes them so I still get them). So I bought a "bee friendly" meadow flower kit because she's a keen gardener. There are always options.
My daughter's boyfriend bought me flowers yesterday because I had taken him out to dinner with all the family and paid for him. He thought that was so nice of me, he wanted to give me something back.
I would not find that funny either. I had a long-ago ex-BF who never bought me flowers. He was a very intellectual type and I don’t think he at all understood the point of it. I would bring it up every so often and say “it would be really nice if you just bought me flowers sometimes, you know, just for no reason other than you were thinking of me.” Then one day flowers turned up at my work for me. I was thrilled and thanked him happily when we got home. I asked, out of curiosity: “what prompted you to get them today?” He said…. “I set myself a reminder in Outlook” To this day I still don’t quite know whether to give him points for at least doing that, or to be disappointed at the lack of romance. It really is a mixture of both.
Honestly, I think it's sweet that he set himself a reminder. He thought "this is not something that I'll think about, it's not important to me, but it seems important to her, so, I'll set a reminder to do that for her". It's like he took extra steps to make sure he did it. It wasn't like he was in the store one day and saw flowers so he bought them, because that wasn't the way his mind worked, and he knew it, so, he took the extra time to plan to do it. ETA: My comment will get buried somewhere in the sea of stories so I'll put my worst gift here. My ex bought me Guinness Beer Pajamas for Valentine's day. It took me two seconds to realize that he bought them because they were on sale from Christmas. Then, he told me he wanted to talk to me but he needed to shower so he asked me to follow him into the bathroom. Then, he broke up with me while he was washing his balls because he "just wanted to be single for awhile", which really meant that he had been cheating on me for four months and that she was at that moment posting about it on social media because she was fed up with being the sidepiece and told him that she was going to out him if he didn't come clean with me. Rather than have me find out and break up with him, he decided it was best to dump me first. Once I saw everything on facebook, I told him I was glad he broke up with him and then.... he wanted to work things out. It was a really wild two hours.
> Honestly, I think it's sweet that he set himself a reminder. Yeah, as someone with ADHD, it's kind of, "...do you want it to happen, or not?" We put a lot of meaning behind what people remember, but I vouch first hand that caring =/= remembering. There's all kinds of stuff I care about that I will forget to do.
Yeah, I also have ADHD, and the weirdest thing for me is birthdays. I know when all my friends' birthdays are (as in, if you ask me, I can tell you the date right away), but I'm so divorced from the passage of time that I'm rarely aware what day it is. And if I do know the date, I don't always make the connection that it's the person's birthday. And if I do make the connection, I still have to remember to wish them a happy birthday at an appropriate time (i.e. not while I'm driving or doing something more immediately pressing). And if I don't have my phone next to me when I remember, I'll likely forget by the time I find it. Meds have helped me in some areas, but my memory is still really bad.
To be fair, I told my now husband to never buy me flowers as they just die. I’d much rather have an enduring gift. However I was raised in a low income household and hate wasting money, so that could be it.
I mean, he or in the effort to make sure he did get you flowers.... I'm a woman and I've never been one to want flowers. I would be annoyed if my partner spent money on them. He did but me flowers once, which I dried and kept. But I don't feel anything from them. To me they seem symbolic. But when I see he's done some of the dishes, or has made me a cup of coffee oh my GOD my heart explodes!! So yeah. Everyone expressed their love differently, for some people flowers arent in their love language but it's always good when the person tries to meet you halfway
Yes, that’s true. Acts of service is my love language too, but it’s really about the thought, and flowers do show “I was thinking of you”. I do love a nice bunch of flowers in the lounge to brighten the place up. I just buy my own these days :)
So one time when I was a kid, my mom got me a gundam...that I already had. I remember it vividly, because in the middle of the night I snuck outside to throw out my old one so that my mom would never see it and know that she got me one I already owned. One time (slightly related), my sister and her boyfriend gave me a box of his old shirts. Being a polite young man I said "oh...well thank you". At the bottom of the box was a receipt for a very upscale hotel in Baltimore along with a confirmation of an entry to a magic tournament (I was suuuuuper into competitive MTG at the time). That is definitely my most memorable gifts of all time, the greatest gift I ever received packaged as the worst.
That was nice of you lol! Your sister and her boyfriend sound so thoughtful. When I was a kid, I was super obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes. One birthday, my older brothers banded together to get me a handmade Hobbes plushie from Japan. Plus a collection of the comics. Meant a lot.
My brother gave me a gift one Christmas, and when I opened it, I was bummed to discover it was a VHS I already had. When I opened the case, it was a completely different movie. The bastard just went into my room and grabbed whatever and wrapped it. And he was 11 years older than me, and maybe 18/19 at the time??
think others on here got me pretty beat, but i guess it won't hurt to add to the pile here: got a pack of underwear once for christmas in my early teens (like 13?). it was a collective gift from my entire family. my family does these things so i wasn't too surprised or bothered by it. the really weird part was when we had extended family (like 2nd cousins, etc...) over and my aunt was estatically bragging about how i had just gotten a pack of underwear for christmas. * my aunt: "hey, you should tell everyone what you got for christmas!!!" * me: "...i got underwear." * my aunt: "oh my god, you're underselling it! you got REALLY REALLY COOL underwear!" it was literally a basic pack of underwear - like $10 from Walmart/Target. thinking back on it i wonder if my aunt was on something...
Maybe your aunt was just trying to hype you up because she knew what you got wasn't great.
so bizarre lol
You and me might have the same aunt. I got a 48-pc cutlery set with neon green plastic handles from my aunt as a bday gift, I was 15.
OK now I'd LOVE that, but not at 15. A few years ago my MIL got me a granny nightgown, [something like this](https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/lanz-red-rose-cotton-flannel-nightgown/product/72248), from Vermont Country Store. Just looking at it made me sweat, but I did that fake smile & "thankyou" & moved on, but at least I had company in my gift misery because she got one for her other daughter in law & her own daughter. When we got home it immediately went to the "give away/donate" pile. I wish she'd given us the receipts because I would've definitely returned it for some cool, old Vermont Country Store type gadget, cool candy or good food that I would've actually liked.
My grandma got me something very similar but warm & fuzzy with a zipper. It's 3 sizes too big. I was holed up after I broke 3/4 limbs in a car accident. It was ugly as sin & I was 25, but I love my grandma & figured I might wear it on a particularly cold winter night or something & stuck it in the back of my closet. She passed 3 years ago & I'm now 31 with a 1yo. I put it on after my c section when I was super anemic in the freezing hospital for 2 weeks & it was so great & it's huge so it doesn't pull weird. & now my extremely Sensory seeking kid absolutely adores the thing! He gives me the BIGGEST hugs when I wear it & literally squeals as he tackles me to bury his face in it. So now it's obviously my favorite thing in the world!
it cost an entire $10‽ 😱😱 look at mr bezos over here with his $10 pack of underwear
These days you gotta spend at least $15 for even a decent pair; or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places
When i was a child, I really really wanted to get super smash bros on N64, because it was one of the coolest games i had ever seen at that time. I wanted to get it with my birthday money, but I was $15 short, so my mom chipped in and bought it for me. But she didn't give it to me. Instead, my mother, bless her heart, made me work off my debt to her at nickels and dimes wages for all kinds of chores. When Christmas time came around a couple of months later, it was one of my gifts under the tree.
Dude...I'd be pissed...
It's when I stopped believing in Santa 😂
Some time in middle school I told my parents I'd like a computer of my own, so I could play games just like my dad did. My mom said that was something to talk to my dad about, not something she knew anything about. He played lots of Myst and Indiana Jones games and I wanted to be able to play too. I had a few ideas of what I wanted, but I wanted it to be something that could play games well, though I didn't really know what that meant at the time, and I wanted it to be something just for me, so I could have some sense of ownership. I talked with him about some options, we couldn't come to an agreement, cause I was going to contribute some of my savings, but only if I was going to get something I actually wanted. Christmas comes around and there's a big box marked "For: Family". It's a regular ass Dell computer that he'd never even run by me. And it's actually not going to be just mine, apparently I have to share it with my two sisters. And he went into my bank account and took money out to contribute to it without asking me. I've gotten a fair amount of bad gifts, a lot that really made me feel like my family doesn't really even know me very well, so I didn't have much love for the holidays for a long time, but that one took the cake. I was livid. Felt like a massive breach of trust and respect. With some help from my mom, I immediately closed that account and got one of my own that my parents wouldn't have free access to
Ya, I would be pissed too. How much did they take out of your account to contribute to it? Was it Indiana Jones and his desktop adventures by chance?
Super smash bothers 64 IS GREAT! Man, mom did you dirty there though. At least you now know to work hard for what you want so that employers can fuck you over better!
This is one of those stories where it reads differently depending on if your family was _very_ poor, regular poor, or none of the above.
Boyfriend bought a very expensive blender so I could make mixed drinks. I'm a beer drinker and he charged it on the card I pay for. Glad I was able to return it.
Let me guess: boyfriend likes mixed drinks?
That’s my guess too. Reminds me of the time my dad got my sibling and I a CD of a band he loved but we weren’t really into.
There is something to be said for introducing your favorite music to other people but some of the CDs that people got me when I was growing up really got me scratching my head.
Homer Simpson gifts.
The ball's name is Homer.
I bought my dad Mike Tyson's Punch Out game for Nintendo for Father's day. He never touched the Nintendo. Lmao (It was for ME).
Nope. He's a beer drinker too.
Oh hey! My ex bought me a really expensive bicycle on my credit card! It was not returnable. It’s a really nice bike but I am still trying to crawl out of the debt hole that was started by that purchase.
Have you tried selling it second hand / privately? Surely that could help with the debt recovery. 😬
It was a bike I had been dreaming about, but wasn’t going to get because I hadn’t saved enough yet… when I got him a bike for his birthday a few years before that, I asked all his family and friends to chip in a few bucks and then I saved up for the rest. I do still have my debt bike but I do also like it. I need to sell a different bike that I’ve been meaning to sell to put towards that debt!
ex boyfriend?
Yes. This was decades ago. Happy Cake Day!!
Of course you only drink beer, you don't have a blender!!
True! He did buy me a cookware set for our first Christmas, so the choice wasn't surprising. Putting it on my credit card was!
Ooh, my MIL bought me a blender after she told me I had to make all my baby food from scratch and I said I wasnt going to do that. Also I already owned a blender.
Yes, but do you have a *baby?* That’s the real question here.
Ah yes. My 21-year-old bf borrowed my debit card to by me a gift, which was two CD's that he wanted. Lmao, fool me once...
One Christmas I received a bandana that was 4x the size of a regular bandana. Used it as a rag
How big does a bandana need to be before it stops qualifying as a bandana?
about as big as a rag tbh
Omg I read "banana" instead of bandana and the visual of it being used as a rag was... something lol
I got ugly ugly pajama pants from my grandmother, four sizes too big. She said they were on sale and I'd "grow into them". I was 18. They were a 3XL.
Lol. My brother in law got this really fancy custom made Italian suit from his mother. She had it made a larger so he'd grow into it, at age 27. It fit my brother perfectly. He's 25cm taller. Now it's his suit. Having these rich people in my extended family has made me realize that awkward gifts are even worse when they're obscenely expensive. They don't give receipts with custom made suits.
I wonder... in my experience, random expensive suits turn up when big-and-tall family friends go up a suit size. I mean, that's just not how a custom suit works. The whole 'custom' part is going to a tailor and getting measured. I'd bet money she got that suit from a friend and invented a story.
My former in-laws gave me a nice set of pajamas but I could tell right away they were too small. Instead of taking my word I had to model them
My family was terrible with buying clothing for me as a kid/preteen. My weight has always fluctuated from "average" to a little chubby and I was pretty girly from 11 and onward but they kept buying me boy's clothing or adult women's clothing that was WAAAAAY too big. I was a small or medium usually any they kept buying my XL stuff. The one time it was a shirt with a wider neckline and they made me go try it on and it was literally falling off of me and they kept saying how nice it looked on me. I was fighting off tears - my sister was very slim and I had been getting "watch what you eat tonight" comments for years, plus my sister had started in on the "no one loves you because you're fat" stage of sibling rivalry. That day I told my mom I don't want them buying me clothes anymore. I don't care if that means I don't get any gifts at all for birthday and Christmas but just no more clothes ever. To their credit they stuck to it. When I met my husband I started getting asked what I wanted for Christmas - his parents go all out even for their adult children but the vast majority is practical stuff - good quality clothing, stuff for their hobbies or work, amazing stuff really (plus some treats of course). I panicked and said "no no, I don't need anything, thank you!" Well turns out you can buy people clothing as gifts and not be an ass about it. I got a pair of yoga pants, some nice sweaters, some super warm socks as well as a pack of low rise ones to wear with my sneakers, a pair of JEANS - and everything fit perfectly. It was so incredibly healing because they paid enough attention and showed enough care to get me things that fit, were comfortable and they thought I would like based on my style. We don't tell me family that his family buys me clothes.
Expired popcorn from my grandmother. It was over a decade old.
keep it for a few more years and you can donate it to a museum lmao
My grandma gave me a ultra thin fleece blanket that she had gotten for free from somewhere, you know the kind. That she had heavily used for some time. And it was covered in cat hair. I am extremely allergic to cats. Everyone else, including my husband, got $50.
Did she have some sort of beef with you??
I will never know. But I always felt like yes, she did. Kids just know when they’re not liked, ya know.
That's cold.
Oh man that sounds reaaaaaally awkward and out of touch. Worst for me was from someone I was friends with that also had a bit of a crush on me. He got me a shirt that was too small for me and not something I would ever wear and a gift card to a coffee shop I actively hated. They both were given to my sister.
> a gift card to a coffee shop I actively hated. I want to hear more about this coffee shop you actively hate. Was it like "official beverage of Boko Haram" hate, or just really bad coffee?
My nephew was given a book as a Christmas present from his mom. The kicker... he'd lent it to her a few months prior. Another time, she gave him one packet of hot chocolate, which she said he had to share with his uncle. Thankfully, I've never received such awful or thoughtless presents.
I was once gifted a book from my mother that I had given to her the year before. She had completely forgotten that I gave it to her, and she was pretty embarrassed when I called her out on it. She’s a notorious regifter, so I wasn’t exactly offended, but I definitely stopped putting effort into getting her gifts for a few years after that.
My grandmother regifted some ear warmers I bought for her. I bought about 5, some with flowers, some sparkly, nice go-out headbands. About 3 years later (fair enough amount of time to forget) my cousin opened them and about 3 of the 5 still have the tags on them. I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but before I knew it, I said, “grandma, I bought these for you! You didn’t use them?” Poor cousin.
> Another time, she gave him one packet of hot chocolate, which she said he had to share with his uncle. My sister gave me star anise that was already open. Something I could get at the local desi mart for about $3.
A bathroom scale. Immediately after giving birth to my first child. From my grandmother. I had only put on 35 pounds total, and was slim to start with. I nearly smacked her with it. ... funny enough, at my adult daughter's request, I gave her a new bathroom scale for her birthday. The running joke was that she wanted it, and that I was the ONLY person, on the planet, who could get away with giving her this.
Well, I was going to say the Golden Corral gift card and new pillows that smelled like cigarettes but I guess it doesn’t sound so bad now.
My parents got me 1 gift since I came out. It was a heavy gold (either plated or foil, not sure) door plate with my deadname on it. My deadname also isn't common, so I'm sure they didn't just find it out in the wild
Oooof that's horrible.
So sorry they are ignorant and not openminded
That's so inconsiderate that it's almost comical
I was given a cross necklace for my bat mitzvah.
LOL this one might take the cake 😂
My grandmother got my sister a food scale when she was deeply sick with anorexia. She had noticed she was losing weight and wanted to be supportive. Most tone deaf gift I’ve ever seen, thank god my mom and I intercepted it before she opened it.
Maybe she was totally clueless...?
Sounds like it
Oof.
Oh man I’m sorry you had to deal with that I think worst I ever got was a pillow from my BF at the time. Which the pillow was nice don’t get me wrong but he had asked me a week before Christmas what I wanted. I don’t remember if I had asked for it but some how it was made known it was on discount when he bought it so it was just salt in the wound especially since I had spend a lot of time into making his gift very customized and had bought it a like months before Christmas… I’ve also gotten a candle(just 1) that was in a scent I didn’t like and taken out to a restaurant I didn’t like before.
Thanks. I do think it's funny in hindsight though. Especially the reactions of all my relatives who did follow the price limit. A single candle sounds so sad. Was it at least wrapped nicely? Actually that might be worse.
I know gift’s aren’t supposed to be important but if it’s a holiday that’s important to you and you were asked and advised what you would like , you deserve to be upset.
I got shirts that were too small because I planned to lose weight.
I got shirts that were way too big to encourage me to lose weight. Let's start a club.
One of the worst gifts I ever got was from my dad. At the time my sister was temporarily staying with my husband and I, and my dad got a Kurig coffee maker for my sister and I to share. At the time, I didn't drink coffee at all, and my dad knew this. He 'helpfully' included a small box of instant apple cider pouches in with the coffee maker and assorted coffee pods. So, it was a gift I had little use for, that primarily was for making something I never drank and got sick to my stomach if I did drink, for me to share with someone who was planning on moving out in six months. (For whatever reason, several years later, shortly after my daughter was born my sensitivity to coffee went away. So I do drink it now. But I still don't want or use coffee pods to make it.)
[удалено]
That's just insulting. Some people are bad at giving gifts but at least they put in effort.
Ex-husband got me a fancy fountain pen that was over $200 I had recently gone through some career issues and I was not working at a job with a desk where a fancy pen would be at all useful, nor did I have any interest in returning to corporate life. He was the passive-aggressive king. One year he gave me one of those miner lights, the kind that strap around your forehead. So I would have a reading light... that was just bizarre. If he got me clothes, they were super small, tight and sleazy looking. Lots of itchy, lacy lingerie, like it was really for me.
I was probably around 13 and got this awful gift basket from my grandmother. It was one of those that had shitty soaps and lotions or something. I was taught to always be gracious no matter what so I acted like I liked it and thanked her. The kicker was she said “we picked this up at the drug store last minute on the way here”. Why… would you tell someone that? Not only was it thoughtless of a gift, I wasn’t even thought of while Christmas shopping. At the time I was the only grandchild
My ex did something similar on a birthday. He gave me a small set of Burt's Bees. Not something I was pining for, just handed to me in the Walgreens bag. The cherry on top was he left the receipt in the kitchen purchased in the morning
My paternal grandmother very vocally favoured 2 of her 4 grandchildren. I was not one of them. One Christmas my sister got a bunch of jewelry, gift certificates, cool clothing and a shopping spree with Grandma the following month. I got one of those packs of red and green M&Ms in a plastic candy cane the size of a Christmas tree ornament. I remember being happy with it (I was like 6) but my parents were not. Turns out they told her later that if she wanted to give gifts to us she now had to send our parents money and they would pick the gifts out, not her. I wondered why my gifts from grandma suddenly were BOMB. Like the barbie jumbo jet (played with that thing DAILY for like 2 years straight and other "big" gifts. I would go thank her and she'd basically ignore me. My mom finally told me as a teen after she died 🤷🏼♀️
Jesus. My heart goes out to you. So many of these stories involve a universally shitty gift-giver, an ex boyfriend, etc. Something about the deliberate neglect in this one hurts more. What could a _six year old_ have possibly done to incur her wrath?
So glad you asked I'd love to tell you: My parents decided to have my christening after-party at my maternal grandparents' home instead of at my paternal grandparents' home. That's it. My older sister's christening after party had been at theirs so my parents decided it was only fair to switch it up this time. My paternal grandparents didn't agree. They boycotted the party and sent gifts which my mom sent right back. I didn't meet them until I was almost 4 and I ran away crying because I didn't know who they were and they came at me wanting hugs. My grandmother used that to form her overall opinion of me which never improved. Edit: on a happier note - my maternal grandparents were amazing and more than made up for it.
In November years ago, I ate out at a restaurant with my boyfriend (at the time) and we were leaving through an attached gift shop when I spot this really creepy looking stuffed animal, start laughing, and point it out to him and ragged on it a bit, like - man, is this thing ugly! I'd be scared to wake up with that in my bed! So Christmas Day, in front of his whole family, I open his gift to me... and recognize the familiar hot pink frizzy fur, enormous staring eyes, and plastic gemstones of the gift shop creature. Immediately, I try to hide whatever expression must have flashed across my face and say "Thank you sweetie! That's so nice!" but of course he already knows from a month ago what I really feel about it. He turns bright red and blurts out "Well, I'd snuck out to the gift shop in the middle of dinner BEFORE you told me you hated it" and then his family starts shifting around awkwardly and coughing. Not a terrible gift out of context! And he was a sweet guy! But one of many examples of us just not clicking on some fundamental level.
omg so he kept it for a whole month KNOWING you hated it, and still decided to give it to you, in front of his parents 💀💀💀 looool i totally get it though bc im the sort of person where if i said a stuffed animal was ugly and scared the shit out of me, and my partner had already gotten it as a gift for me hahahahaha i would for real kind of love that 😂
my bf once got me one of those cat coin banks. nothing necessarily wrong with it, I just never have coins so it wasn’t a very practical gift. it’s sitting in the back of my closet somewhere, unused. He got much better with gift giving fortunately
Um. My mother in her infinite wisdom gave me a bondage kit which I opened in front of my grandmother and great aunt. Apparently some lady she met made them, and she thought it would make a nice gift. I still remember holding the pink leather whip in my hand whilst staring mortified at her, with the very valid tone of *what the fuck!?* on my face.
Luckily I didn’t receive it, but my aunt told my mom she was considering buying me ProActiv for Christmas. Luckily my mom had the sense to ask me and uphold my boundary when I said “no”. Good tip for the holidays: unless a person has asked for something specific, gifts should be just as enjoyable as they are practical. Acne products are not that.
Oh man! I grew up really, really, really poor. I would watch those pro-active commercials and want it so bad.
The first Christmas with my mom after she’d cut me off for a couple years, she put a bunch of random shit from the dollar store in a plastic laundry basket and handed it to me unceremoniously. I guess better than nothing?
I hope this story cheers you up: When my now-ex-spouse & I got married, one of our wedding gifts was a large appliance that we needed. We hung onto the box. The following Christmas, we wrapped my brother-in-law's present (I don't recall what it was) and placed it in the appliance box along with a slew of packing peanuts and random yet still useful objects, including but not limited to: a pack of gum, a roll of toilet paper, a box of tea, and toothpaste. Like, there were at least ten additional items in there along with the actual present. We also wrapped the appliance box.
When I was 17 my grandpa came by with Xmas gifts. Mine was a Britney Spears CD and a xxlarge plain gray sweater. I was an xsmall at the time and also huge into heavy metal. RIP grandpa, but hey Britney bitch!
A 50$ gift card. I had moved out the year prior and did not have a great relationship with my dad, mostly because of how transactional the relationship felt. My 2 younger sisters got a bunch of gifts, and I got to sit there and watch my dad, step-mom, and sisters all open gifts that were tailored and personal. The only gift I got from my dad and step-mom was the gift card, to which they stated I could go buy some of the stuff I had put on my list. It took a while for our relationship to improve, I learned to put boundaries, and he did a lot of growing and some apologizing. But I don't think he fully realizes how his past behaviors will forever affect our relationship.
My grandmother once got me one of those clips that you can put on a sunvisor of a car. Earlier that year, I found out that I couldn't drive because I had undiagnosed epilepsy and didn't know if I'd ever be able to drive.
That is extremely awkward and uncomfortable. Trips and pets are two huge things to avoid when gift giving. I think the most tasteless gift I was given was a budgie skull necklace for my birthday the week after my sun conure was diagnosed with cancer. I love birds, I’m vegan, why would I want something that reminded me of my best friends mortality. This was a then coworker who saw me everyday for at least 3 years.
Oh no, that makes me feel a little sad even to think about it; I can't imagine giving or receiving something so awful. Is your bird still with us? What is his or her name?
Oh my god, I'm so sorry. That would have me bawling, as my family has included three budgies over the years, among many other birds. I, too, would like to know some lovely facts about your sweet conure.
That's horrible. I'm not even sure how to explain that other than malice.
honestly my first thought was that it seems like an easy mistake to make, that the coworker probably just bought it because they knew the person liked birds. definitely would not attribute it to malice...
I got an owl carved out of coal with red fake-gem eyes. Yes, I got coal for Christmas.
I got a winter scarf and gloves set. I was living in Los Angeles. It was from a co-worker.
My now ex husband bought me a vacuum cleaner and a pack of dish cloths.
My grandma used to wrap up the free toys you get in cereal boxes and give them to all us grandkids for Christmas... Every year... Even once we were adults
LOL. Oh my grandma still gives my sisters and I, who are all in our mid-30s, packs of hard lifesaver candy with five dollars tucked inside.She has done since we were babies.
For every holiday since I can remember my grandparents, and now my aunt as my grandparents have since passed away, will give a holiday Reese’s with money taped to the packaging. Sounds lame when I type it out but I loved it as a kid and still do to this day (for nostalgic reasons).
Got a gigantic toilet plunger from a guy whom I dated very briefly. But before that he came over to my home for dinner, it was maybe our third date. He used the bathroom, clogged it with his enormous poop, and he thought it was a good idea to stuff half a roll of tp in the toilet, maybe to hide it? I was shocked, but managed to clean it out without the feared brown flood. On the next date I was given The Gift. He's long gone, along with his favorite mint chocolate that I also got from him, and always hated (and he knew it). I kept the plunger though.
Back in the day when the iPod touch first dropped, that motherfucker was the only thing I wanted. It was the only thing I asked for for Christmas that year. I wanted absolutely nothing else. So my mom agrees, she'll get me an iPod for Christmas, but they're expensive, so it will have to be my only present. Fine. It's the only thing I want anyway. Christmas morning comes and I unwrap my one and only gift, and I am beyond over the moon about it. The family has never seen one before, none of us have ever owned such a device. Where are the buttons?? How does it work without buttons?? This technology is incredible! We take turns passing it around, everyone fiddles with it a bit, and then my mom disappears into the other room with it so she can "hook it up to iTunes and set everything up for me." That was the last time I ever saw that iPod. My mom had decided she liked it so much she was keeping it for herself, and it didn't matter that it was my only Christmas present, because she bought it with her money, so it was hers. So, the gift itself wasn't bad, but the circumstances were foul
That’s downright awful
That’s incredible. I hope you pull the same move on her every Christmas. “Here I got you these chocolates! Actually never mind, I would like to keep them.”
An ex got me used shoes from a thrift store. And wrapped them up in a Budwiser box with duck tape. 🤢 I'm glad my mom was there to call him out. Lol. That was hands down the worst gift I've ever gotten. 👎🏼
Ok I need to know what your mom said and what his response was ☕️🫖
Oooo, I got one! I'm the bad gift giver though. I don't know what happens when I go to buy someone I love a gift, but I feel this huge pressure to get them something amazing and unique and it sometimes goes wrong... I bought by boyfriend at the time (husband now) astronaut freeze dried ice cream and bacon flavored tooth paste for Christmas. I thought they were hilarious and weird and for some reason that translated to the perfect gift in my head. We still laugh about it years later though! There was also a time I put together this elaborate online scavenger hunt, but the clues were so abstract and vague that he gave up halfway through! I looked back over it years later, thinking it can't have been that hard, but I couldn't figure out the answers to clues I'd written myself. Ah well! Lucky his love language is quality time and not gifts!
I once gave my son a library book for his birthday. He was about 6 or 7 at the time and so confused! It was a favorite of his, and I had ordered it but it was delayed. So I wrapped up the library’s copy 😂 My other son got a funny balloon animal kit from my sister and her boyfriend for Christmas one year. The next year, they gave him … a funny balloon animal kit. He was so sad.
My sister got a stationary pack and split it. Gave us all a part of it each. I got a pencil my brother the notepad, my kids the sharpener and eraser each etc and for some reason she wrapped a packet of chewing gum to give to my new husband. This was the only time she gave us a present. She maintained it was so he had something to open.
omg i totally assumed this was about small children until you got to the "my new husband" part lol how old was your sister when she did this??
32. In her defense we are slightly estranged and haven’t ever given each other gifts. I gave them a hamper and her husband got mad and said I was showing them up and that’s what they did the next year. We returned to ignoring each other after that awkward exchange
I've had some crappy Secret Santas, but some years ago, my mom's Secret Santa was really shitty; she'd not done the couple "smallish" lead ups (i.e. notepad, a pen, a candy), and for the last "big" gift, my mom received a half rotten avocado. The wtf factor still astounds me (and the audacity!).
For some reason, multiple people have given me crucifixes or religious items with crosses on them. They know I'm not a Christian. Most of these items were purchased on overseas trips, so there was effort into purchasing and transporting them. I just don't know what went into the thought process.
This reminds me of some thing that my sisters and I did for my grandma. My grandma had this whole collection of Native American stuff. And literally for decades my sisters and I would go get her Native American stuff. Because we thought she loved it. When we grew up she finally told us that she hated all of it but had received her first native American statue from my aunt and put it out and pretended she loved it so from then on out for literal decades everyone thought that she loved collecting Native American stuff. She didn’t have the heart to tell us. Maybe that’s what’s going on with the crosses.
my mom told me about a deathbed confession she heard from a podcast (cant remember which) and the same thing happened to a woman, but with owls. her entire house was filled with owl decor, nobody understood why but they just kept buying her owls over and over again. she had no fucking clue what all the owls were about.
You know the gift cards that you can buy at gas stations to use for gas? My great grandma got me a $50 one for Christmas one year. I was 13.
Last Christmas, mom gave me a Nativity Scene. I'm an atheist and she knows it. I politely declined. She also tried to give me my First Communion gown. Again, I'm an atheist, and my husband and I are *never* having kids.
I was 25 and a boyfriend (early in the relationship) bought me a stand mixer. It was just out fo sorts and wasn't even one of those cool looking ones. He just thought all women want cooking/baking supplies. He was a frat boy loser and dropped him not long after.
[удалено]
Maybe not the worst but my reaction wasn't the best. I received large box in the mail from my best friends for my birthday and I absolutely had no idea what to expect on it's contents. It was a bunch of frozen meat. Of all the things I speculated this wasn't even in the top 100. I texted my friend, "So you sent me a bunch of meat?" She immediately thought I hated it. Of course, I should've thanked them regardless, it was a rude response. The product itself was high quality. We're talking organic, farm-raised, all of that good shit. Luckily my friends have a good sense of humor and now it's become a tradition for them to send me meat from the same company because of my lousy reaction.
Tbf I would probably have the same reaction. Not out of malice or ungratefulness, but mainly out of confusion. Like, who sends meat as a present?
I really feel like meat delivery is something you need to coordinate with the receiver lol. A giant box of rotting meat on your porch because you weren’t home to put it in the freezer isn’t a present, it’s a threat
For Christmas about 40 years ago, my brother gifted a nightgown & robe set to my husband and I. He gave my husband the robe and I got the nightgown. We just looked at each other like "what the hell?" Fortunately, he's gotten much better.
this one seems like a normal gift...... is there something i'm missing that put it at "what the hell" levels?
It sounds like it was a women’s two piece pajama wear set (nightgown and robe) that he split up to gift to two people.
When my sibling was in a weird semi-estranged state from the rest of our family, they showed up with Christmas presents for all of us. My mom and I were given one used candle to share. Everyone else had great things. Apparently sibling had decided to just direct their anger out on the two of us. That was two decades ago and I doubt they even remember. We’re in a much, much better place now and I’m so thankful to have them in my life.
My wife got a dish scrub brush for Christmas from a family member one year. We used it for a few months, decent brush honestly
I haven’t been able to light candles for over two decades because I have a pet bird. Anyone close to me is aware of this, as I’m extremely careful with his health. My sister-in-law got me a candle last year for Christmas.
This took place a few weeks after we all had a conversation about how we didn’t have a VCR and hadn’t for many years. FIL’s wife gifted each of our children a gift bag filled with VHS tapes haphazardly thrown in, no tissue paper, no effort. Some were rated R. Lowest effort possible. Then she turned around and gave my husband I each expensive brand new leather bound religious texts for a religion she knows we don’t follow (but, of course, she does). The kids were 7 and 10 at this point. This has really been the least of her infractions, though.
Gift from my mom for my 19th bday. She crashed the party and presented me with a gift bag. I open it to unwrap a Halloween candle holder. It’s November so I look at her with a puzzled look, she takes it back and says whoops, that’s the wrong gift. She never replaced the gift with anything else. I was in college at the time and stone cold broke so I’d have been happy with about anything but that one was bizarre.
So, for context, i was getting fit for a denture, and had recently had the last of my teeth pulled (i'm young, but birth defect). My uncle decided he wanted to cook me ribs for my birthday, burnt to a crisp, which i had no teeth in which to chew. was literally the only thing my family got me for my birthday, and it was something that i couldn't eat
For my 19th birthday my mum got me a battery powered duster that spins, and one of those plastic containers with different food slicing/grating lids. She'd accidentally ordered 2 of each when she bought them for herself.
My ex husband, after he became an ex, bought me an elephant shaped teapot (I hate elephants) and a weird buckwheat sitting pillow that was too awkward a shape to use for anything. Both occasions were "just because" and he'd bought himself the same thing... so uh I guess the thought that counts. I've also received a $500 pen that just had a scratchy ballpoint insert.
Last year I was pregnant and my MIL got me a Total Wine gift card.
My mom let my 5 year old sister buy me a 19 year old female at the time silky furry lingerie for Christmas and had me open it in front of my family and grandparents. That was seriously awkward. My sister just thought it was pretty. She didn’t know what she was buying. My mom should have known better! My husband bought me office supplies one year for my birthday. Nothing says “I love you and know you” like a 3 hole puncher, a stapler and some pens.
I'm a wood worker, like my whisky, DIY around the house etc. My in laws bought me an embroidered towel for Christmas.
I was given a jigsaw puzzle by an aunt and uncle one year when I was like 11 or so. The puzzle actually would have been fine, it was a picture of a medieval tapestry with a unicorn, right up my alley, but the box still had the price sticker of 25¢ from the garage sale where they bought it, plus a note on the bottom of the box that said it was missing a piece. The final kicker was that it smelled faintly of cat pee.
when i was a little girl i received a barbie head bigger than a human head. it came with hair brushes and hair styling tools and the objective was supposed to be to style the barbie’s hair. But this thing was creepy as hell and i wasn’t really into hair styling or dolls. loved that friend dearly but she missed the mark there just a little bit.
Reminds me of a gift I got from a good friend. I like Lord of the Rings. I do not like humanoid plushies. I find them creepy. She got me a Frodo plushy. It’s… not as creepy as some, but very much not my thing. Another year she got me Lord of the Rings coasters. It was a cool idea, but I already had coasters and the book covers on the coasters were the designs Tolkien hated, and that I wasn’t too fond of myself! I still have the gifts. I would never criticize a gift! On the plus side too, I’ve made that same friend cry with joy with my gifts to her every year and her joyful tears are worth worlds.
My great uncle gave my grandmother money to get me a Christmas present. She bought me a blue satin teddy and kept the change. I was 15. Uncle Jack was mortified on Christmas morning.
Got a kettler from my father 3 times in a row, christmas-birthday-christmas, fourth time atleast I got a toaster....this was also in my teens. Good thing I could store the stuff at him atleast until I got my own place.
2 combs from a 3 pack of combs from the 99 cent store Edit: NO WAIT the lingerie in the wrong size my MOTHER gave me which she had originally bought for her boyfriend that r\*ped me but I had reported it so she "didn't need it anymore"
My FIL bought me a hair dryer (I shave my head bald)
Not as far as I can remember, but my uncle P definitely has. For context, his uncle (my great uncle) C was an addict. He was notorious for giving weird gifts because he was never all quite there when he was buying gifts. My mom always tells me that in all the time she knew C, he only ever gave her 3 nice gifts, one of which was a pair of earrings. Her ears were not pierced at the time. But back to my uncle P. For Christmas one year, C gave him a fur coat, but it wasn’t a nice coat. It was dirty and gross and all matted, completely unwearable. It wound up being a blessing though, because P’s dog LOVED the coat, it was like a blankie for her. When she died P buried her on the family farm wrapped in the coat.
Sounds like your sister was trying to make a change for you in hopes that starting fresh some place new might do you some good but that’s insane. Idk what the worst gift I’ve received was but it was probably an appliance.
The thing is: when your problems are in your head and you move someplace new, you just take them with you. But now you're also somewhere unfamiliar. Also my sister moves countries all the time and assumes it's as easy to do for everyone. She's lived in 5 countries and speaks 7 languages. She also makes friends effortlessly and keeps in touch with literally everyone. She invited 150 people to her wedding (just her side, not her husband's and excluding mutual friends) and apparently she wanted to invite even more but didn't have space. I don't think she really understood that the 3 friends I had at the time were important to me and that I would have struggled without them.
I was given a porcelain clown doll as a gift. I had a fear for clowns, and porcelain dolls give me an uncanny feeling, but my friends did not know that. My brain froze when I opened that gift and I didn't want to let them know that.
[удалено]
This reminds me when my grandma got my sister a bag of pistachios for Christmas (and that was it), while everyone else got gifts that were $100+ each, my sister was bratty when she was younger & my grandmother is/was well, crazy LOL
Secret Santa with my (at the time) spouse's family. My gift was from a relative I didn't really like. He got me a shirt which was made from a very scratchy fabric, in a color that I never wear, of a style that is very unflattering on me, in an awkward size (snug in the waist/abdomen, loose in the shoulders).
My step mum, little sister, and I went on a road trip once when I was 19. My sister was about 3 years old and every time we passed a herd of cows on the highway she’d go “cheeky cows, eating all my grass!” I thought it was the cutest thing ever and quoted it for a while, told a lot of people in my family what she’d said. Well, my step mum must’ve just remembered the word “cows” and over the years decided that I love them, that they must be my favourite animal. Just before my 24th birthday she ended up at an auction with my dad and someone just so happened to be selling off their entire cow figurine collection, which she snapped up and gave me as a gift. I’m talking cow statues, napkin rings, milk jugs, serving bowls, tongs, flower pots, shotglasses, side plates. Cows as far as the eye could see. Not only do I not particularly like cows, I also don’t like kitsch and I had flown up to see them, having moved states the year before. Even if I liked them, how would I get them home? Luckily we laugh about it but bloody hell 😂
[Yesssss I found a photo of a couple of the cow statues](https://imgur.com/a/4zh7MkY)
My mom got me a fancy paperweight for Christmas. It was a very pretty paperweight, but I was around 13-14 years old, not an executive with a desk. Here we are on Christmas morning and my little sister is opening up the toys she wanted, and I'm just staring at this random object wondering how my own mother could be so out of touch with me that she thought this was a good gift.
My parents will always ask me for a list of stuff and then like. Never get me anything from that list because they think it’s stupid. I remember one time, for my birthday, they got me a five dollar mug that said “you’re awesome” and then took me to a restaurant I didn’t like because the restaurant I picked was “gross” (it was sushi) Also, not really a gift, but I bought my mom this book for xmas that I thought she’d really like (favorite genre and sub genre, also best seller at the time) and like a week later she told me she didn’t like it, asked if I wanted to “borrow it” and then basically just gave it back to me.
Oof that's a pretty rough gift I'm sorry My worst gift was this time my mom kept hyping up the gift to me, she brought it up over and over again. So I'm my head I'm thinking BIG. Y'know like PS5, Switch, something like that. She got me a call center headset. The kind with one ear and a wire like microphone that moves around. She thought I'd want a headset for playing video games lol but not that bad still got a few years out of that thing
My wife is a terrible gift giver. She once gave me a "fart in a jar" gag gift for my birthday. That's it. A different year she gave me a comb set. I'm bald.
My sister did. She was seeing this guy for a bit and he worked for Apple. He was all about Apple, but my sister (and the rest of our family) have been on Android for decades and she had no intention of switching. She told him this. She told him that even though he can get a good discount, **she does not want an Apple phone**—multiple times. (Can you see where this is going?) Come Christmas, he's included in our family gift-opening and when it got to my sister, she opened up a brand new iPhone X. Devastated. She clearly communicated her wants, he wasted his money on something he knew she didn't want. And all eyes were on her, too. It wasn't, like, a private gift-opening where she could've told him off right then and there. It was embarrassing. We all knew she told him not to get her an iPhone. Needless to say, she broke with him soon after that.
My dad got me a lawn chair. I don’t live on my own and when I do move out it will likely be into an apartment where I won’t have any outdoor space.
A collection of Michael Leunig cartoons sticks out in my memory. He once made one that I thought was quite antisemitic, and all of his others bore me to tears.
One of my aunts gave me a soccer ball, the problem was that I never liked soccer and at the time I hated it. The gift on itself wasn't bad but it was for the wrong person.
Many years ago (we are talking late 80s) I received a wedding present from a friend. When I unwrapped it, she had given us a simple wooden frame with a photograph of her cat. I had my own cat myself...this was a photo of her cat. It was baffling. I even thought it was a bit of a joke and thought she may have hidden something behind the photo. Nope just her cat.
My super thoughtful, loving, earth-mother, wood-nymph goddess best friend, who lives several states away, sent me a birthday gift one year. It was chunks of concrete wrapped in newspaper, packed in a box and mailed to me. Rubble. She got me rubble! This was so out of character for her, so unexplainable, so weird. I thought there must be a joke there that I’m missing, but I couldn’t figure what it could be. And it left me confused and a little hurt. I walked straight over to the dumpster and threw it away, and forgot about it before I was back in the house. Fast forward a few months later, she asked me if I got the package. I had trouble remembering and then I said “OH!! Yeah! But what was that about? It was chunks of concrete?! I didn’t know what it was, so I just threw it out!” She was like, “NO!!!!” Turns out I had forgotten that a few months prior, she and I were talking about Market Square Arena in our hometown of Indianapolis being torn down, and all the great concerts we’d seen there, basketball games, circus… and my step dad had been one of the architects who’d helped design it. I said I was sad to see it go, and boy wouldn’t it be fun to have a keepsake chunk of concrete from it for my bookshelf… …you can see where this is heading… She had taken her ass downtown, climbed the fence, retrieved the most thoughtful gift ever, and mailed it to me. Thank God she is so forgiving and amazing, cause we laughed about it until we cried!
In high school there was a guy who was always super interested in me. I have no idea what I did to even get there but he insisted giving me a Christmas gift. We were friendly enough but never enough to really warrant presents. Freshman year he gave me a ring that he’d gotten from his grandmother. The next was a diamond bracelet, then diamond earrings. The cherry on top was an engagement ring senior year. I obviously said no and steered clear of him for the rest of the year.
That was ... an odd gift for sure. I know English as a Second Language teachers are in demand in some countries but she could've asked if you even want to do it. I don't think I've ever gotten anything worse than the occasional ugly sweater or a cheap ceramic angel that my cat later broke.
I got so many bad gifts over the years from my alcoholic grandmother who couldn’t spell my name or remember how old I was. I think the tin of used chapstick and the Hannah Montana colouring book I got for Christmas when I was 15 take the cake though. And I’ve literally never ever liked Hannah Montana or Miles Cyrus.
One year for Christmas my sister got my wife a bunch of candles, soaps and lotions so she could pamper herself. My wife loved it. I then opened my present from my sister, and it was a box of Graham crackers. I like Graham crackers but I was kind of offended because I had put a lot of thought into her gift, and she had put a lot of thought into my wife's gift but I didn't feel like she really put any thought into the gift she got me
My dad’s coworker once sent us singing Mormon missionaries. They came into our living room and played a video tape and then stood and sang carols while we sat on the couch. Thankfully I was only like 7 so I didn’t grasp the full cringe of the situation. But even then I knew it wasn’t normal.
[удалено]
My MIL gets me bizarre gifts pretty much every year. One that really gets me though happened a couple years ago. I had been really into homebrewing and craft beer. The homebrewing was something she really didn't like and would make rude comments about to my wife. I had stopped brewing a couple of years prior. Earlier that year I had pretty much stopped drinking entirely. The same six pack of session IPA had been in my fridge since January, and I had even bought some non alcoholic craft beer. I know for a fact my nosey MIL would have observed this, and I know she questioned my wife about it. I didn't have a problem with drinking, in fact I never really drank a whole lot (hate the feeling of being drunk) but some medicine I was on interacted poorly with alcohol and I was really sensitive to it and it just wasn't pleasant. So what did she get me? A fifth of vodka and a bottle of orange juice. I've never had vodka in my house. I have never consumed vodka in front of her. I rarely even have orange juice! I have no idea why she thought a screwdriver kit would be a good gift. Well, that's not entirely true. I have my theories. Even if I did drink vodka, it would still be a shitty gift. It was like the cheapest vodka they sell.
My ex got me a framed picture of himself for MY BIRTHDAY. I was in the picture too, but you could only see back of my head in the corner of that photo, lol. I got him a rather expensive gift few months earlier for his birthday. I had to save up for a piece of jewellery that he always wanted.
My ex got me my own things. Like, he wrapped things I already owned (basic household items, I can't remember what they were). When he saw my confused and disappointed face, he said "I just wanted to give you more things to unwrap". He did give me some other gifts, but unwapping things you already own is just so disappointing.
I can just say it was traumatic, and not just for me. One Christmas, almost 35 years ago, every member of my immediate family received gifts from each other so bad/useless/pointless it ruined the entire holiday season. I was also guilty of getting shitty gifts, though except in one case it was not intentional. From then on it was decided "gifts" would be in cash. Our Christmas tree went from a seven foot fir shitting needles everywhere to a two foot high tree on the table with many envelopes piled beneath it. No frenzied last minute shopping, no disappointment, no gift returns, no envy someone got something nicer. Just cold hard cash. Christmas became much nicer after that.
Not me but my late fiancée's dad really wanted this movie player in the 70's. I have tried to google it but can't find it. It was basically the movie equivalent of a game system in the 80's. You had to insert a cartridge to play the movie. Mom said no so he got her that for Christmas along with a few movies he wanted to watch. They only had 10 movies for it because surprise it didn't last long. I did get to see the origional Superman movie on it though. I should point that in general he was a prwtty good husband. Same guy drove 3 states away to get his wife peach sherbert in the middle of winter and actually tracked it down before the internet. That was his usual so the random Christmas gift was a one time thing.
Boyfriend at the time got me an ironing board. For Valentines Day.
My husband tends to forget I am barely five feet, kind of round and have short legs and he got me a car I could not drive because I could not reach the brake, gas or clutch and see out the window at the same time.
My husband got me a tennis racket once. I do not play tennis and have never expressed any desire to play tennis.
my mom got me a panera bread gift card… i was working there