What's the WORST Christmas gift you can remember?

[Archae]

When I was 12, I got knit wool socks, from an aunt, they were too big for my feet and itched like hell!

By February my Mom had unraveled them and used the wool yarn some other knitting project.

[AsahinaKimi]

1. I got the Mumps

From the girl next door. She also gave me the Measles a few years later..

[LostInAnomie]

2. My parents were big fans of getting me gifts that were really gifts for them.

The one that I really remember was one xmas when I wanted nothing but a cable internet connection. We had been on dial-up for years and it was horrible (about 3k/sec). I asked and asked and asked. I even found the provider and told my parents that I would pick up payments. Xmas day finally comes and my parents are holding back one gift for me until the end. I just know for sure it's going to be something telling me we're getting a cable connection. I open the box and it's some piece of shit called "Catch-a-Call", a little box that you attach to your dial-up cord so you automatically get kicked off the internet when someone calls you.

So, instead of getting high speed internet, I got my connection disrupted every time some telemarketer called. Making it impossible to ever download anything of any size.

I was pissed.

[kimi]

3. Wow

That is bad. I'll take a lesson from that as a parent. Sometimes my kids know best what is needed when it comes to new-fangled electronic issues.

[KittyWampus]

15. that sounds passive-aggressive with emphasis on the aggressive. Jeez

[Kat45]

4. From my boyfriend, in our first year: a crockpot and a mop/broom combo.

I'm not making that up.

[RoadRage]

51. You mean EX boyfriend, right?

'Cause that's what he'd be called if any guy gave that to me. :)

[cynatnite]

5. A suede vest with a fake sheepskin lining...

I was in high school and my mother bought it. Ugly thing.

[enigmatic]

6. From an ex-girlfriend's cousin:

A Soiled, worn, 30 year old microwave cooking recipe book. And we didn't have a microwave, either.

[KittyWampus]

16. a friend of mine got a meat thermometer from a guy. She is a vegetarian

[LibDemAlways]

7. When I was teaching 8th grade back in the 80's I

received a vibrator from a student. Granted, it was a foot vibrator, but still.....very embarrassing. Package said "Vibrator" in big letters. Have to wonder what the hell the parent who picked it out was thinking.

Another really horrible one was a shirt my daughter received a few years ago from a cousin who hasn't seen her since she was five. It was tie-dye pink and purple and had a huge sequined butterfly across the front. It was one ugly ass mess. It had a JC Penney tag on it, and my daughter insisted on taking it back. She received store credit in the amount of $3.87. I'm sure my cousin was well-intentioned, but she has terrible taste.

[rebel with a cause]

8. When I was ten my mother convinced me to hang my stocking

so my little two year old brother would not have to do so alone. Now I was ten and thought I was way too big to be putting up a stocking but did so to please my mother. On Christmas morning I awoke to find my Christmas stocking filled with coal and sticks while my brothers had candy, fruit and little toy treats. My mother told me that was what I got for being a bad little girl. I cried.

My sister says it was probably my mothers idea of a joke, and it could have been, but I was terribly hurt and never really forgot it. If it was a joke I would think that she would have said so but instead I remember her just chastising me for feeling sorry for myself. :shrug:

Now to give my mother a break on all this I probably had good presents under the tree but don't really remember what. She also was in her forties, had just given birth to her seventh child and had an older daughter who loved to poison my mother's mind against her youngest daughter. This was a time in my childhood where I was perhaps the most unhappy, but then there wasn't many times in my childhood when I felt completely loved and was happy. Oh boohoo. :nopity:

[murielm99]

9. That's not funny, if it was a joke.

Kids look forward to Christmas.

My mother did something similar to me when I was twelve. She told me that I had been so bad all year that I was not getting any clothes for Christmas. That is what I wanted: clothes.

I did get some presents from her.

My aunt sent me a hat with a matching scarf. My mom crowed, "That is to keep you warm. It is not actually CLOTHING."

Why would a mom want someone to have a disappointing Christmas?

Over the years, my mother has given me so many tasteless and impractical gifts that it is hard to list them all.

I love Christmas. As an adult, I do everything I can to make sure everyone has a great Christmas. It isn't always about the money, but I try to be sure everyone has a thoughtful gift. The holiday has become a big deal for me since my mother was so thoughtless.

Like you, I don't think my mother always meant Christmas to be a time of recrimination. I remember some very nice Christmases when I was small.

[rebel with a cause]

29. I guess I was really in a down mood last night

that this was the memory that came to mind because I can recall many other times that my mom sacrificed to get me and my siblings what we needed/wanted.

A kinder memory of my mother. My father was a minister and kind of fanatical with his beliefs. When I was 11-12 I got the chance to be a cheerleader at my grade school. This was something my father would not approve of but I called home and asked my mother if I could do it. She told me to give her some time to work on it while she went shopping with my dad and to call back in the afternoon. (my dad worked in the mines in the afternoon/evening) That afternoon I called back home to find that my mother had talked my dad into letting me do it. When I got home she had got the material to make my cheer outfit along with some bloomers (black cotton type of shorts with elastic at the top of the legs). I actually liked the bloomers because it meant I didn't have to worry about always being so modest.

Anyway, neither parent nor sibling ever came to a basketball game to see me which made me a little sad, but for that short time I felt like a normal kid/one of the group. I have always been grateful to my mother for that and other things she did for me. Her biggest fault was she let her oldest daughters have too much power over what happened in our house, and my father has a part in that happening. When I was born my older sisters were around 3, 9, 11, and 13. The oldest three ran the roost. :(

[quakerboy]

40. That is cold

with all due respect, your mom deserved an asskicking. Whatever the reason it happened.

[rebel with a cause]

44. Can't say that I disagree.

But then, like most people, my childhood was very complicated and my mother was a big part of that.

[trof]

10. Monogramed handkerchiefs when I was a kid. blech

My spinster Great Aunt Susie was the wealthiest member of our family.
Every year she gave me a box of three white dime store handkerchiefs which she had hand embroidered with my initials in the corner.

Never mind that the monogram was crudely done.
Handkerchiefs?
I didn't carry a handkerchief.
Never had, never will.
What kid wants handkerchiefs for Christmas?
Or any time, for that matter?
Cheap ol' biddy.
:-(

[TommyO]

11. Chicken Pox!

Though it was my brother who got them, he regifted them to me and I got them for New Year's Eve. I got to miss school, he didn't, of course, being three years older than him, it hit me much harder than it did him.

[mikeytherat]

12. Not the worst, but the funniest (by a long shot).

My freshman year in college, my grandmother got me some soap-on-a-rope emblazoned with a little red devil. She said she got it for me, "cuz I'm a little devil." She also mentioned how she told all the salespeople she was getting the soap for her grandson. Well, grandma's eyesight was starting to go, and she obviously did not read what was printed under the devil cartoon:

I'm a horny little devil!

I've kept that soap for almost 25 years now - I have misplaced it, but it's here in the house somewhere. I really need to find and photograph it!

mikey_the_rat

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

17. Why do you assume she couldn't read it?

I mean, you know...

:evilgrin:

[Mad_Dem_X]

13. Fake poo - from my mother

One year, as a stocking stuffer, my mother gave me fake poo, wrapped in cellophane and tied with a red bow. I have no idea where it is now; I conveniently "lost" it.

[KittyWampus]

14. A plastic pump bottle of hand soap. It was transparent and there was a tropical fish insert

you could see inside.

[wysimdnwyg]

18. Coconut

This was NOT a joke. My Grandmother (62ish at the time?) gave one each to me and my sister. We still don't know why she thought it was a good gift.

[dembotoz]

19. a used chemistry set

guess my folks were really broke that year or they just did not trust me.
anyway all the "real" chemicals were used up or dumped out and replaced with kitchen
substances such as ground coffee, flour and sugar.
My parents did not understand the differece between
playing chemistry and doing chemistry.

trauma lasted thru high school where i majored in low paying liberal arts instead of science
(gotta blame it on on someone)

[Dr. Strange]

20. Accucirc. It was a "gift" from Orrex.

Go on, look it up. If you dare... <insert evil organ music right here>

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. Clothing. Always hated getting clothing. Especially when I was a kid!

Open a present and find socks or underwear - oh, boy. :eyes:

And then as a teenager, mom would sometimes get me a whole "outfit" that was always quite ugly (to me). Mom and I had VERY different tastes. And of course, being the new Christmas outfit, I'd have to wear it. Egads!

[begin_within]

24. Same here...

I learned from the horrors of opening Christmas presents only to find a "lovely shirt" or socks "I really needed" to never, ever, give kids clothes as a present, no matter what, even if the parent asks for clothes. Always give them a toy, game or something fun.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

38. You know. This post of yours. I have decided it serves as a litmus test.

You are a good person. :thumbsup:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

22. perfumed soap

x(

[MrCoffee]

23. The Brut Gift Set...every year for 6 years

Some friends of my parents thought that, beginning at AGE NINE (!!!), every young man needed to smell like an outhouse.

[GoCubsGo]

25. A red pant suit

I think I was nine or ten. My aunt gave me a red polyester pant suit. I was overweight as a child, and I would have looked like a big, red apple in it. My mother never made me wear it, fortunately.

[Chan790]

26. So many to choose from...

the gist of it being that I have very fancy taste in clothes...like super-fancy taste: Thomas Pink shirts, Hermes ties, Tom Ford suits, you get the picture...I don't expect people to buy me this stuff for Christmas, I know that I'm dressing above their budget. I refuse to wear jeans (denim of any sort really) or tee-shirts...so every year some relative calls my mother and asks what I'd like (I'm never really secretive about this...I need money, I'd like a cheap camera, I'll settle for gift cards.) and my mother tells them:

Oh, I don't know...last year he had a nice pair of jeans and some tee-shirts and hoodies. Now he walks around looking uncomfortable dressing like a French waiter because he doesn't have any other clothes. I don't know what happened to all those clothes. (I donated all of them to Goodwill...in fact, they went directly from Christmas dinner to the donation-bin and never touched my body.)

Mind you...the entirety of the rest of my family dresses off the Bill Belichick hoodie-rejection rack: track pants, really-stiff way-too-blue jeans and hoodies. (Not the cheap shit...the really-tackily expensive shit: Juicy, Champion, Patagonia, Columbia, American Apparel, etc.) I hate dressing like that. I refuse to go anywhere with them...they look like New England new-money trash. You'd think people who grew up rich would be embarrassed to go to a **** $100/person restaurant wearing torn jeans and a Giants hoodie with grass stains...wrong. They revel in it.


I know it's wrong but I spend most of the holidays wishing that my real family show up and take me away from these people.

[begin_within]

27. An etiquette book

My stepmother, I think on the first Christmas after she married my Dad, gave me and my 2 sisters each a book on etiquette. The one by Letitia Baldrige. My oldest sister was 28 at the time. I don't know what my sisters thought about it, but I thought it was an insult, as if she was saying to us and to my Dad that we weren't raised properly. I think my sisters felt the same way but didn't say anything. To be honest, I did read most of the book and found it an interesting glimpse into the lifestyle of the upper class. But the fact that my stepmother decided we all needed to be retrained was rather insulting and not what I would consider an appropriate Christmas gift.

[skygazer]

28. A douche

Not kidding. My stepmother, a very practical woman, gave me shampoo, conditioner, various other useful products and a damn douche the year I turned 16. Can you imagine how fun it was to open THAT under the family Christmas tree?

And yes, I am scarred for life. :P

[Sanity Claws]

30. A mini food processor

I guess this ex-boyfriend thought I should cook for him. But, of course, he was so cheap, he got me the mini version, not the full version.
Both he and the mini food processor are now long gone from my life.

[Chan790]

31. Do you cook?

If you're someone who loves to cook (or even if you're someone who doesn't but has a clear need for one...like my friend Sara) it could be a very thoughtful gift...I'd be thrilled if anybody gave me a food processor. On the other hand, if you're not someone who likes to cook and never ever does, it's about as thoughtful as a rubber turd.

[Sanity Claws]

32. Why it bothered me

It showed he never listened to me. I never expressed any interest in a food processor or anything like it. I did express interest in other things yet he chose to give me something that I had never expressed interest in.

It was around this point that I realized that no matter what I said or how I said it, he would never hear me.

[Chan790]

34. Ah yes,

that's no good either. I mean I generally give people what they need rather than what they ask for but I also try to make it things they want, even if they've never verbalized it explicitly. (Edit: except jewelry.)

[qnr]

33. Thrown down 2 flights of stairs when I complained because my big brother broke my microscope n/t

[Dulcinea]

35. A really ugly fake designer purse.

Some fake tacky thing my mom picked up at a purse party. I didn't have the heart to tell her those things fund drug trafficking & terrorism; I just gave it to Goodwill, where no doubt someone bought it. At least Goodwill might use the proceeds for something good.

[Taverner]

36. Soap

And fuckall it was IVORY soap! I hate Ivory soap!

[Tuvok Obama]

37. A sandwich baggie of beef jerky

from my asshole brother. He's always been an asshole.

I was about 12, just a year away from being old enough to join our church's youth group. The director let me come on a trip to the mountain to go sledding, even though I was the only one that wasn't yet a teenager.

An older girl, a friend of my asshole brother's, asked what I got for Christmas. She had always had a crush on my brother, but he kept it on a "friendship" level.

She went down the line, asking what I got from my grandparent, parents, other siblings, and saving a-hole for last. When she asked what he bought me, she seemed to anticipate the answer with some unexplainable excitement.

"A sandwich baggie of beef jerky," I replied.

She didn't believe me at first, and once I convinced her I was telling the truth, she got angry, then mad, then furious. She seemed to be taking it personally. At 12 years old, I should have been able to figure out what was going on, but didn't.

I didn't put 2 and 2 together until years later. A-hole must have conned this poor girl out of some money on the pretense that he was buying his little brother a fantastic Christmas gift.

Once I figured it out, I spent about 8 seconds wondering how he thought he was going to get away with that (she surely confronted him about it), but then I realized he just didn't care. He had what he wanted from her.

(In case you're wondering, the guy grew up to be a FOX News viewer and a Sean Hannity fan.)

[elehhhhna]

39. 1985. Hubs gave me a timer for my hotrollers. Thoughtful AND sucky.

[quakerboy]

41. I do not know

topping the most useless, though, is socks. I have not worn anything except sandals something approaching 10 years. Year round, no exceptions. What use have I for a giant multipack of cheap socks that are too small?

[alfredo]

42. gonorrhea

[rcrush]

47. Sorry about that.

[alfredo]

52. Not really. The worst was a Tim LaHaye book given by a relative concerned

about my Atheism.

Never had the clap, but I did pick up some saber-toothed crotch crickets from a hotel in Dakar.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

43. An exercise bike.

My dad bought two of them used from a want ad, I guess. The seat was very uncomfy and I kept sliding off.

Did they ask me if I wanted one? No. This gift said "You are fat and we know it, so start pedaling the pounds off".

I would not have minded if they had asked me what kind of exercise gear I wanted, and actually gotten me a treadmill instead.

I eventually put it out on the street so somebody who could use it would take it.

I used to be a size nine junior petite girl when they did this: They also got me ugly highwaisted plaid pants with waistbands three inches wide, back when hiphuggers and wide belts were the rage. It never dawned on mom (a fashion and costume design major, and excellent seamstress) that since I am short, and short waisted, I looked like a mushroom in high waisted pants, and I looked like I was more proportional in hiphuggers.

The damn waistband would hit the bottom of my ribcage!!

I think she just wanted to get me whatever was NOT fashionable, so I would look like a dork instead of a hippie. GAHHH!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. The year I was 16, I made up a list of things I wanted for Christmas

Most of them were books, records, and specific items of clothing. I was, after all, 16.

Well, I got absolutely NOTHING from my list. On Christmas Eve, I received presents that represented my mother and grandmother's attempts to "improve" me: instant curlers (the ones they had in those days featured nasty spikes that my fine hair always got tangled in), a home permanent kit (they hated straight hair, which was coming into fashion and which is the natural state of my hair), a padded bra, a really ugly dress that looked like something out of a 1930s movie, and a beauty advice book called "A Girl and Her Figure."

Teenagers always feel misunderstood, but that time I felt justified.

It was my worst Christmas of all time ...until Christmas of 1999, which I spent in bed alone in my Portland apartment with one of the worst cases of the flu EVER.

[csziggy]

46. Not Christmas, but worst present of all time - a purple bulletin board and a gospel record

It was my high school graduation present from my fundie uncle the racist preacher and his wife. I loathe the color purple and can't stand to be in the same room as badly sung all white gospel music - especially the crap that was being sold back in the 1960s. My little sister loved purple so she got the bulletin board. Mom insisted I listen to the record at least once. Then I used it as a target for my bow shooting practice.

[queenjane]

48. White nylon granny panties - 4 sizes too big

Gift from my mother's best friend. I was 19. These undergarments were so big and so white, you could've used them to flag down alien spacecraft. I think I passed them on to an elderly cousin (she was about 70), who was plump enough to keep 'em on!

This same friend also gave me, for years, gift subscriptions to "Reader's Digest". But at least that was better than the voluminous drawers!

[annonymous]

49. A dictionary I had to share with my sister

I had this one aunt who always sent educational gifts and because my sister and I were so close together in age she thought we should share the gift. What 8 year wants a dictionary for Christmas? My mother made me and my sister write separate thank you notes for this gift. This same aunt got my brothers an atlas for Christmas a few years later that they were expected to share.

Another bad gift came from my former sister in law. She got me the world's ugliest teapot which I suspected she regifted to me. I gave it to charity.

[Lyric]

50. Lot of them, but the worst one was Christmas of 1994.

I was 15, my brother was 13, and my sister was 11. Mom had managed to save up about $400 in a Christmas club account to buy our tree, decorations, and presents. She withdrew the money the first week of December, during her lunch break from work, and put it in her purse in her car so she could go shopping after work. When she got off work, she found that someone had broken into her car and had stolen her purse, which contained not only our Christmas money but also the money to pay the electric bill.

It was too late to get any help from the Salvation Army, so Mom went to the Dollar Tree and bought as many things as she could for $1 each--a cardboard and paper chess game for me, bubbles and those cheap plastic $1 dolls and trucks for my brother and sister. We drew a picture of a tree on pieces of notebook paper taped together with electrical tape and colored it with crayons. Mom cried off and on for a month over that one. The police never did find any trace of her purse. *sigh*