Presents!Follow

It's that time of year. The time when you thoughtfully pour over catalogs, browse stores, look online and finally buy your special loved ones things they'll return the next day. So what're the worst presents you've received? As a caveat, we can all agree that it's sweet and wonderful that they got you anything at all so we don't need to get self-righteous about other people's opinions of their crappy gifts.

My mother used to date a guy for several years whose mother decided to buy my sister and I presents. Which was nice, except that she apparently had no clue at all what a 13 year old boy and 15 year old girl would like. I received one of those big wooden train whistles that sounds like, well, a train whistle and my sister got one of those "Jump A Peg" games you find in the gift store portion of the Cracker Barrel. I think I came off better than she did since I could at least use my whistle to annoy my sister.

Speaking of my mother, she generally gives good mom gifts but she's horrible about wrapping a bunch of stuff and going back to label it. One Christmas morning, I opened three separate boxes which contained bras and underwear that were intended for my sister.

My grandmother was another one who didn't understand that children aged. At age 14 or so, I was still getting "The Early Learner's Big Book of Dinosaurs". i think eventually my mother took over the gift buying duties and would just have her sign the tags or something.

I had a girlfriend before who gave gifts as if she was my mother. I guess it's one thing if you're married or something but I usually figured you could depend on your girlfriend for a "fun" gift to go along with your sweaters and underwear. For our first Christmas, she got me a pair of jeans and a package of tube socks.

The girlfriend in question was a Swede.

She'd make momma/grandma proud.

hehehe. yeah he was also the moron who proposed to me in the middle of watching wrestling as if he was asking me if i wanted a sandwhich. jerk.

I had never experienced the dreaded bad Christmas clothing gift until a couple of years ago. My Dad unexplicably decided to do some shopping instead of letting my Mom handle the task and he went out and purchased this horrrrrrrrrrible sweater that looked like a Rorschach test with colors.

Just awful.

Even worse, I had to break it out and wear it in public on occasion when we'd go out together for dinner or something. He'd always ask about it.

/sigh

Totem

The worst present I ever received wasn't for Christmas, it was a wedding gift.

My aunt, who has the means to buy useless, overpriced objects, gave us a gift card to Pottery Barn. Never in our lives did Mr. Ambrya and I spend a more miserable hour shopping--and since we both hate shopping, that's saying a lot.

Pottery Barn has a lot of fatal flaws for the two of us. First, most things there are intended to be decorative, not useful. We're still at that stage in our lives where, when we bring something into our home, we want it to fulfill a purpose. Second, it's WAYYY expensive. We're bargain shoppers, and there is no throw pillow in the known universe worth $60. Nor is there a candlestick worth $90. Ever. Third, their stuff is ugly. Pottery Barn seems to focus on this very odd hybrid of "industrial meets rustic" so everything metal is matte steel or wrought iron and every fabric is some shade of taupe, and almost nothing actually looks like it would say "home" to us.

I think we ended up getting a few kitchen gizmos that we didn't actually need--lacquered chopsticks, silver S&P shakers that unfortunately require all the maintenance that silver generally requires, stuff like that. And we've never set foot in Pottery Barn since.

Ok, you win best worst present, hands down

I disagree. Some people will pay top dollar for that sort of action. I can't stand vomit personally, but I'm sure if you ask BT..

i totally got one of those bonnie bell sets. if it makes you feel any better you didn't miss anything. mine had eyeshadow in it that stained my pillow case a nice shade of hooker blue.

edit: for spelling

Edited, Nov 27th 2006 1:48pm by invisiblenumbers

my worst gift wasnt from Christmas but a wedding gift. We still laugh about it to this day. My mother was married to a man from Moracco and he went out and bought us a large, plastic clock that was golden painted, in the shape of a peacock. He was so proud of it. I guess it was a culture difference? Or he just had really bad taste

Edited, Nov 27th 2006 5:50pm by DSD

Now THAT would be a Kodak moment.

Worst gift I have ever received was from a girl I had just started dating. Anyone who knows me, knows that I loathe the Steelers. She bought me a Kordell Stewart jersey. I burned it in the backyard a week later. Dated her for about a year even though she loved the Steelers. She was like a mini hurricane in bed. Short girls rock, you can twist them into pretzels and just toss them around the sack like nobody's business. Thumb can back me up on that I'm sure.

My grandmother still gives me mostly picture books based on various well-known Bible stories (David and Goliath, etc). You'd think that if I was actually interested, I would read the actual Bible.