The worst present you ever received?

[Walt34]

Inspired by the thread on old vs. new Christmas cards, plus a TV segment DW told me about, I thought to start a thread on the worst gift you have ever received. "Worst" being defined as thoughtless, selfish, useless, junky, tacky, offensive, insulting, or whatever other pejorative term you can think of.

One of my worst (at the time) was a sweater my mother gave me when I was 13 or 14. This thing was the most hideous, ghastly shade of day-glow orange I have ever seen. Don't get me wrong, I loved my mother dearly, but it is understatement to say that style was not her strong point. I was forced to wear it to school one day and as soon as I was out of sight I took it off, then left it in my locker in hopes she would forget about it. No such luck. She finally got the message and donated it to Goodwill. Maybe someone with color blindness could get use from it.

The absolute worst I've ever heard about was one my father told us about. The wife of a guy at work had been complaining for years about the issue and so for Christmas the guy bought his wife a present to fix the problem. A new toilet seat. Now I understand why some wives murder their husbands. Sounds like justifiable homicide to me.

One year for my birthday my younger sister gave me a large plastic dog poop. I was about 35 or so. At least it was the deluxe size. As she commented to the cashier "Nothing but the best for my brother".

The one DW heard about on TV was the guy who bought his pregnant wife a scale. Yeah, that guy is another candidate for a Darwin Award.

So what is your story about the worst present you or a family member ever received?

 

[tutan]

DW received a giant scented candle, 8” across x 10” high, from a friend. I don’t like burning candles indoors unless there’s a power outage. To me, candles are the worst present.

 

[Gremlin]

1998. I'm 2 years into a busy private practice with three young children with, like 99% of all working parents, little to no free time. All I wanted (and asked for) was a quality camera because I have kids! And I want to capture the memories! Makes sense, right?


Christmas Eve we have my whole extended family over for dinner and my husband goes to fetch my "surprise" Christmas gift. He proceeds to lead a horse (who was limping!) around from behind the house. Surprise, honey!

Now in his defense we'd had horses before we had kids but sold them because, well, I had no more time to ride anymore!

My entire family laughed hysterically because
1)I'd been so busy with work and family care that I had not noticed this horse he had been hiding on our ten acres for the last week
2) the horse was limping and presumed to be lame (turned out he'd stepped on a nail and recovered nicely)

My husband and I (and my family) laugh about this story every year, even 25 years after the event.

I never did have time to ride that horse, who became quite spoiled (an over grown dog, essentially) until we finally sold him less than a year later. And I went out and bought my own camera!

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

I had been married only a few years. My mother-in-law, with whom I had always had a somewhat "mixed" relationship, bought me a bar of Fels Naptha soap.

 

[W2R]

One year when I was a kid, Santa gave me plain white socks for Christmas. Guess I hadn't been a good girl that year.

 

[DrRoy]

As a kid I liked the Martin the Martian character in Looney Tunes. One year, as an adult, an in-law got me a Martin plastic toy.

 

[kenpmcdonald1]

Not the worst, but we thought it was.
In 1972 my twin brother (Keith) and I were 11 years old. We had a very discouraging Christmas morning. My mother had received a new fangled microwave oven on Christmas Eve at the family gathering. We were all suitably impressed to see that it could boil water in 3 minutes or bake a potato in 7 minutes. But not that impressed.

As usual at Christmas, at 3AM he and I woke up to go see what Santa had brought us. Now our Christmas tree was on an enclosed sun porch just off the family den. It was separated by a huge sliding glass door that was covered with a heavy drape to help keep the den warmer. Keith was faster than me that morning and got to the sliding door first. He pulled back the drapes, grabbed the handle to slide the door, and flipped the light switch on the sun porch. He then stopped without going through the door, switched the light off, pushed the door closed, pulled the drape up, looked at me and said ,"Wouldn't you know, another damn microwave! ". He then told me that Santa had put another microwave oven under our tree. We went back to bed grumbling.

About 8AM my father came into our shared room and said, "I thought you two would be up watching TV". We informed him that nothing was on and we'd rather stay in bed. He could tell that we weren't very happy. He finally made us get out of bed and show him and mama what Santa had left on the sun porch for us. That's when we realized that we had a 12" RCA Color TV for our bedroom. Christmas turned out alright after all.

Keith has passed on, but I'll never forget some of the times we had growing up. Every Christmas he and I would laugh when we talked about "another damn microwave".

 

[pacergal]

My siblings and I have a tradition of giving $25 gift cards and a "white Elephant' gift (something used, but still useable).
One year, a new person to the family didn't understand the useable part and I got a box of old, dead batteries.
At least the gift card was to a place I liked!

 

[Koolau]

For several years in a row, my Big Sis gave me gift cards to Borders Books. We didn't have a Borders Book store within normal driving range. So when Borders Books went belly up (around 2010??) a couple of hundred dollars worth of gift cards went with it. Worst present ever - though I'll have to think on it for a while longer. YMMV

 

[Sunset]

My parents were poor, so the normal thing was as a young teenager, we each could pick out things up to $20 in value, and Santa would bring us one of them.

I finally realized how tight things were, one Christmas, so I didn't ask for anything. Dad was pretty frustrated with me and right before Christmas took me to a department store to walk around with him so I could see something I "wanted".
In desperation after walking around, since he wouldn't take no for an answer, I pointed out a pellet pistol CO2 powered.

So on Christmas there it was.
I barely used it as I felt so bad they spent money on it, every time I looked at it the bad feelings would be there.

 

[Koolau]

The thread on "old Christmas cards" somehow sparked a memory of Christmas(s) past WORST Christmas presents.



After Little Sis passed, BIL sent us a fruit cake for Christmas. So far, not a great present, but it gets worse. Nieces later informed us that they had received the fruit cake the year before and stored it in their attic (in Phoenix!) A one year old desiccated (oh, yeah, and really cheap) fruit cake has to trump most other worst Christmas presents, but YMMV.

 

[aja8888]

Son In Law got me a plastic deep socket organizer. Magnetic, too. Probably cost $8. I already had a socket organizer for all my sockets, deep and otherwise. I wonder what he was thinking? Probably not thinking.....

 

[MarieIG]

A very itchy bright orange sweater - with a checker board pattern on the chest - and what appeared to be hair growing out of the dark colored boxes.


A present from DMIL.

 

[Midpack]

I can't remember a truly bad gift, just a few I wouldn't have bought for myself. But in every case the giver had good intentions, that's all that matters. Fortunately the very few DW has bought that I wouldn't have, she was happy to return**. From anyone else, I just kept it and said a sincere thank you.

** She bought me a rechargeable battery hand warmer for winter golf a couple years ago. A little bulky so I'd never use it, so she took it back. But she had the best intentions.

 

[DuluthGA]

I don’t really have a worst but my wife would probably say it was the Tupperware I gave her our first Christmas

 

[CardsFan]

I don’t really have a worst but my wife would probably say it was the Tupperware I gave her our first Christmas

BUT, do you still have the Tupperware?

 

[Jerry1]

I remember one year in my youth, maybe around 10 years old, I got a bunch of craft stuff from Santa. To me, it was all garbage. I recall a cutter that would score bottles (like a wine bottle) that you could then make a glass out of. I forget the other gifts that were in the same vein but I recall it as my worst Christmas as far as presents.

 

[DuluthGA]

We got rid of the last piece in 2022 when we downsized. 41 years wasn’t bad

 

[DuluthGA]

I remember one year in my youth, maybe around 10 years old, I got a bunch of craft stuff from Santa. To me, it was all garbage. I recall a cutter that would score bottles (like a wine bottle) that you could then make a glass out of. I forget the other gifts that were in the same vein but I recall it as my worst Christmas as far as presents.

I got one of those RONCO jar and bottle cutter from an aunt when I was around that age. It was a lousy gift for a kid. Thanks for the memory. You can buy one now,on eBay for $25-$50

 

[CincyDave]

Ron Popeil Pocket Fisherman from my mom about 40 years ago. I love to fish and she certainly meant well. One of these days, I'll have to take it out of the box and try it.

 

[Car-Guy]

Can of Cambells soup. Long story ....

 

[O2Bfree]

Mine was a brick.

I wanted a little portable TV for my room. While my parents were very generous at Christmas, they thought the TV would have me holed up in my room too much. For a laugh though, dad got a box the right size and put brick in it for just the right weight. Very funny dad!

 

[jollystomper]

I do not recall ever receiving a "worst" gift. Perhaps because I was not raised with a lot of expectations of gift receiving, which in the long run may have been a good thing . I have received gifts of things I already had, but I would not consider them "worst".

I do have what I will call my most "intriguing" present. Christmas of 1982, in a Megacorp office with many 20 and early 30-somethings, who hung out a lot together (going to ball games, softball team, ski trips, etc.). Someone decided to have a "Secret Santa" event, where the men in the group drew a name of one of the women and vice versa.

The gift event was fun, nothing really outlandish or embarrassing. The gift I received was Marvin Gaye's "Midnight Love" album. Innocent - except that on the album back, the song title "Sexual Healing" (tragically his last major hit) was circled, with 2 exclamation points. Verrry interesting. People got a big laugh after that. I could figure out if this was a "secret admirer" or a joke. I was still an on-air and party DJ at the time, so I questioned the women and men whom I know listened to my shows or came to my parties, no one admitted to anything.

It took me until 1990 to find the culprit. I have moved out of the area to another Megacorp location, but returned for my former manager's retirement party. At that event I found out who did it - an "older" (by eight years) married (at the time) woman, one of the office administrators, who thought I was attractive and had a "sexy" voice. I appreciated the compliment.

Probably the worst gifts I have given DW were jewelry that I tried to pick out myself. I think she (with my permission) ended up returning every piece for something different. After several attempts I accepted that I was not a "gems" person and that she would have pick out any jewelry she wanted me to get for her .

 

[old medic]

Well how about the Wife starting Chemo on 12/26.... Not sure if its the worst, or the best that they caught it early.

 

[Pointby2]

For my fiftieth birthday I wanted to celebrate the momentous occasion with my two sisters that live an 11 hour drive away. We made arrangements and drove to their home. My sisters decided that it would be funny if they gave me a large penis shaped cake for my birthday present. I was pretty much horrified and offended. For my sixtieth birthday we went to Japan to watch one of my favorite rock bands. Much better.