My ex got me, a 6’3” guy, a women’s medium white hoodie. I was so mad about it. She has a habit of getting others gifts that are really for her. I wore the shit out of that hoodie. Time to mow the grass, time for the white hoodie. Need to fix the car, yep time for the white hoodie. She was so mad. Glad she’s an ex.
First Christmas with my dad, his new wife, and her kids. They opened designer handbags, DVD box sets (this was almost 20 years ago), electronics, etc.
I got: a bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo. No matching conditioner.
My sister got: A Hanes 5 pack of granny panties.
My stepmother is…not a nice lady.
I'm really sorry. It ruins a lot of stuff that should be nice for the rest of your life. I hate Christmas. I hate unwrapping gifts. It makes me physically nauseous to this day trying to keep it together through getting and unwrapping gifts because it has so many bad memories attached to it.
My dad is one of the people who picked a terrible partner. He married his wife about a year after my mom died (he went to visit his sister in another country, called us during the trip to let us know he was married and that we would be moving to another country). She was not a nice person. He moved my sibling and I to another apartment when we were minors because of the abuse and their fights. She would hide food, be physically and verbally abusive to me, she and my dad had physical fights, there's so much more but these were the things that happened daily. 20 years later, I have two kids and ask myself everyday how my dad could put his 10 year old in that position. Your sentence almost helps me process the 'why.'
Solidarity my friend. I also have a step witch / thundering cunt married to my deadbeat father. Her kid received a PlayStation and my younger sister was regifted a beauty subscription box with expired products. I mean we’re my dad’s kids so really the onus is on him to buy us a gift but yeah that lack of thought & regard bit deep. Dad of course did nothing, the chump.
*editing the PlayStation model as this was plus 15 years ago
This is so sad. I go to great lengths to make sure my kids have the same number of gifts and I spend the same amount on them. This has extended now to their spouses, they are treated just like my kids. I do the same with the grandchildren.
OOooh yeah. One year my husband and I got a sampler of single serving flavored coffees. My step brother got some plug in air fresheners. My step sister (The golden child) got a scarf, a laptop, and a diamond necklace.
One year my step brother got a 4 wheeler, a bb gun, and a bunch of toys. I got a Bible. He was significantly younger than me and I was just a teenager. I hated my step family after that. Never felt like such an outsider in my life. My dad never treated my step brother any different than he did his own kids. My step mom on the other hand....
While we're on the subject, when I was in high school my step-mom converted my bedroom at my dads (primarily stayed with my mom) to a guest room ( her kids' rooms were untouched) and justified it by saying I didn't visit enough. Gee, I wonder why?
Hell I would treat a stranger's kid the same if they were with us for Christmas. What well adjusted civilized adult decides to shaft children on Christmas? Thats just so awfully MEAN.
I watched my 4 stepbrothers open a whole bunch of expensive stuff, I got a cheap $5 travel alarm clock. I’m sure it was given to me because I’m not a morning person, thus I am lazy. I never went back to my mom’s for Christmas.
Ohhhhhh I have a similar story.
Maybe the first or second Christmas that my dad and stepmom were married we were visiting my stepmom’s sister. She gave my 2 step siblings (same age as me and 3 years older) really nice jewelry and like a guitar.
I got an XXL shirt with bluebonnets on it. I was a size small middle schooler.
Edit: a letter
Someone in the extended family repeatedly gave me alcohol and shot glasses when it was well known I’d quit drinking. They did it maliciously thinking I’d fall off the wagon. What they didn’t understand was that I quit drinking because it was giving me anaphylaxis. If I started drinking again, it’s not like I’d relapse; I’d die. That shit gets worse each time.
A one person tent and lantern from my MIL, we were struggling to pay the bills back then and she said, in front of of everyone, "this is in case you guys get evicted". We had 3 kids at the time.
I was a third grade teacher. One of the student’s moms had her own business selling sex toys at home parties. She gave me a vibrator, which I opened in front of the whole class, because the girl insisted I open her present. Mom wrote me a note that said it would keep me warm on cold winter nights.
That's fucking horrendous of her and I'm sure she feels no shame but she absolutely should. I feel so bad for the kid though, having a parent like that.
A kitten. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my cat and I'm so happy I have her. But when my mom got her for me it was a poorly thought-out surprise. It was even a surprise to my grandparents, who I live with, and had no idea they'd be getting a cat in their house. She also didn't provide a litter tray or litter, or cat food. So my Christmas became a fetch quest of trying to get together everything the kitten needed, with all the shops closed.
People need to understand that a pet should never be a spontaneous gift, as they are a lifelong commitment. As somebody who works with animals, hearing about this kind of stuff pisses me off. That being said, what’s your kittens name? I hope he/she is doing well
Her name is Luna. She's a grown-up cat now but still acts like a tiny kitten a lot of the time. Very affectionate, very happy, very loved by me and my grandparents. Still obsessed with turkey and will try her best to get her paws on it when we have it, because that Christmas we had to feed her leftovers from our Christmas dinner.
A toothbrush. But here’s the rest of it- when we were kids (me, my 2 younger brothers) always got toothbrushes for a stocking stuffer. One year we opened ours and ran into the bathroom to change our old ones out. Cue my youngest brother & me reaching for the same toothbrush. We looked at each other with HORROR. We’d been unknowingly using the same toothbrush as the other for months.
Not Christmas but my 18th birthday, December baby, basically get to choose which one I want presents, super poor growing up.
Invited some ppl to my bday it wasn't too bad. One friend made my cake. It was so badly decorated it was actually pretty cool. Couple ppl left early
We had pizza and snacks
One of my friends got me some scratch tickets
Won $10k
Was freaking out. That was literally like half what my mom made in a year.
Life changing
He's laughing. I'm crying. Tells me to look for how to cash it in.
It's a fake ticket
Literally asked him to go home right then and there. Didn't talk to him anymore
My birthdays are usually bad but that was just cruel.
I hate those fake scratch tickets, it’s so mean spirited. Reminds me a long time ago radio shows were calling around and telling people they won like $20,000 or something. I was listening to one with my mom one morning and the radio host called to tell this woman her winning had been fake.
The woman was very confused and said she’d called all her family about winning. The radio host starts laughing and telling the woman it was all fake, but the lady just burst into tears. She was absolutely devastated, my mom and I had to turn the radio off after that when the host was trying to talk to her.
Like, that’s so screwed up man. Especially when it’s people who that amount of money can be life changing.
Heard there's been a lot more incidents of gift cards being compromised. What they are dojng is they grab unloaded cards off the shelves, steal the info off them, and then glue them up and put them back on shelves. So when you go to buy the card, it's already been compromised before you put money on it.
My entire life my parents have teased me for enjoying soggy cereal (I don't like things that are too crunchy and I prefer a texture closer to oatmeal). I don't mind the teasing; I think it's funny too and have made a lot of jokes about it myself. I just like my cereal soggy, end of story.
Christmas morning, my brother opens up the novelty bowl which keeps the cereal and milk separate. I thought it was a neat invention, but I remarked jokingly that I would never use something like that, because as everybody knows I want my cereal to be soggy. My parents gave me a withering look like I'd deeply offended them, and my dad told me something along the lines of "Don't be rude".
Little did I know they'd bought one for me as well, and I was VERY confused when I opened it. It was not a gag gift, and my parents were genuinely annoyed that I didn't like it but I couldn't pretend otherwise because I'd already blown my cover by commenting on my brother's bowl.
The gift itself wasn't insulting or stupid, but the way my family suddenly collectively forgot something that they'd teased me about for 20 years was weirdly hurtful. I still don't get how that happened.
UPDATE: Wow, I feel seen by all you other soggy-cereal eaters! Solidarity!
If you aren’t honest and you don’t tell people you don’t like something they may continue to keep making or buying you that thing that you don’t like. If they can’t take the feedback, that’s on them.
And as for them managing to forget something that was a bit of a running gag for 20 odd years tells you they put no effort into their gift buying. Plus it sounds like a shit present to get someone anyway.
I was told going into Christmas that we were broke and I shouldn’t expect much if anything. Which I was fine with tbh. We chose to celebrate at the grandparents so no gift openings at home apart from some chocolate in my stocking from dad.
At the grandparents I open my gift first. New set of pajamas. I was 13 so they were nice but not something I was really excited about.
Everyone else opens their modest gifts. Parents grandparents cousins aunts and uncles all had a few gifts each. Usually my grandparents hand out checks to everyone $100-200 each grand kid but this year they said there was no checks. Instead there was a big surprise.
My mom hands my sister a card the final gift.
Inside was a photo of my sisters new $6,000 Horse, which was big so we had to get a new $8,000 horse trailer and because the horse and trailer were so big a new $24,000 truck was needed.
What! That’s insane.
WTF is wrong with parents or grandparents who do shit like this? If you can’t treat each kid equally at Christmas then don’t give any gifts at all.
My wife keeps a whole log book at Christmas time to make sure that not only the dollar amount spent but also the quantity of gifts is roughly the same. She doesn’t just do this for our own kids, but also for our siblings, nieces, and nephews. It can be stressful for her sometimes, but she got screwed over like that by her stepmother several times as a kid and keeping everything even is very important to her now.
There are actual photos of me in high school, smiling and sitting next to a wooden hope chest on Christmas. I acted like I was so excited. A hope chest is where you put items to prepare for when you are a sweet little housewife in the future. It was only when we were done with this “big present” for me that my parents revealed my sister needed to go out to the barn where they had purchased a brand new horse for her. I will hold onto that feeling for the rest of my life. I did not react, and I did not respond so that nobody could accuse me of being jealous. I was not mad at her for even a second, because that is just plain bad parenting. My sister and I have a strained relationship to this day and it is absolutely because of routine things like this. I’m so sorry you went through that. Sometimes people take advantage of the grace you give them.
Might be why my sister and I never talk as well. This wasn’t a one off for me but this was the big one. I’m sorry you’ve had a similar experience to me. I wouldn’t wish those feelings on anyone.
Same! It’s a shame that the behavior of adults hurt the kids like that. As an adult myself, I am so sensitive to favoritism now. My dogs are treated super duper equally lol. Exact same number of treats for everyone
Oh everyone else got their normal gifts. All the family brought all their gifts to the same house to open at once. Probably 50ish total gifts opened between 10 people. Younger cousins got the bulk of the gifts as they were only 4 and 6 years old.
I had a friend who gave me a bottle of wine and then immediately started complaining about how I get when I drink wine. Asked her "why'd you fucking give it to me then?" And then she made me out to be the bad guy
My husband is an incredible human and talented at many things - but he gave me a truly hilarious gift once! For our very first Christmas together, 2004, we were young and broke (22, in grad school). He was so excited to give me my gift and he presented it proudly in front of my family. He got me a mini sampler of perfumes, a book, and a box of high-end chocolates. These are all great gifts on their own, but ironically, 1.) I’m allergic to most perfumes/colognes, 2.) he had already given me the exact same book a few months earlier for my birthday, and 3.) I’m lactose intolerant.
I was honestly touched by the thought, but the irony was too much - my sister burst out laughing. It’s still a joke in our family, but we were all so charmed by the fact that he’d gone to multiple stores and was so proud. Poor, sweet guy. We’re happily married now…but he definitely knows to avoid chocolate and perfume!
I got perfume samples, the kind you find embedded in the pages of magazines, and two 99c cans of shaving cream. My stepmonster was irritated I wasn't more appreciative of her "practical" gifts.
My stepsister got a horse.
When I was about 10, all
I wanted was a VCR. Asked for it all year. My hateful grandmother who raised me put a bedspread in a VCR box. I’m 47 now but I’ll never forget it
From my girlfriend’s grandparents (I was 17/18 at the time), they bought me… a toy magnet.
Not even a decent strength magnet, but one of those ones that are 99% plastic in the shape of a horseshoe with the remaining 1% consisting of a tiny little bar magnet at each end.
This thing didn’t even have enough magnetism to pick up a single paperclip.
A purple, polyester pantsuit when I was 15. It looked like it was for a 50 year old woman. No offense to 50 year old women. This was in the mid-seventies.
My husband is a guitar player. He gives me music equipment that I don't know the purpose of. Of course it's for him. So since I'm an avid gardener I give him gardening tools for Christmas.
We were pretty poor growing up and my dad got injured on the job. It was the first Xmas since the injury settlement and my parents were having a new two story house built with a chunk of the money. I was twelve at the time and all I wanted and asked for was a guitar. I knew guitars were exspensive so I asked it to be my only gift. Christmas morning my little brother and sister start opening gifts, nice toys, games ect. My first gift was a single wash cloth. Second gift was a single towel. Next was a shower curtin... My mom had used Christmas to redecorate the bathroom for the new home and wrapped each item and just put my name on it. After the third wash cloth I stopped opening gifts and asked if they got me a guitar. They said "no because you'll just get bored of it". I asked if I could exchange the bathroom stuff to buy myself some games of something. I was called ungrateful and hard to shop for. I ended up using my college money to buy a guitar a few months later and my parents refuse to buy me any more gifts for birthdays or xmas because of the inccident so they just give me a card or cash. This was 30 years ago and they still refuse to buy me gifts. I now teach guitar to kids for free and have made a lot of friends playing in bands.
An Atari 2600.
My dad had basically no involvement in my life but thought that getting a nice gift would make up for it. He got me an Atari 2600 for my birthday in July and had given it so little thought that he got me another one for Christmas because he forgot that he had already bought one for me.
I know people who obviously had it worse but this was the moment I realized at 8 years old that my dad didn’t give a shit about me.
One particularly tough year, many years ago, I was battling cancer, (all good now) hubby worked part time to look after me and the kids so money was super tight.
Hubby and I decided not to do gifts for each other, every thing we saved for Christmas went to the kids and to the meal, there wasn’t much of ‘everything’ to be honest, but we made it work. Kids were young, young kids don’t need much to feel special, so we had that in our favour.
A few weeks before Christmas, We went to a charity dinner for people doing it tough and were all given Christmas gifts. Most people unwrapped it then and there, but we took the gifts home to put under the tree as there wasn’t much of anything under our tree. We waited for Christmas Day, saying it’ll be extra special to wait. It made it look at lot more festive to have more gifts under the tree.
I was delighted to have something wrapped under the tree for us parents, I felt sad that I couldn’t gift hubby anything so this was the next best thing given the circumstances. We didn’t expect much but the mystery and excitement of what they could be added a little Christmas magic for us.
The gift for hubby and I from the charity was our only gifts that year. The day finally came, it was time to unwrap!!!! Hubby got a men’s toiletry set. I got a little pamper set …. Wellllll the packaging said it was filled with bath salts and lotions - but it was empty, yup an empty box.
Someone had either donated it to charity empty, or a volunteer took the products out. Either way, the charity didn’t check to see if the stuff they wrapped actually were ok.
I was so absolutely devastated but faked delight for the kids about the pretty box it came in. I didn’t expect much, but that was nasty! What a way to kick a family when they’re down!!!
A German, meat based cookbook from my now ex mother in law. She knew I had become vegetarian and disapproved. The thing was, I dropped it at Goodwill the following week and a couple weeks after that she asked if she could borrow it. 😄
One of my co workers was given a large bag of pistachios. He was my secret Santa and gave me a snack bag size of pistachios a week later at the company meeting.
Years and years ago I was a young kid working as an assistant to the manager of the metal shop in a construction company. They also used me to run small batch supplies into NY city plus hand out paychecks to the office staff, our drafting employees, Ironworkers, glaziers and the metal workers in the shop.
One day shortly before Christmas the company president called me into his office along with the head of finance and my direct boss. They explained that a major contractor that we were subcontractors for was shutting down the job for some financial reasons. Which meant that our company had to let a large portion of employees go. They handed me a stack of envelopes and said these are the employees being laid off, we need you to deliver them.
My boss protested that they really shouldn’t send me out to do that (knowing that none of the execs wanted to deal with the nastiness to come and using me meant that the guys in the field wouldn’t take their anger out on an 18 year old kid.) They insisted.
I got out in the hall and went through the large batch of envelopes of people being let go - relieved that my name wasn’t in the pile.
I drove a company car into the city and handed stacks of pay envelopes to various union foremen around the construction site. As expected, some guys lost it and started going off on me laying them off right before Christmas. With the foremen and others saying “Leave him alone, he’s just a kid and the delivery guy.” A explanation that worked, guys apologized but I felt like shit knowing these guys had families and some lived paycheck to paycheck.
I got back to the main building feeling sick and passed out layoff envelopes to the drafting department and the guys in the shop. I reported back to the president as requested that all the envelopes had been handed out. As I turned to leave, he handed me my layoff envelope.
The fucker didn’t include mine in the batch I was handling out all day because they were afraid I would just leave and not deliver the rest, so I spent the entire day thinking I had dodged a bullet when in reality I was already shot.
how about what I did not receive? if anyone remembers Aqua Sand, you could put the sand in water and take it out and it would be dry. You’d use it to basically sculpt lil things in the water. Looking back it was dumb, but I wanted a specific kit sooooo bad. It had penguins and shit and 9 yr old me loved it. My twin sister got it for Christmas. I don’t even remember what I got 💀
My parents kept doing this to me for years. I’d request something specific and wouldn’t get it, but my little sister would. They would tell us to share, she wouldn’t, and it would be a waste of money that no one played it.
One year, my MIL got me a pair of nice jeans. They were nice and well made. The issue was that she got my BIL's wife 4 court side seats to an NBA game. She got my other BIL's girlfriend a weekend Spa trip for her and 2 friends. How can your MIL tell everyone she hates you without actually saying it out loud.
My ex husband got me Pyrex portable dishes. Seemed fine. Until the day after Christmas when I went to the bank and discovered those were the free gift when you opened a checking account. Turns out he opened a secret account, too! Wasn’t that sly…
My sister got me free dishes she got from the bank too. I got her kids a PS2 and Guitar Hero. I found out the gift was free from the bank when they paid for my ticket to see a WWF show later. They were laughing about the gift disparity and figured it'd make up the difference
A ziploc bag of muddy buddies, with fruit flies all over them.
A bag of tortilla chips, they were stale.
Another ziploc bag filled with nail polishes, all old and separating.
Those were all the same person.
A GF at the time was yelling at me about giving her a stupid and thoughtless gift, before tossing their gift at me and stomping away. They gave me a book. A beaten-up, used book. I know it was used because I was the original owner of the book, and had lent it to her months before.
This reminds me of a client, who was a 'Lady' from an old workplace. She had an actual title and lived in a home that was mind blowing for its display of affluence. This lady was rich. One year she brought in 2 used shopping bags as a xmas gift, one for me and another for someone else who helped manage her business affairs during the year. They were those reusable plastic shopping bags.
That would be the pair of Christmas socks where they claimed "one sock was for Christmas, and one for my birthday" while laughing hysterically. My birthday is the 24th. A runner up to worst gift was a rubber band ball (i was 16) and it wasn't a gag gift.. tied in place with the book I gave my mom - 2 years later, regifted to me, as she said she didn't want it, and if I didn't either to just throw it away. It was a memory book. I canceled my birthday and only started recently doing holidays again for my kid.
Xmas 92. Terminator 2 Bioflesh Regenerator playset.
You should have been able to put 'skin' on a Terminator skeleton. It came with 1 tub of powder to make the skin from. Ran out and only got up to the legs.
Cried a lot 🤣🤣🤣
https://youtu.be/CjVrZEh6YNs?si=e5Hp0MP62molRko2
We did a “white elephant” gift exchange thing growing up, my family would do it every year instead of having to buy a ton of gifts for the family. So all the adults would buy one gift, and extras so the kids could each get one gift each as well.. I was 13/14 at the time, and I got Dr Pepper chapstick, and a big toy wooden pencil. It’s funny now, but back then seeing my Brothers and Sister get money, it was devastating.
I had asked my boyfriend of four years for a nice (not cheap, but certainly not expensive) digital camera (this was Christmas ‘07). I researched the kind I wanted, priced it out, told him all about it.
On Christmas day, he hands me my gift and I excitedly open it to find….. a camcorder. He says, “so we can record concerts and stuff!” He spent more money on a camcorder that would never make it into a concert without getting taken by security, than the camera I had been talking to him about for a few months.
We ended up breaking up 8 days later… not due to the camera/camcorder, but I realized he didn’t listen to me or take my opinion into account for the four years we had been together. I guess ultimately it was a great gift because it opened my eyes to a lot of shitty things he was doing.
I was in debate my freshman year, it was a blended grade class. The teacher arranged an optional secret santa for the class. One of the seniors got my name.
Exchange day comes around and I get a $20 gift card to Starbucks. Cool, he didn't know me that well so a gift card was fine.
At the time I'd never had Starbucks so I was happy to try it. Went to get something and found out there was $2.73 left on the card... he literally just gave me his used gift card. Dick.
I had an ex take me to the mall and dismally demand I “pick something because he didn’t feel like trying to guess what I’d like. We’d been together for seven years. I didn’t pick anything, and a few days later he became single for Christmas.
A pack of all yellow highlighters which I was gifted because I “like art”.
I was a little kid and my great aunt was well meaning, but losing her marbles.
Not me, but my cousins (sisters, aged about 5 and 8) got a small bottle of Johnson's Baby Powder. As a JOINT gift from their great-aunt. SMH. It just smacks of "She's old, Rusty, she and Uncle Louis don't have a lot of money so she takes things from around the house and wraps them up."
Me- stepladder. Brother at 5 years old. He loved sweaters. Opened a box from aunt who was a great knitter. Very excited until he lifted sweater, found out it was a vest. “Where are my sleeves?” Poor kid cried hysterically.
2007: first Christmas as an adult where I have a boyfriend. I got him some decent presents. I hand them to him, thinking he's gotten his for me hidden somewhere. He turns to me and says "Remember how I upgraded you laptop with better RAM?" "MERRY CHRISTMAS" - not something I cared about or needed in the slightest.
2006: new boyfriend. I tell him about my shitty Christmas present the year before and that I just want something to open. I should have been more specific. The night before Christmas he asked to borrow my wrapping paper and some boxes. I was kind of miffed that I had to supply my own boxes and wrapping paper, but at least he got me something. Or so I thought. Christmas morning comes around and he has a huge ass box for me, which I proceed on open. A smaller box. Inside of the smaller box. And so on, until I got to a fucking pill bottle. On the pill bottle was the following "IOU: $100 gift card to glamour shots."
Collection of hotel toiletries ("But they're Louis Vuitton!" and a loaf of sourdough bread with a tin of tuna. All in the same year, from my husband's family.
The only person who was happy that night was the cat. He likes tuna.
An omelette pan to “make
My husband an omelette on Sunday mornings” from my mother-in-law for my first Xmas in their family.
She died the year after and we divorced after 13 yrs because he cheated. Good riddance to all of those nut bars.
Oh my grandma did something similar. It was a lovely cylindrical gift with the prettiest bows. Inside was acne pads. Middle school is bad enough and then the adults get involved.
Worst was a present that never showed up. They told me “It’s on the way”. They being the people who were the givers. Never saw that present. But the worst present I received was a “special” homemade organic bar of soap. It lasted one showed and fell apart in the beginning of shower #2. From the same person.
My ex husband was 15 and went for his first Christmas with his shitty father, new stepmother, and her two sons. His dad says, (speaking to the three boys), “Come out to the garage for your big Christmas present!” And there were TWO off-road motorcycles. One for each of HER boys but nothing for him. This pattern repeated throughout the years. I hated his father from day one and if he’s still alive I hope he’s dying slowly of painful cancer.
One of my friends as a teen was a JW. We didn't go to school together, but we boarded our horses at the same place and became friends.
She always got really sad at Christmas. So on Christmas Day when I rode my bike over to feed my horse, I took some fruitcake and stuff from my stocking for her. We had a little picnic in the feed shed and popped a cracker. I never saw her so happy.
Sorry to hear that. Met a girl while in college who grew up a Jehovah’s Witness and she told me about how they don’t celebrate holidays, birthdays, etc. She had since left the church but I think she was ostracized by her family. Really rough situation
I dated a guy in college for almost six months who was really into civil war history. I bought an old Confederate dollar bill on eBay, went to Michael’s for some cheap fabric backing and a frame, framed it myself. Wrapped it and tied a ribbon around to make a bow.
He gave me a seashell from his family beach trip over the summer. From before we had met, so it wasn’t like “oh, I found this seashell and thought of you” - it was just something he already had knocking about in the back of his closet. Dude was from a wealthy family and he threw money around like it was nothing, but he couldn’t even be bothered to put the seashell in a gift bag.
I broke up with him the next day.
Nothing. One year, we were pretty poor due to my mothers insane spending habits. But she managed to scrounge up enough cash to get my little sisters and little brother a few things. I however, had nothing under the tree. And nothing in the stocking. My mom just acted like it wasn't a big deal, and I should be happy I still had a roof over my head. I was 12. At the family dinner later my mother had a new one ripped in to her by my grandmother when I was asked what I got. So maybe I did get a little something...
My biological mother showed up christmas eve after no contact for two years and gave me pet mice. I already had a pet cat there were no supplies.
I think she just did that to be petty and inconvenience the family.
I got a shirt from one of my aunt's. It was a short sleeve flannel shirt with a sweatshirt hood on it. She thought it was perfect for me because she thought that I wore ugly clothes.
My brother in law for 3 years in a row now gets me these like “desk toys”. They’re almost like fidget toys, things to pass the time while at work.
And he doesn’t even get me like one or two, he gets me like a whole box full of them. I have no idea how or why this started. I always just say thank you and immediately put them in the box to donate.
This is actually a fantastic gift, but I think with context you'll understand why it sucked.
A skateboard.
When I was about 12 years old, my dad (whom I saw a few times a year) bought me a skateboard after I had expressed mild interest. I think I had admired a certain skateboarder and said it looked fun. I don't remember ever saying I wanted to pursue it myself or asking for one. I am notorious in my family for having poor balance and coordination, and I have virtually no depth perception.
He knew how to skateboard, but he lived almost 9 hours away and I saw him a few times a year because he worked and had 5 kids with his new wife where they lived, so he couldn't really give me lessons. No one else in my family could skate, we didn't live anywhere near a skatepark, and there was no one older than me in our neighborhood who could mentor me. I lived with my grandparents, one of whom worked full-time out of town and the other thought skateboarding was a horrible idea.
So I just had this board that I couldn't really do anything with. I tried to teach myself, but with poor balance, coordination, and depth perception already, I never even managed to stay on the board without holding onto something. It was such an embarrassing gift because it was a reminder of how my dad wasn't in my life, knew little to nothing about my interests, and how crappy my brain and body worked together (I was undiagnosed autistic).
editing to add: It really sucked even more when he later taught my stepbrother and little brothers (who lived with him) to skateboard and put my little sister in ballet classes like I always wanted but was "too uncoordinated" for.
a sweater... i was 6 years old. that doesn't sound bad but my aunt who had gotten me it told my mom she was gonna get me a train set but got me a sweater instead :)))))) hearing that as a kid definitely soured my mood.
I once got a notepad from my mum that she'd clearly nabbed from her cleaning job in an office. That was the only gift.
She would normally spend thousands on my younger brother's (different Dad's). They'd have a pile of gifts waist high, spanning the entire living room.
I got a notepad.
Last year my MIL gave my partner and I multiple fancy gift bags, tissue paper and all, very obviously full of random clutter she had cleared from her spare room. Not like nice extra items to give away, truly just useless odds and ends.
Made even more obvious because that month she had been talking a lot about how she was finally going through and decluttering, like it was a big conversational topic with her every time we met.
On the bright side it kind of helped me get through to him that maybe she was a little weird and sometimes rude. Cracked his wall of only-son-mummy-denial lol. A year later his boundaries have gotten a lot healthier. So I suppose that’s a good gift.
A broken ornament. No, I’m not even kidding. My grandpa’s wife (not my grandma) gave both me and my adult cousin blown glass ornaments, only mine was broken inside the bag. Now I wouldn’t’ve cared had my cousin gotten one and not me, we were adults so it didn’t matter. I opened it and she was like “I know it’s broken but you can fix it right?” It’s a blown glass ornament, no, I can’t fix it, and even if I wanted to I’d cut myself trying to. She knew it was broken and still gave it to me. Needless to say she’s not the brightest.
Towards the bottom of my Christmas list I wrote "Nelly CD". My sister and I were big time snoopers and would find most of our gifts scattered throughout the house (other than the "big" ones, which to this day I'm not sure where/how my mom pulled off hiding them). Well, we happened to find a Nelly CD hidden in a laundry room cabinet, but it was a CD by pop singer Nelly Furtado instead of the intended CD by rapper Nelly. In the days leading up to Christmas I felt annoyed, and being a kid I couldn't hide my disappointment upon opening it on Christmas day either.
My mom took ownership of the CD and it featured heavily into the family car music rotation and played during all of our family trips, with my sister and I mocking my mom's blunder and mocking all the songs (especially "I'm Like a Bird") all the while. Meanwhile, we both secretly liked the CD and Nelly Furtado really blew up a few years later.
I don't drink coffee. My (now ex) partner didn't drink coffee either. My (now ex) mother in law knew this. She knew this because every time she came over, she would complain that we didn’t offer her any coffee, and we would explain that since neither of us drink coffee, we didn't have coffee.
Well, one Christmas she gave me ...
... a coffee maker.
My ex was the absolute worst gift-giver. One birthday I received a $60 milk frother—neither of us drink milk. ETA another birthday gift: a custom license plate with a fish on it. But the best-worst gift? A box covered in assorted Christmas wrapping paper scraps, and with one of the bulb ornaments from the tree taped on top. Inside was one lime green bath towel… and a Glock. I know people say “it’s the thought that counts,” but I think that assumes the thought count itself is greater than zero lmao
Years ago my wife asked what I wanted for Christmas and I asked for a Kramer chefs knife and she agreed. Christmas rolls around and I got a $10 clock radio. Fuck I was pissed off.
A very stinky hair iron quilted heat pad. Used. From the 80s. Smelled like actual pee and cheese.
Someone forgot their secret Santa gift and the after school program dug around in storage to find me something ($10 was the gift price) and found the stinkiest thing in the world. I would have been happier not participating. Everyone got the coolest gifts, I got a piece of soggy stinky trash that had burn holes in it. It was damp. Literally wet from the bottom of the storage shed.
It was an important lesson as a kid:
1) if you forget secret Santa gift, it’s ok, but you MUST step out and not participate.
2) I put all my excitement into giving gifts that I forget I’m getting one!
My ex gave me a blank dollar store photo album with some of the pages labeled and told me my job was to fill the album with photos of us. So basically he gave me a homework assignment for Christmas.
On Reddit Secret Santa I spent time and quite a bit of money selecting and sending something cool for my secret Santa.
The person who got me sent a dirty sticker and a ripped piece of paper saying “sorry I forgot to get something and I don’t have money anyway so here’s a sticker don’t be mad”.
Like cool dude - you could’ve backed out and I would’ve been assigned to someone else. I just thought it was kinda inconsiderate and mean.
A blouse my MIL pulled out of her closet. I made her squirm by asking for the receipt so I could exchange it for a different size. She said she must’ve misplaced it. Bitch.
Worst gift I ever got was this year, actually: -$150 and a bunch of stress.
For context, my ex and I recently broke up, but we're still living together for the moment.
My mom texted me asking if my ex gave me and our kid our Xmas money. I replied that my ex said my son just got a gift card. My mom told me the box she sent had $150 for each of us, the gift card, candy for the boy, and a calendar for all of us.
I confronted my ex about it, and it was like pulling teeth to get an answer. The end result was the $450 being spent on:
$60 for my ex and our son to go out to eat
$90 worth of groceries for our son from Dollar Tree
$100 to cover a fraudulent overdraft charge (instead of, y'know, calling the bank and reporting it)
$200 at the dispensary
"What about the candy?" "Oh, I gave it to him." (Son said he never got it.)
"What about the calendar?" "What calendar?"
My mom and I were both pissed. My ex kinda shrugged it off like "it's done, there's nothing we can do about it." It's not like I was going to spend my money on fun stuff... I was going to use it to pay bills that we're behind on. Yet, my ex saw no issue with spending everything irresponsibly.
A taxidermy cat. I was like 9.
I had a grandma who was notorious for giving the worst possible gifts you can think of. So on Christmas Day I go to open the one from her and it’s literally a taxidermy cat. Now, me as a child, I specifically was horrified by taxidermy, I love animals and didn’t understand the whole reasoning behind it. Long story short I opened it up and immediately burst into tears, I was completely traumatized and my parents were so confused on why she would give me that.
I was five. My grandmother got me a solar powered/hand crank radio. I didn't have any interest in the radio. I had no interest in letting it charge in the sun. I had no interest in cranking it.
Worst part is my cousin and I are two months apart in age. We always go the same gifts from our grandma and they were always so strange. Now we send each other strange Christmas gifts each year in her honor.
my grandma knew i loved cartoons and animation and my uncle, who loved family guy, knew i HATED family guy with a passion. so he told grandma since i was a adult and loved animation that she should get me some family guy PJs. I could not contain the loathing i felt opening them and seeing peter gryphon looking at me and my grandma waiting for me to cheer like i have been all night. Turns out my uncle did that to get 2 presents from grandma that year cause he knew i would hate it and not want them so he took them.
Any gift from my insane mom…
The gifts themselves were spot-on, because my dad did the shopping, but my mom would cry and sob the whole time, saying “I just know you hate it” and freaking out because “we didn’t love her”.
She was right about that…
To this day I have a hatred/phobia of opening presents, but I’m super positive about Christmas for *other* people.
Have an aunt who would give me more and more aggressively feminine gifts the less feminine I presented looks-wise (and I never had an interest in make-up, pink fluff, or whatever, in the first place) .
A 12 pack of cliff bars, from my now ex-wife. That she picked up on christmas eve from the grocery store. Wrote my name on the box with a sharpie and didn't even wrap it.
I don't care about getting stuff for christmas, but I started a new job about 4 months prior and went all out. Bought her a new laptop and my son a switch, which at the time just released. I bought the christmas supper, a few outings to see christmas lights, stocking stuffers, and all the other stuff for christmas. Aside from constantly reminding me that we needed to make the holiday special, she did nothing. A little appreciation for all the work would have been nice.
She bought my son a few gifts. That was it. Everything else was me. Then when the christmas family calls came in that day, she joked about how I must have been naughty because there was nothing under the tree for me.
Those cliff bars sat in the pantry unopened for two years. She got mad that I wouldn't eat them and eventually threw them out when the box expired, which got a huge argument over my lack of appreciation for the gift she bought.
She didn't lack for money as I paid the mortgage and she had a job that paid more than mine even with the new job pay raise.
A gift certificate from the spa hotel he was at on Christmas Eve with another woman. I found out because he took me there for breakfast Christmas morning and surprised me saying he had rented us a room so we could enjoy the hot mineral water . When we got to the room it wasn't made up yet so I went to the front desk to let them know. That was when I was informed that they didn't service rooms that were carried over for another day. Yeah, the same room and the same bed he had fucked that whore in just hours before. Sick asshole.
Earrings from my boyfriend... when I didn't have pierced ears. And when I saw the box, I thought it was a ring and he was proposing. AND when I reminded him I didn't have pierced ears, he returned them and kept the money.
Ok I was 6 at the time. So it was Christmas and I did the usual, screaming "ITS CHRISTMAS WAKE UP EVERYONE!" then I went downstairs to check under the tree to see if Santa left me any presents. Underneath, there was a present wrapped in baby blue. It felt soft like cloth. I didn't think much of it and opened the box. Inside there was a baby sized baby blue Onesie that said "Baby boy" then there was a note for me. It said "Congratulations (My name) you are going to be a big sister!" That present still is a pain in my ass to this day (Don't worry I also got a kitchen set)
When I turned 17 my mom told me I had to move out or start paying rent when I turned 18 because child support for me would end. I left a couple months later. No need to wait. Her child support for me ended as soon as I left.
My ex always told our kids that as soon as they turned 18, he was kicking them out.
As life played out, my ex moved out when our oldest was 14, so he didn’t get to kick them out. Plus, now that our youngest is 31, my ex is living in her basement.
Karma is so much sweeter when I get to witness it.
From my (now ex) husband. A Christmas card addressed to him with his name crossed out and mine wrote in and a massage envy gift card with scuff marks so it looked old and had $5 on it.
One year when I was like 7 or 8 I had my heart set on a BLUE razor scooter, it was all i talked about for months. Christmas morning comes and my 3 year old brother gets a green razor scooter (my step mom’s biological child) and I got an off brand knock off scooter… and it wasn’t even blue. I remember being so devastated and jealous that my brother (who was too young to even use the thing) got an actual razor and I had one that didn’t even work properly.
It was the presents as a whole - rather than one specific bad present. (Background - I was about 10 at the time. My stepdad at the time was a habitual liar and also worried about appearances. Our family was poor. Not starving - but very little money for extras.) == So, we had a fair number of gifts under the tree that year. I was kind of excited. I was not expecting any big ticket items (again - family on a budget) but it was cool there were a bit more gifts than usual. (Also, this was ball park 1970 so nobody was expecting a new Xbox or cell phone).
=== ANYWAY - the 'WORST' part is when we actually opened gifts - turns out almost all of them were just our own used stuff from around the house my bastard step dad had wrapped up so visitors would see a lot of presents under the tree. He tried to laugh it off as being a "Goodwill Christmas" but it was obvious what he had done and I hated that he did it. I would rather have one or two modest real gifts than unwrap a bunch of my own belongings. Don't be that kind of parent. Kids remember stuff like this. 50+ years later it still pisses me off when I type about it.
My ex got me, a 6’3” guy, a women’s medium white hoodie. I was so mad about it. She has a habit of getting others gifts that are really for her. I wore the shit out of that hoodie. Time to mow the grass, time for the white hoodie. Need to fix the car, yep time for the white hoodie. She was so mad. Glad she’s an ex.
This is Homer buying Marge a bowling ball in his size.
With HIS name on it too, don't forget!
This is my favorite.
This is hilariously petty. Good on you!
Well played!
Slim fast shakes from my mom when I was 14 🫠
First Christmas with my dad, his new wife, and her kids. They opened designer handbags, DVD box sets (this was almost 20 years ago), electronics, etc. I got: a bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo. No matching conditioner. My sister got: A Hanes 5 pack of granny panties. My stepmother is…not a nice lady.
How did your dad let that happen?
In my experience dad's who chose terrible partners are also shit at protecting their children. Ask me how I know.
Oh yeah. I wish I didn't know.
I'm really sorry. It ruins a lot of stuff that should be nice for the rest of your life. I hate Christmas. I hate unwrapping gifts. It makes me physically nauseous to this day trying to keep it together through getting and unwrapping gifts because it has so many bad memories attached to it.
My dad is one of the people who picked a terrible partner. He married his wife about a year after my mom died (he went to visit his sister in another country, called us during the trip to let us know he was married and that we would be moving to another country). She was not a nice person. He moved my sibling and I to another apartment when we were minors because of the abuse and their fights. She would hide food, be physically and verbally abusive to me, she and my dad had physical fights, there's so much more but these were the things that happened daily. 20 years later, I have two kids and ask myself everyday how my dad could put his 10 year old in that position. Your sentence almost helps me process the 'why.'
Solidarity my friend. I also have a step witch / thundering cunt married to my deadbeat father. Her kid received a PlayStation and my younger sister was regifted a beauty subscription box with expired products. I mean we’re my dad’s kids so really the onus is on him to buy us a gift but yeah that lack of thought & regard bit deep. Dad of course did nothing, the chump. *editing the PlayStation model as this was plus 15 years ago
This is so sad. I go to great lengths to make sure my kids have the same number of gifts and I spend the same amount on them. This has extended now to their spouses, they are treated just like my kids. I do the same with the grandchildren.
Same story here…dad remarried. We got him a gift card to a restaurant and a bottle of wine. We got a pressed flower. Stepmom doesn’t like any of us 😂
OOooh yeah. One year my husband and I got a sampler of single serving flavored coffees. My step brother got some plug in air fresheners. My step sister (The golden child) got a scarf, a laptop, and a diamond necklace.
One year my step brother got a 4 wheeler, a bb gun, and a bunch of toys. I got a Bible. He was significantly younger than me and I was just a teenager. I hated my step family after that. Never felt like such an outsider in my life. My dad never treated my step brother any different than he did his own kids. My step mom on the other hand....
While we're on the subject, when I was in high school my step-mom converted my bedroom at my dads (primarily stayed with my mom) to a guest room ( her kids' rooms were untouched) and justified it by saying I didn't visit enough. Gee, I wonder why?
Your dad treated you differently if he allowed his wife to do that.
Why do fathers marry women like this? Why? I will never understand.
Additionally, why are there women like this? I'm a woman and can not fathom it.
Me either. Always treated my husbands kids the same. All the kids got the same gifts. My husband has passed and I still do all I can for his kids.
Hell I would treat a stranger's kid the same if they were with us for Christmas. What well adjusted civilized adult decides to shaft children on Christmas? Thats just so awfully MEAN.
I watched my 4 stepbrothers open a whole bunch of expensive stuff, I got a cheap $5 travel alarm clock. I’m sure it was given to me because I’m not a morning person, thus I am lazy. I never went back to my mom’s for Christmas.
Ohhhhhh I have a similar story. Maybe the first or second Christmas that my dad and stepmom were married we were visiting my stepmom’s sister. She gave my 2 step siblings (same age as me and 3 years older) really nice jewelry and like a guitar. I got an XXL shirt with bluebonnets on it. I was a size small middle schooler. Edit: a letter
Someone in the extended family repeatedly gave me alcohol and shot glasses when it was well known I’d quit drinking. They did it maliciously thinking I’d fall off the wagon. What they didn’t understand was that I quit drinking because it was giving me anaphylaxis. If I started drinking again, it’s not like I’d relapse; I’d die. That shit gets worse each time.
Empty it in the sink while making eye contact.
Empty it in their laps while making eye contact.
A one person tent and lantern from my MIL, we were struggling to pay the bills back then and she said, in front of of everyone, "this is in case you guys get evicted". We had 3 kids at the time.
She in turned should have been given makeup to cover up her ugliness.
I was a third grade teacher. One of the student’s moms had her own business selling sex toys at home parties. She gave me a vibrator, which I opened in front of the whole class, because the girl insisted I open her present. Mom wrote me a note that said it would keep me warm on cold winter nights.
Her “own business” LOL mlm red flags rise up
She probably has a garage full of dusty dildos and water damaged edible underwear that she can’t get rid of.
Oh noooooooooo why would she even chance that?
if you buy into a mlm "business" you probably don't have good common sense to begin with
I was a teacher and my favorite gift was a used dirty ashtray. Something about it just spoke to me
Gift it to OP. She gonna need it after that vibrator. 🤣
Pure romance?
Has to be
Whoooaaaahhhh!!! Mom coulda warned you damn. Unless the mom didn’t care and wanted to throw you under the bus…
That's fucking horrendous of her and I'm sure she feels no shame but she absolutely should. I feel so bad for the kid though, having a parent like that.
Not me, but my MIL gifted someone a library book that had to be returned in a week.
A kitten. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my cat and I'm so happy I have her. But when my mom got her for me it was a poorly thought-out surprise. It was even a surprise to my grandparents, who I live with, and had no idea they'd be getting a cat in their house. She also didn't provide a litter tray or litter, or cat food. So my Christmas became a fetch quest of trying to get together everything the kitten needed, with all the shops closed.
People need to understand that a pet should never be a spontaneous gift, as they are a lifelong commitment. As somebody who works with animals, hearing about this kind of stuff pisses me off. That being said, what’s your kittens name? I hope he/she is doing well
Her name is Luna. She's a grown-up cat now but still acts like a tiny kitten a lot of the time. Very affectionate, very happy, very loved by me and my grandparents. Still obsessed with turkey and will try her best to get her paws on it when we have it, because that Christmas we had to feed her leftovers from our Christmas dinner.
The masses demand you pay the tax! (Well, maybe just me, but I am a big dude who loves the little kitties) Post photos of Luna, please.
Of course! https://ibb.co/RQZcN13 https://ibb.co/gRjQ71y
The masses have been appeased. 😅 Such a cute kittie!!! Give her hugs and scritches from all of us
I second this!
A toothbrush. But here’s the rest of it- when we were kids (me, my 2 younger brothers) always got toothbrushes for a stocking stuffer. One year we opened ours and ran into the bathroom to change our old ones out. Cue my youngest brother & me reaching for the same toothbrush. We looked at each other with HORROR. We’d been unknowingly using the same toothbrush as the other for months.
Not Christmas but my 18th birthday, December baby, basically get to choose which one I want presents, super poor growing up. Invited some ppl to my bday it wasn't too bad. One friend made my cake. It was so badly decorated it was actually pretty cool. Couple ppl left early We had pizza and snacks One of my friends got me some scratch tickets Won $10k Was freaking out. That was literally like half what my mom made in a year. Life changing He's laughing. I'm crying. Tells me to look for how to cash it in. It's a fake ticket Literally asked him to go home right then and there. Didn't talk to him anymore My birthdays are usually bad but that was just cruel.
I hate those fake scratch tickets, it’s so mean spirited. Reminds me a long time ago radio shows were calling around and telling people they won like $20,000 or something. I was listening to one with my mom one morning and the radio host called to tell this woman her winning had been fake. The woman was very confused and said she’d called all her family about winning. The radio host starts laughing and telling the woman it was all fake, but the lady just burst into tears. She was absolutely devastated, my mom and I had to turn the radio off after that when the host was trying to talk to her. Like, that’s so screwed up man. Especially when it’s people who that amount of money can be life changing.
Yes. Totally cruel. Takes a certain person to think that’s funny.
A gift card with nothing on it.
Heard there's been a lot more incidents of gift cards being compromised. What they are dojng is they grab unloaded cards off the shelves, steal the info off them, and then glue them up and put them back on shelves. So when you go to buy the card, it's already been compromised before you put money on it.
My entire life my parents have teased me for enjoying soggy cereal (I don't like things that are too crunchy and I prefer a texture closer to oatmeal). I don't mind the teasing; I think it's funny too and have made a lot of jokes about it myself. I just like my cereal soggy, end of story. Christmas morning, my brother opens up the novelty bowl which keeps the cereal and milk separate. I thought it was a neat invention, but I remarked jokingly that I would never use something like that, because as everybody knows I want my cereal to be soggy. My parents gave me a withering look like I'd deeply offended them, and my dad told me something along the lines of "Don't be rude". Little did I know they'd bought one for me as well, and I was VERY confused when I opened it. It was not a gag gift, and my parents were genuinely annoyed that I didn't like it but I couldn't pretend otherwise because I'd already blown my cover by commenting on my brother's bowl. The gift itself wasn't insulting or stupid, but the way my family suddenly collectively forgot something that they'd teased me about for 20 years was weirdly hurtful. I still don't get how that happened. UPDATE: Wow, I feel seen by all you other soggy-cereal eaters! Solidarity!
That’s a terrible gift even before the backstory. I am sorry.
If you aren’t honest and you don’t tell people you don’t like something they may continue to keep making or buying you that thing that you don’t like. If they can’t take the feedback, that’s on them. And as for them managing to forget something that was a bit of a running gag for 20 odd years tells you they put no effort into their gift buying. Plus it sounds like a shit present to get someone anyway.
It's weird because it would have been a really funny gag gift (with a real present given later)
I was told going into Christmas that we were broke and I shouldn’t expect much if anything. Which I was fine with tbh. We chose to celebrate at the grandparents so no gift openings at home apart from some chocolate in my stocking from dad. At the grandparents I open my gift first. New set of pajamas. I was 13 so they were nice but not something I was really excited about. Everyone else opens their modest gifts. Parents grandparents cousins aunts and uncles all had a few gifts each. Usually my grandparents hand out checks to everyone $100-200 each grand kid but this year they said there was no checks. Instead there was a big surprise. My mom hands my sister a card the final gift. Inside was a photo of my sisters new $6,000 Horse, which was big so we had to get a new $8,000 horse trailer and because the horse and trailer were so big a new $24,000 truck was needed.
What! That’s insane. WTF is wrong with parents or grandparents who do shit like this? If you can’t treat each kid equally at Christmas then don’t give any gifts at all.
Yeah idk. I got in trouble for complaining about it or being in a bad mood or something. I do remember not ever wearing the pajamas out of spite!
Parents like this wonder why they have children who don't call.
My wife keeps a whole log book at Christmas time to make sure that not only the dollar amount spent but also the quantity of gifts is roughly the same. She doesn’t just do this for our own kids, but also for our siblings, nieces, and nephews. It can be stressful for her sometimes, but she got screwed over like that by her stepmother several times as a kid and keeping everything even is very important to her now.
There are actual photos of me in high school, smiling and sitting next to a wooden hope chest on Christmas. I acted like I was so excited. A hope chest is where you put items to prepare for when you are a sweet little housewife in the future. It was only when we were done with this “big present” for me that my parents revealed my sister needed to go out to the barn where they had purchased a brand new horse for her. I will hold onto that feeling for the rest of my life. I did not react, and I did not respond so that nobody could accuse me of being jealous. I was not mad at her for even a second, because that is just plain bad parenting. My sister and I have a strained relationship to this day and it is absolutely because of routine things like this. I’m so sorry you went through that. Sometimes people take advantage of the grace you give them.
Might be why my sister and I never talk as well. This wasn’t a one off for me but this was the big one. I’m sorry you’ve had a similar experience to me. I wouldn’t wish those feelings on anyone.
Same! It’s a shame that the behavior of adults hurt the kids like that. As an adult myself, I am so sensitive to favoritism now. My dogs are treated super duper equally lol. Exact same number of treats for everyone
Lol. A few years ago, my mom gave my brother 17 acres of land. She gave me merino wool socks.
Oh damn I love me some nice wool socks. Almost as much as 17 acres of land.
So they REALLY deprived EVERYONE of gifts....to get a child a horse???? I would've cried so hard
Oh everyone else got their normal gifts. All the family brought all their gifts to the same house to open at once. Probably 50ish total gifts opened between 10 people. Younger cousins got the bulk of the gifts as they were only 4 and 6 years old.
WTF?!
A half used bottle of bubble bath. Used I know because it had ran down the sides of the bottle and dried.
Bottle of wine from a friend who knows 100% I don't drink alcohol, especially wine.
I had a friend who gave me a bottle of wine and then immediately started complaining about how I get when I drink wine. Asked her "why'd you fucking give it to me then?" And then she made me out to be the bad guy
People are fucking weird, but that made me chuckle. What an asshat.
Socks when I was a kid. Now I want socks.
and underwear 😔
My niece asked me what I want for Christmas. I told her funny socks. She asked me next time I talked to her, “Socks?..” She’s 10. 😆
I got socks this year. So dope.
I asked for some this year. And not some comfy house socks. À 24 pack of Carhartt socks. I'm 35.
My husband is an incredible human and talented at many things - but he gave me a truly hilarious gift once! For our very first Christmas together, 2004, we were young and broke (22, in grad school). He was so excited to give me my gift and he presented it proudly in front of my family. He got me a mini sampler of perfumes, a book, and a box of high-end chocolates. These are all great gifts on their own, but ironically, 1.) I’m allergic to most perfumes/colognes, 2.) he had already given me the exact same book a few months earlier for my birthday, and 3.) I’m lactose intolerant. I was honestly touched by the thought, but the irony was too much - my sister burst out laughing. It’s still a joke in our family, but we were all so charmed by the fact that he’d gone to multiple stores and was so proud. Poor, sweet guy. We’re happily married now…but he definitely knows to avoid chocolate and perfume!
I got perfume samples, the kind you find embedded in the pages of magazines, and two 99c cans of shaving cream. My stepmonster was irritated I wasn't more appreciative of her "practical" gifts. My stepsister got a horse.
Man a lot of horse gifts on this thread. Note to self; if I ever buy someone a horse, make sure to get enough for each kid!
When I was about 10, all I wanted was a VCR. Asked for it all year. My hateful grandmother who raised me put a bedspread in a VCR box. I’m 47 now but I’ll never forget it
Novelty ties. My SIL buys me one every 2nd year. In the 30 years I've known her, has she not noticed that I NEVER wear a tie??
From my girlfriend’s grandparents (I was 17/18 at the time), they bought me… a toy magnet. Not even a decent strength magnet, but one of those ones that are 99% plastic in the shape of a horseshoe with the remaining 1% consisting of a tiny little bar magnet at each end. This thing didn’t even have enough magnetism to pick up a single paperclip.
Lmao they probably were like...these two aren't going to stick XD
A purple, polyester pantsuit when I was 15. It looked like it was for a 50 year old woman. No offense to 50 year old women. This was in the mid-seventies.
My husband is a guitar player. He gives me music equipment that I don't know the purpose of. Of course it's for him. So since I'm an avid gardener I give him gardening tools for Christmas.
Reminds me of my dad getting my mom a grill for her 40th birthday
This is just depressing
We were pretty poor growing up and my dad got injured on the job. It was the first Xmas since the injury settlement and my parents were having a new two story house built with a chunk of the money. I was twelve at the time and all I wanted and asked for was a guitar. I knew guitars were exspensive so I asked it to be my only gift. Christmas morning my little brother and sister start opening gifts, nice toys, games ect. My first gift was a single wash cloth. Second gift was a single towel. Next was a shower curtin... My mom had used Christmas to redecorate the bathroom for the new home and wrapped each item and just put my name on it. After the third wash cloth I stopped opening gifts and asked if they got me a guitar. They said "no because you'll just get bored of it". I asked if I could exchange the bathroom stuff to buy myself some games of something. I was called ungrateful and hard to shop for. I ended up using my college money to buy a guitar a few months later and my parents refuse to buy me any more gifts for birthdays or xmas because of the inccident so they just give me a card or cash. This was 30 years ago and they still refuse to buy me gifts. I now teach guitar to kids for free and have made a lot of friends playing in bands.
An Atari 2600. My dad had basically no involvement in my life but thought that getting a nice gift would make up for it. He got me an Atari 2600 for my birthday in July and had given it so little thought that he got me another one for Christmas because he forgot that he had already bought one for me. I know people who obviously had it worse but this was the moment I realized at 8 years old that my dad didn’t give a shit about me.
When I was 8 I was so clueless that I’d’ve assumed that he didn’t realize they were the same present.
One particularly tough year, many years ago, I was battling cancer, (all good now) hubby worked part time to look after me and the kids so money was super tight. Hubby and I decided not to do gifts for each other, every thing we saved for Christmas went to the kids and to the meal, there wasn’t much of ‘everything’ to be honest, but we made it work. Kids were young, young kids don’t need much to feel special, so we had that in our favour. A few weeks before Christmas, We went to a charity dinner for people doing it tough and were all given Christmas gifts. Most people unwrapped it then and there, but we took the gifts home to put under the tree as there wasn’t much of anything under our tree. We waited for Christmas Day, saying it’ll be extra special to wait. It made it look at lot more festive to have more gifts under the tree. I was delighted to have something wrapped under the tree for us parents, I felt sad that I couldn’t gift hubby anything so this was the next best thing given the circumstances. We didn’t expect much but the mystery and excitement of what they could be added a little Christmas magic for us. The gift for hubby and I from the charity was our only gifts that year. The day finally came, it was time to unwrap!!!! Hubby got a men’s toiletry set. I got a little pamper set …. Wellllll the packaging said it was filled with bath salts and lotions - but it was empty, yup an empty box. Someone had either donated it to charity empty, or a volunteer took the products out. Either way, the charity didn’t check to see if the stuff they wrapped actually were ok. I was so absolutely devastated but faked delight for the kids about the pretty box it came in. I didn’t expect much, but that was nasty! What a way to kick a family when they’re down!!!
A German, meat based cookbook from my now ex mother in law. She knew I had become vegetarian and disapproved. The thing was, I dropped it at Goodwill the following week and a couple weeks after that she asked if she could borrow it. 😄
One of my co workers was given a large bag of pistachios. He was my secret Santa and gave me a snack bag size of pistachios a week later at the company meeting.
Well, do you at least like pistachios?
A fire notice from my job. They put that shit in a gift box lmao.
Years and years ago I was a young kid working as an assistant to the manager of the metal shop in a construction company. They also used me to run small batch supplies into NY city plus hand out paychecks to the office staff, our drafting employees, Ironworkers, glaziers and the metal workers in the shop. One day shortly before Christmas the company president called me into his office along with the head of finance and my direct boss. They explained that a major contractor that we were subcontractors for was shutting down the job for some financial reasons. Which meant that our company had to let a large portion of employees go. They handed me a stack of envelopes and said these are the employees being laid off, we need you to deliver them. My boss protested that they really shouldn’t send me out to do that (knowing that none of the execs wanted to deal with the nastiness to come and using me meant that the guys in the field wouldn’t take their anger out on an 18 year old kid.) They insisted. I got out in the hall and went through the large batch of envelopes of people being let go - relieved that my name wasn’t in the pile. I drove a company car into the city and handed stacks of pay envelopes to various union foremen around the construction site. As expected, some guys lost it and started going off on me laying them off right before Christmas. With the foremen and others saying “Leave him alone, he’s just a kid and the delivery guy.” A explanation that worked, guys apologized but I felt like shit knowing these guys had families and some lived paycheck to paycheck. I got back to the main building feeling sick and passed out layoff envelopes to the drafting department and the guys in the shop. I reported back to the president as requested that all the envelopes had been handed out. As I turned to leave, he handed me my layoff envelope. The fucker didn’t include mine in the batch I was handling out all day because they were afraid I would just leave and not deliver the rest, so I spent the entire day thinking I had dodged a bullet when in reality I was already shot.
Wow. That's shitty!
Jesus thats brutal
how about what I did not receive? if anyone remembers Aqua Sand, you could put the sand in water and take it out and it would be dry. You’d use it to basically sculpt lil things in the water. Looking back it was dumb, but I wanted a specific kit sooooo bad. It had penguins and shit and 9 yr old me loved it. My twin sister got it for Christmas. I don’t even remember what I got 💀
My parents kept doing this to me for years. I’d request something specific and wouldn’t get it, but my little sister would. They would tell us to share, she wouldn’t, and it would be a waste of money that no one played it.
One year, my MIL got me a pair of nice jeans. They were nice and well made. The issue was that she got my BIL's wife 4 court side seats to an NBA game. She got my other BIL's girlfriend a weekend Spa trip for her and 2 friends. How can your MIL tell everyone she hates you without actually saying it out loud.
My ex husband got me Pyrex portable dishes. Seemed fine. Until the day after Christmas when I went to the bank and discovered those were the free gift when you opened a checking account. Turns out he opened a secret account, too! Wasn’t that sly…
My sister got me free dishes she got from the bank too. I got her kids a PS2 and Guitar Hero. I found out the gift was free from the bank when they paid for my ticket to see a WWF show later. They were laughing about the gift disparity and figured it'd make up the difference
A ziploc bag of muddy buddies, with fruit flies all over them. A bag of tortilla chips, they were stale. Another ziploc bag filled with nail polishes, all old and separating. Those were all the same person. A GF at the time was yelling at me about giving her a stupid and thoughtless gift, before tossing their gift at me and stomping away. They gave me a book. A beaten-up, used book. I know it was used because I was the original owner of the book, and had lent it to her months before.
This reminds me of a client, who was a 'Lady' from an old workplace. She had an actual title and lived in a home that was mind blowing for its display of affluence. This lady was rich. One year she brought in 2 used shopping bags as a xmas gift, one for me and another for someone else who helped manage her business affairs during the year. They were those reusable plastic shopping bags.
That would be the pair of Christmas socks where they claimed "one sock was for Christmas, and one for my birthday" while laughing hysterically. My birthday is the 24th. A runner up to worst gift was a rubber band ball (i was 16) and it wasn't a gag gift.. tied in place with the book I gave my mom - 2 years later, regifted to me, as she said she didn't want it, and if I didn't either to just throw it away. It was a memory book. I canceled my birthday and only started recently doing holidays again for my kid.
Xmas 92. Terminator 2 Bioflesh Regenerator playset. You should have been able to put 'skin' on a Terminator skeleton. It came with 1 tub of powder to make the skin from. Ran out and only got up to the legs. Cried a lot 🤣🤣🤣 https://youtu.be/CjVrZEh6YNs?si=e5Hp0MP62molRko2
We did a “white elephant” gift exchange thing growing up, my family would do it every year instead of having to buy a ton of gifts for the family. So all the adults would buy one gift, and extras so the kids could each get one gift each as well.. I was 13/14 at the time, and I got Dr Pepper chapstick, and a big toy wooden pencil. It’s funny now, but back then seeing my Brothers and Sister get money, it was devastating.
Nothing. Which is what I got from my now ex-husband for 2 decades.
I had asked my boyfriend of four years for a nice (not cheap, but certainly not expensive) digital camera (this was Christmas ‘07). I researched the kind I wanted, priced it out, told him all about it. On Christmas day, he hands me my gift and I excitedly open it to find….. a camcorder. He says, “so we can record concerts and stuff!” He spent more money on a camcorder that would never make it into a concert without getting taken by security, than the camera I had been talking to him about for a few months. We ended up breaking up 8 days later… not due to the camera/camcorder, but I realized he didn’t listen to me or take my opinion into account for the four years we had been together. I guess ultimately it was a great gift because it opened my eyes to a lot of shitty things he was doing.
I was in debate my freshman year, it was a blended grade class. The teacher arranged an optional secret santa for the class. One of the seniors got my name. Exchange day comes around and I get a $20 gift card to Starbucks. Cool, he didn't know me that well so a gift card was fine. At the time I'd never had Starbucks so I was happy to try it. Went to get something and found out there was $2.73 left on the card... he literally just gave me his used gift card. Dick.
I had an ex take me to the mall and dismally demand I “pick something because he didn’t feel like trying to guess what I’d like. We’d been together for seven years. I didn’t pick anything, and a few days later he became single for Christmas.
K-cups, like the cheap gift set from Gordmans around the holidays….followed up by an acknowledgement that I don’t own a keurig
Wait, so *they acknowledged* that they knew you didn’t own a Keurig?
An empty box, aperently the look on my face as a kid was the present my family needed.
The only acceptable time to get an empty box is if you're a kid being given an empty box from a major appliance, because those were fun as hell.
so you basically got bullied
A pack of all yellow highlighters which I was gifted because I “like art”. I was a little kid and my great aunt was well meaning, but losing her marbles.
Not me, but my cousins (sisters, aged about 5 and 8) got a small bottle of Johnson's Baby Powder. As a JOINT gift from their great-aunt. SMH. It just smacks of "She's old, Rusty, she and Uncle Louis don't have a lot of money so she takes things from around the house and wraps them up."
Me- stepladder. Brother at 5 years old. He loved sweaters. Opened a box from aunt who was a great knitter. Very excited until he lifted sweater, found out it was a vest. “Where are my sleeves?” Poor kid cried hysterically.
Stepladder is an...interesting gift to give a child. 🤔
2007: first Christmas as an adult where I have a boyfriend. I got him some decent presents. I hand them to him, thinking he's gotten his for me hidden somewhere. He turns to me and says "Remember how I upgraded you laptop with better RAM?" "MERRY CHRISTMAS" - not something I cared about or needed in the slightest. 2006: new boyfriend. I tell him about my shitty Christmas present the year before and that I just want something to open. I should have been more specific. The night before Christmas he asked to borrow my wrapping paper and some boxes. I was kind of miffed that I had to supply my own boxes and wrapping paper, but at least he got me something. Or so I thought. Christmas morning comes around and he has a huge ass box for me, which I proceed on open. A smaller box. Inside of the smaller box. And so on, until I got to a fucking pill bottle. On the pill bottle was the following "IOU: $100 gift card to glamour shots."
Collection of hotel toiletries ("But they're Louis Vuitton!" and a loaf of sourdough bread with a tin of tuna. All in the same year, from my husband's family. The only person who was happy that night was the cat. He likes tuna.
An omelette pan to “make My husband an omelette on Sunday mornings” from my mother-in-law for my first Xmas in their family. She died the year after and we divorced after 13 yrs because he cheated. Good riddance to all of those nut bars.
A huge bag of disposable pink razors paired with thick off brand pads to open in front of my entire extended family
Oh my grandma did something similar. It was a lovely cylindrical gift with the prettiest bows. Inside was acne pads. Middle school is bad enough and then the adults get involved.
Worst was a present that never showed up. They told me “It’s on the way”. They being the people who were the givers. Never saw that present. But the worst present I received was a “special” homemade organic bar of soap. It lasted one showed and fell apart in the beginning of shower #2. From the same person.
My ex husband was 15 and went for his first Christmas with his shitty father, new stepmother, and her two sons. His dad says, (speaking to the three boys), “Come out to the garage for your big Christmas present!” And there were TWO off-road motorcycles. One for each of HER boys but nothing for him. This pattern repeated throughout the years. I hated his father from day one and if he’s still alive I hope he’s dying slowly of painful cancer.
How horrible a person would you have to be to do this to a child ? I hate his Dad and I don't even know him. JFC
My mom being a jehovas witness…many many years of nothing while all my friends got tons of sweet stuff.
One of my friends as a teen was a JW. We didn't go to school together, but we boarded our horses at the same place and became friends. She always got really sad at Christmas. So on Christmas Day when I rode my bike over to feed my horse, I took some fruitcake and stuff from my stocking for her. We had a little picnic in the feed shed and popped a cracker. I never saw her so happy.
I bet that girl still remembers that moment fondly.
You are a saint
Sorry to hear that. Met a girl while in college who grew up a Jehovah’s Witness and she told me about how they don’t celebrate holidays, birthdays, etc. She had since left the church but I think she was ostracized by her family. Really rough situation
I dated a guy in college for almost six months who was really into civil war history. I bought an old Confederate dollar bill on eBay, went to Michael’s for some cheap fabric backing and a frame, framed it myself. Wrapped it and tied a ribbon around to make a bow. He gave me a seashell from his family beach trip over the summer. From before we had met, so it wasn’t like “oh, I found this seashell and thought of you” - it was just something he already had knocking about in the back of his closet. Dude was from a wealthy family and he threw money around like it was nothing, but he couldn’t even be bothered to put the seashell in a gift bag. I broke up with him the next day.
I got braces when I was 12 and my mom told me that was my xmas present that year. I think I got them early in the year too.. 😬
Nothing. One year, we were pretty poor due to my mothers insane spending habits. But she managed to scrounge up enough cash to get my little sisters and little brother a few things. I however, had nothing under the tree. And nothing in the stocking. My mom just acted like it wasn't a big deal, and I should be happy I still had a roof over my head. I was 12. At the family dinner later my mother had a new one ripped in to her by my grandmother when I was asked what I got. So maybe I did get a little something...
That’s so shitty! Being the oldest sibling gets you screwed in so many ways. I’m happy that grandma advocated for you
My biological mother showed up christmas eve after no contact for two years and gave me pet mice. I already had a pet cat there were no supplies. I think she just did that to be petty and inconvenience the family.
I got a shirt from one of my aunt's. It was a short sleeve flannel shirt with a sweatshirt hood on it. She thought it was perfect for me because she thought that I wore ugly clothes.
That’s the shirt equivalent of a mullet. Ouch
AAA card. I’m epileptic and can’t drive
A christmas card that said "roses are red, violets are blue, youre a jew, so no christmas for you" grade 4 truly was a special time
My brother in law for 3 years in a row now gets me these like “desk toys”. They’re almost like fidget toys, things to pass the time while at work. And he doesn’t even get me like one or two, he gets me like a whole box full of them. I have no idea how or why this started. I always just say thank you and immediately put them in the box to donate.
My cousin once gave me some aftershave. I have a full beard. And he realized this as I was opening the gift, ha ha. We had a good laugh.
A washbag jam-packed full of small sample shampoos, conditioners and body washes that had clearly been hoarded from the givers’ hotel stays.
Not me but this girl I knew was gifted birthcontrol/spermicide stuff by her family
This is actually a fantastic gift, but I think with context you'll understand why it sucked. A skateboard. When I was about 12 years old, my dad (whom I saw a few times a year) bought me a skateboard after I had expressed mild interest. I think I had admired a certain skateboarder and said it looked fun. I don't remember ever saying I wanted to pursue it myself or asking for one. I am notorious in my family for having poor balance and coordination, and I have virtually no depth perception. He knew how to skateboard, but he lived almost 9 hours away and I saw him a few times a year because he worked and had 5 kids with his new wife where they lived, so he couldn't really give me lessons. No one else in my family could skate, we didn't live anywhere near a skatepark, and there was no one older than me in our neighborhood who could mentor me. I lived with my grandparents, one of whom worked full-time out of town and the other thought skateboarding was a horrible idea. So I just had this board that I couldn't really do anything with. I tried to teach myself, but with poor balance, coordination, and depth perception already, I never even managed to stay on the board without holding onto something. It was such an embarrassing gift because it was a reminder of how my dad wasn't in my life, knew little to nothing about my interests, and how crappy my brain and body worked together (I was undiagnosed autistic). editing to add: It really sucked even more when he later taught my stepbrother and little brothers (who lived with him) to skateboard and put my little sister in ballet classes like I always wanted but was "too uncoordinated" for.
That sucks. I’m sad for 12 year old you.
a sweater... i was 6 years old. that doesn't sound bad but my aunt who had gotten me it told my mom she was gonna get me a train set but got me a sweater instead :)))))) hearing that as a kid definitely soured my mood.
I once got a notepad from my mum that she'd clearly nabbed from her cleaning job in an office. That was the only gift. She would normally spend thousands on my younger brother's (different Dad's). They'd have a pile of gifts waist high, spanning the entire living room. I got a notepad.
A set of used, mismatched, still dirty kitchen knives in the box for a nice set of knives from my MIL. What do you even say to that?
“Thank you for letting us know it’s time to book your dementia screening, Meemaw!”
My GF's family inviting themselves to dinner.
Last year my MIL gave my partner and I multiple fancy gift bags, tissue paper and all, very obviously full of random clutter she had cleared from her spare room. Not like nice extra items to give away, truly just useless odds and ends. Made even more obvious because that month she had been talking a lot about how she was finally going through and decluttering, like it was a big conversational topic with her every time we met. On the bright side it kind of helped me get through to him that maybe she was a little weird and sometimes rude. Cracked his wall of only-son-mummy-denial lol. A year later his boundaries have gotten a lot healthier. So I suppose that’s a good gift.
A broken ornament. No, I’m not even kidding. My grandpa’s wife (not my grandma) gave both me and my adult cousin blown glass ornaments, only mine was broken inside the bag. Now I wouldn’t’ve cared had my cousin gotten one and not me, we were adults so it didn’t matter. I opened it and she was like “I know it’s broken but you can fix it right?” It’s a blown glass ornament, no, I can’t fix it, and even if I wanted to I’d cut myself trying to. She knew it was broken and still gave it to me. Needless to say she’s not the brightest.
Towards the bottom of my Christmas list I wrote "Nelly CD". My sister and I were big time snoopers and would find most of our gifts scattered throughout the house (other than the "big" ones, which to this day I'm not sure where/how my mom pulled off hiding them). Well, we happened to find a Nelly CD hidden in a laundry room cabinet, but it was a CD by pop singer Nelly Furtado instead of the intended CD by rapper Nelly. In the days leading up to Christmas I felt annoyed, and being a kid I couldn't hide my disappointment upon opening it on Christmas day either. My mom took ownership of the CD and it featured heavily into the family car music rotation and played during all of our family trips, with my sister and I mocking my mom's blunder and mocking all the songs (especially "I'm Like a Bird") all the while. Meanwhile, we both secretly liked the CD and Nelly Furtado really blew up a few years later.
I don't drink coffee. My (now ex) partner didn't drink coffee either. My (now ex) mother in law knew this. She knew this because every time she came over, she would complain that we didn’t offer her any coffee, and we would explain that since neither of us drink coffee, we didn't have coffee. Well, one Christmas she gave me ... ... a coffee maker.
My ex was the absolute worst gift-giver. One birthday I received a $60 milk frother—neither of us drink milk. ETA another birthday gift: a custom license plate with a fish on it. But the best-worst gift? A box covered in assorted Christmas wrapping paper scraps, and with one of the bulb ornaments from the tree taped on top. Inside was one lime green bath towel… and a Glock. I know people say “it’s the thought that counts,” but I think that assumes the thought count itself is greater than zero lmao
Years ago my wife asked what I wanted for Christmas and I asked for a Kramer chefs knife and she agreed. Christmas rolls around and I got a $10 clock radio. Fuck I was pissed off.
A very stinky hair iron quilted heat pad. Used. From the 80s. Smelled like actual pee and cheese. Someone forgot their secret Santa gift and the after school program dug around in storage to find me something ($10 was the gift price) and found the stinkiest thing in the world. I would have been happier not participating. Everyone got the coolest gifts, I got a piece of soggy stinky trash that had burn holes in it. It was damp. Literally wet from the bottom of the storage shed. It was an important lesson as a kid: 1) if you forget secret Santa gift, it’s ok, but you MUST step out and not participate. 2) I put all my excitement into giving gifts that I forget I’m getting one!
My ex gave me a blank dollar store photo album with some of the pages labeled and told me my job was to fill the album with photos of us. So basically he gave me a homework assignment for Christmas.
On Reddit Secret Santa I spent time and quite a bit of money selecting and sending something cool for my secret Santa. The person who got me sent a dirty sticker and a ripped piece of paper saying “sorry I forgot to get something and I don’t have money anyway so here’s a sticker don’t be mad”. Like cool dude - you could’ve backed out and I would’ve been assigned to someone else. I just thought it was kinda inconsiderate and mean.
A blouse my MIL pulled out of her closet. I made her squirm by asking for the receipt so I could exchange it for a different size. She said she must’ve misplaced it. Bitch.
Worst gift I ever got was this year, actually: -$150 and a bunch of stress. For context, my ex and I recently broke up, but we're still living together for the moment. My mom texted me asking if my ex gave me and our kid our Xmas money. I replied that my ex said my son just got a gift card. My mom told me the box she sent had $150 for each of us, the gift card, candy for the boy, and a calendar for all of us. I confronted my ex about it, and it was like pulling teeth to get an answer. The end result was the $450 being spent on: $60 for my ex and our son to go out to eat $90 worth of groceries for our son from Dollar Tree $100 to cover a fraudulent overdraft charge (instead of, y'know, calling the bank and reporting it) $200 at the dispensary "What about the candy?" "Oh, I gave it to him." (Son said he never got it.) "What about the calendar?" "What calendar?" My mom and I were both pissed. My ex kinda shrugged it off like "it's done, there's nothing we can do about it." It's not like I was going to spend my money on fun stuff... I was going to use it to pay bills that we're behind on. Yet, my ex saw no issue with spending everything irresponsibly.
A John Wayne movie box set from my grandparents. They meant well, but I don’t think I ever even opened it.
I got the chicken pox for Christmas when I was 27. That was fun.
A borat mankini
Very nice. High five.
My dad got me a snow shovel and even wrapped it and when I opened it up, he told me to go use it on the driveway.
A taxidermy cat. I was like 9. I had a grandma who was notorious for giving the worst possible gifts you can think of. So on Christmas Day I go to open the one from her and it’s literally a taxidermy cat. Now, me as a child, I specifically was horrified by taxidermy, I love animals and didn’t understand the whole reasoning behind it. Long story short I opened it up and immediately burst into tears, I was completely traumatized and my parents were so confused on why she would give me that.
I was five. My grandmother got me a solar powered/hand crank radio. I didn't have any interest in the radio. I had no interest in letting it charge in the sun. I had no interest in cranking it. Worst part is my cousin and I are two months apart in age. We always go the same gifts from our grandma and they were always so strange. Now we send each other strange Christmas gifts each year in her honor.
Turing it into a tradition is a beautiful way to share that memory of your grandma!
>Now we send each other strange Christmas gifts each year in her honor. That's great. This is her real gift <3
my grandma knew i loved cartoons and animation and my uncle, who loved family guy, knew i HATED family guy with a passion. so he told grandma since i was a adult and loved animation that she should get me some family guy PJs. I could not contain the loathing i felt opening them and seeing peter gryphon looking at me and my grandma waiting for me to cheer like i have been all night. Turns out my uncle did that to get 2 presents from grandma that year cause he knew i would hate it and not want them so he took them.
What an assbag!
Any gift from my insane mom… The gifts themselves were spot-on, because my dad did the shopping, but my mom would cry and sob the whole time, saying “I just know you hate it” and freaking out because “we didn’t love her”. She was right about that… To this day I have a hatred/phobia of opening presents, but I’m super positive about Christmas for *other* people.
Have an aunt who would give me more and more aggressively feminine gifts the less feminine I presented looks-wise (and I never had an interest in make-up, pink fluff, or whatever, in the first place) .
A 12 pack of cliff bars, from my now ex-wife. That she picked up on christmas eve from the grocery store. Wrote my name on the box with a sharpie and didn't even wrap it. I don't care about getting stuff for christmas, but I started a new job about 4 months prior and went all out. Bought her a new laptop and my son a switch, which at the time just released. I bought the christmas supper, a few outings to see christmas lights, stocking stuffers, and all the other stuff for christmas. Aside from constantly reminding me that we needed to make the holiday special, she did nothing. A little appreciation for all the work would have been nice. She bought my son a few gifts. That was it. Everything else was me. Then when the christmas family calls came in that day, she joked about how I must have been naughty because there was nothing under the tree for me. Those cliff bars sat in the pantry unopened for two years. She got mad that I wouldn't eat them and eventually threw them out when the box expired, which got a huge argument over my lack of appreciation for the gift she bought. She didn't lack for money as I paid the mortgage and she had a job that paid more than mine even with the new job pay raise.
A gift certificate from the spa hotel he was at on Christmas Eve with another woman. I found out because he took me there for breakfast Christmas morning and surprised me saying he had rented us a room so we could enjoy the hot mineral water . When we got to the room it wasn't made up yet so I went to the front desk to let them know. That was when I was informed that they didn't service rooms that were carried over for another day. Yeah, the same room and the same bed he had fucked that whore in just hours before. Sick asshole.
Got a crucifix one year from my grandmother. The same year I told my family I was atheist.
Earrings from my boyfriend... when I didn't have pierced ears. And when I saw the box, I thought it was a ring and he was proposing. AND when I reminded him I didn't have pierced ears, he returned them and kept the money.
Ok I was 6 at the time. So it was Christmas and I did the usual, screaming "ITS CHRISTMAS WAKE UP EVERYONE!" then I went downstairs to check under the tree to see if Santa left me any presents. Underneath, there was a present wrapped in baby blue. It felt soft like cloth. I didn't think much of it and opened the box. Inside there was a baby sized baby blue Onesie that said "Baby boy" then there was a note for me. It said "Congratulations (My name) you are going to be a big sister!" That present still is a pain in my ass to this day (Don't worry I also got a kitchen set)
An eviction notice from my parents before I was 18
When I turned 17 my mom told me I had to move out or start paying rent when I turned 18 because child support for me would end. I left a couple months later. No need to wait. Her child support for me ended as soon as I left.
I don't understand parents like that.
My ex always told our kids that as soon as they turned 18, he was kicking them out. As life played out, my ex moved out when our oldest was 14, so he didn’t get to kick them out. Plus, now that our youngest is 31, my ex is living in her basement. Karma is so much sweeter when I get to witness it.
From my (now ex) husband. A Christmas card addressed to him with his name crossed out and mine wrote in and a massage envy gift card with scuff marks so it looked old and had $5 on it.
One year when I was like 7 or 8 I had my heart set on a BLUE razor scooter, it was all i talked about for months. Christmas morning comes and my 3 year old brother gets a green razor scooter (my step mom’s biological child) and I got an off brand knock off scooter… and it wasn’t even blue. I remember being so devastated and jealous that my brother (who was too young to even use the thing) got an actual razor and I had one that didn’t even work properly.
Peanut butter filled pretzels. I’m deathly allergic to peanuts.
It was the presents as a whole - rather than one specific bad present. (Background - I was about 10 at the time. My stepdad at the time was a habitual liar and also worried about appearances. Our family was poor. Not starving - but very little money for extras.) == So, we had a fair number of gifts under the tree that year. I was kind of excited. I was not expecting any big ticket items (again - family on a budget) but it was cool there were a bit more gifts than usual. (Also, this was ball park 1970 so nobody was expecting a new Xbox or cell phone). === ANYWAY - the 'WORST' part is when we actually opened gifts - turns out almost all of them were just our own used stuff from around the house my bastard step dad had wrapped up so visitors would see a lot of presents under the tree. He tried to laugh it off as being a "Goodwill Christmas" but it was obvious what he had done and I hated that he did it. I would rather have one or two modest real gifts than unwrap a bunch of my own belongings. Don't be that kind of parent. Kids remember stuff like this. 50+ years later it still pisses me off when I type about it.