Friday Fun : What's the worst Christmas gift you've ever gotten?

[Brittany Joiner]

Happy Friday everyone!!

In the spirit of the holidays, my Friday Fun thread is a poll on what's the worst Christmas present you've ever gotten? 

I'll get things started....

A couple years ago my husband's great aunt got me underwear... and not even like cute underwear but underwear you expect your grandmother to wear. Also note: this was not an aunt I was close to. It was in fact, the very first time I ever met her. 

What's your worst Christmas present?? :) 

[Monique vdB]

My parents are notorious for this. My favorite bad gift: they know I like crossword puzzles, and after my grandmother died they found an old TV Guide Crossword puzzle book in her house. It was already half filled in and a decade old. That was my gift that year. Merry Christmas?

[Brittany Joiner]

Wow wow wow. Waste not, want not I guess? 😂

[Monique vdB]

In case you think this has improved over the decades, this year I got a giant, red sweatshirt that says "Christmas Calories Don't Count!" and my husband got a bag of pinecones. 

[Jimmy Seddon]

Wow...

[Jack Brickey]

well it was a piece of history you can treasure forever!

[Andy - PTC Redundant]

Wow Brittany... that is hard to beat, especially having never met her before! 🤯😲

Mine would be the 2005-bag-of-shite album by Daniel Powter!

Now... In Daniel's defence he is not a bad musician, quite the opposite actually = quite the spectacular talent and his album from 2012 Turn On The Lights is amazaballs.... but back in 2005 his song Bad Day was bloody everywhere I turned and I just couldn't listen to the sh** anymore.

To make matters worse it had been gifted to me by one of my most favourite people in the world; my sister. For years she had bought me the coolest most awesome presents ever... being much older than me she would always get me the stuff my parents wouldn't: Terminator2 on VHS, The Prodigy: Fat of the Land, etc. She rocked!

That's why when I enthusiastically ripped off the wrapping it became the anti-climax of the century and my heart absolutely dropped when I saw it was this mediocre "rubbish". Hahaha. 💔😭

[Jimmy Seddon]

Sometimes it isn't that the song is bad but that it gets rubbed in our faces so much we just don't want to listen to it anymore.  I totally get what you mean!

Has your sister since redeemed herself?

[Andy - PTC Redundant]

Totally @Jimmy Seddon - that is the case indeed! Did you know Gnarls Barkley removed "Crazy" from record sales on purpose, because after 9 weeks in the top 10 in most global rankings they were afraid of "burn out". Wise idea!

Yeah... BIG time! It is the one tiny slip up in many years of awesome, epic, Christmas prezzies!!

[Jodi LeBlanc]

Love this topic! But honestly I can't think of a bad gift I have ever received. I can think of an unfortunate one though. I had wanted a doll that roller skates and they were hard to find, but of course Santa didn't disappoint. I was thrilled and opened the box immediately. She skated a few steps, then fell and broke her leg. She never skated again and my parents were never able to get another one (or chose not to to avoid more heartbreak on my part if another one broke within 6 seconds!). 💔😭

[Jimmy Seddon]

That's truly unfortunate!  I guess some toys just weren't put through proper testing.

[Kat Warner]

The nail in the Santa coffin was receiving a hair crimper and hair accessories in pink from Santa.

If he knew who was naughty and nice he would know I did not like pink or having my hair played with. On the other hand my Mum loved playing with my hair.

[Jimmy Seddon]

Part of me wonders who that gift was really for ;)

[DPKJ]

Worst gift is no gift at all for me :-)

[Jimmy Seddon]

Can't argue with that...

[Kat Warner]

This is one reason I have helped organise Secret Santa at work for the last 10 years. Buying gifts and opening presents can be a form of fun we miss out on as adults.

[DPKJ]

@Kat Warner  I agree. :-)

[Alison]

Agree - can't think of a bad gift. Generally appreciate the effort people took to gift me something. This year I received motion sensor night lights from a friend, not sure if she had some extras laying around the house, but I suppose they're somewhat practical.

[Jimmy Seddon]

I both love and hate this topic, because it's about drudging up terrible memories that should stay in the past, but at the same time I can laugh at it now so it's not that terrible.

I'm going to take this in a different direction because I have never unwrapped a gift from family or friends that wasn't awesome in some way or another!

When I was seven, two weeks before Christmas vacation Chicken Pox was going around my school.  My sister caught it and was off from school two weeks before Christmas vacation with a total of 12 spots.

Just as Christmas vacation started she gave it to me.  I couldn't actually count how many I had because I was covered from head to toe with them.  I was super uncomfortable, I couldn't go outside or play with any of my friends and we could go visit family or have family come visit us. 

This of course went away just before I had to go back to school, so I didn't miss any school out of this and I got it way worse than my sister did who got time off before the holidays and then got to completely enjoy Christmas vacation. 

Thanks sis!

[Kimberly Deal _Columbus ACE_]

Hahaha, this exact thing happened to me, though my sister got hers on Christmas Day!
Had like 20 spots......only place I did not have them was my knees and elbows!  Even had them in my nose!  Blech!

[Boris MBOUMEHANG]

Very nice topic, and I'm sorry for your worst gift (even if it made me laugh so hard !!!!). 

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I have never had a gift I considered disappointing. In fact, I do not come from a family too trendy gifts, so when I receive one, I am very grateful. :)

[Andy - PTC Redundant]

A colleague just said to me:

"The best present is a pair of slippers and a dildo....
If the recipient doesn't like the slippers, they can go f^^^ themselves!"

😂😆🤣🎁👆

[Earl McCutcheon]

This one is how the Worst present ever turned into an amazing gift,  the tale of how I got Crap for Christmas one year :) 

When I was a little lad, I asked my parents for a computer of my very own for Christmas.  My parents told me it would be too expensive, and ya know I was completely OK with that answer, because it was a really big ask and I expected the no as an answer, but as my parents always told me it never hurts to ask. So I blocked that one off and just asked for various toys and such.

Come Christmas morning there was a big heavy box sitting under the tree from my dad, and tearing off the wrapping paper to see what was underneath, down the side of the box there was a picture of a computer and all the brand logos, I was ecstatic, jumping up and down with joy as I could not believe how lucky I was that my parents would go so out of their way and get such an awesome gift for me.  Many exclamations of "Oh, my gosh", and "I love you guys so much" were uttered, then I opened the box to look at it, and.........

My dad was just pranking me, he got a box from his office from a recent purchase and filled it with rocks and a Poop'r'scooper, a tool used to pick up dog poop.  I was completely crushed, and felt myself die a little on the inside, made a little "whelp" sound while I was suppressing any of my tears because i did not want to seem ungrateful for receiving a gift, so pushing my emotions down into the pit of my stomach I gave him a bug fat hug and a "thank you" for the gift I had just received, and played it off as best I could saying "oh man you really got me there pops" with a little chuckle trying to mask the disappointment.  

But on the inside ಠ_ಠ...... I felt horrible,  Not only did he dangle something extremely special to me in front of my face as a joke he gave me the figurative gesture of a load of crap for a Christmas gift.  I then felt even more terrible for holding on to so much anger and resentment over a joke, but i just felt betrayed and did not know how to express it any other way.

Overall, my dad is a great guy and I do gotta come to his defense here, while my he takes his jokes a bit too far on a regular basis, he does have good intentions all around.  Turning this back around into a positive he did immediately realize what he had done in the moment and felt terrible for his actions.  When all the present opening was done and all the rest of the family was was off playing with their new toys he took me off to the side and sat me down saying "I know I messed up kid, and I'm sorry, that was really mean what I did to you".  I could see in his eyes he was tearing up a bit (my dad is not one to cry ever) and my heart melted right then and there and I while my dad was apologizing and asking me what he could do to make it up to me all I could think of was that he just did, and I gave him a big ol'hug and told him I was just happy that he knew it made me upset and "Merry Christmas".  And just knowing that he cared so much was the best gift I could have ever received, and the experience overall brought me and my father closer together in that moment.

Even though I expected nothing more, my father still feeling bad and like he needed to do something about it, over the next 6 months he was working in the background pulling favors, and working overtime to get some extra cash to do something special for me, and on the 4th of July that year he woke me up early in the morning, I was expecting some sorta firework excursion was going to take place, but he had me go down to the den where the fireplace was located, where he had hung up all the Christmas stockings again.  In front of the fireplace sat a present all wrapped up in red and green wrapping paper, a big ol heavy box,  and a Card, that read "Happy late Christmas, sorry for the delay",  I tore off the wrapping paper and it was the same Box I got that Christmas but this time the Computer was scratched off with a marker and he wrote Poop'R'Scooper down the side, and drew a little picture of it.  Confused, I opening it up ...... and I found a used PC inside he was able to buy from one of his coworkers from all the overtime he had pulled, I have never been happier to get load Crap for Christmas.  

[Andy - PTC Redundant]

OMGoodness @Earl McCutcheon.....!

This is worthy of a Netflix short story for next year's Christmas AND 4th July!
So many feels right now.

[Poorvi Jhawar]

Hilarious! 

I can't remember getting a terrible gift, but I remember giving a bad one to my husband...on our wedding day. 

To make matters worse, our wedding and first date anniversary fall on the same day. It was an insanely hectic time and I couldn't buy a good gift for him.

He gifted me jewellery, made me a card and along with that gave me an IPad Pro.  

I gave him a tie. 

He being absolutely lovely, said he loved the tie. Never used it till date. 

It's been 2 years, I still feel bad :P

[Andy - PTC Redundant]

Poor guy! But... as a man married to a great woman, what other gift could us lucky men want than great women? Right?? 😀

Also, try this... find the tie, give it to him again, send him this link, and get him to smarten up his style..... 😉

#Eldredge

https://www.ties.com/how-to-tie-a-tie/eldredge

[Poorvi Jhawar]

Hahah, thanks @Andy - PTC Redundant 

That's the only consolation I give myself - he has the gift of me, all day every day :P 

[Fernando Bordallo]

You can always say you'll be tied to him, forever. (dad joke 🤦‍♂️)

[Scott Theus]

My aunt knew that I loved to read as a kid; between the age of 10 and 17 I could almost always be found with a book in my hand and during family events my mom would have to tell me to "put that book away and be social" fairly often.

So, when I was 14 she gave me a box set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

The same box set she gave me the year before.

And the year before that. 

I thanked her, and sent a thank you note saying it was one of my favorite stories, and to this day she has no idea she gave me the same gift three years in a row.

Looking back I'm sure she just neglected to ask my mom what books I had on my shelf, but to my fragile 14 year old self-esteem I saw it as just another blow. "Every nerd likes elves and dragons and that stuff, right? So easy-peasy, a quick trip into Waldenbooks and Scott's gift is all picked out." 

[Peter Jessen]

Wow. This one is stumping me, as far as worst gifts go. The worst Christmas I ever had was definitely Christmas 2000. It s the first Christmas without my father. He died on May that year.

[Monique vdB]

@Peter Jessen I have a similar story from that same year. My grandmother died in August and it was shaping up to be a very sad Christmas without her. We ended up going to the Netherlands to spend Christmas with our family there, and experience our first white Christmas. It's a very bittersweet memory! 

[Emily Koch]

That's the opposite of a gift :( I'm sorry for your loss @Peter Jessen .

[Peter Jessen]

Hi @Brittany Joiner - I just realized this topic isn't tagged as Friday Fun! Only off-topic.

[Monique vdB]

@Peter Jessen thank you! I just added the tag!

[Adrian Stephen]

I got a neck pillow which actually hurt my neck even more!

[Emily Koch]

Not so much a "worst gift" moment, but definitely a standout for me:

One Christmas, I had asked for a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I'm not a stranger to duplicate gifts every now and then, but that year, I received not one, not two, but THREE copies of the same game! Never did end up getting very far once I played it, either.