Christmas is rapidly approaching, so I thought it might be a good time to talk about presents.
What’s the worst Christmas present you’ve ever received?
Nose Hair pic via Shutterstock
I have a wife who is notorious for buying me terrible presents. She bought me a nose hair trimmer for Christmas – not once, but on two separate occasions. Her reasoning: “I needed it”.
In her defence, she has bought me some pretty cool things, like a Naruto manga box set of the first 27 (pre-time-skip) volumes. That was an amazing gift.
What’s the worst present you’ve ever received?
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101 responses to “Off Topic: Worst Christmas Present You’ve Ever Received?”
Worst present when i was a kid: Clothes
Best present now i’m an adult: Clothes
In the words of my son aged 7, “clothes are NOT presents”.
7 years old and he’s that on point. Hold your head high, Morgendorfer. You are parenting like a pro!
100 time this. You hate it as a child and am so happy getting a nice shirt or some socks as an adult hahaha.
I would like socks for Christmas… And yes this would be the millionth pair I’ve received, but for some unknown reason they keep vanishing!
I swear sock companies send sock ninjas to every household to steal socks, so we are forced to buy more socks and provide sock companies millions in sock revenue
Everyone has missing socks but it wasn’t until my sons got to be the same size shoe as me that I truly knew the pain of rummaging for clean socks at 6am. Since then I have worn more odd socks than paired I think.
Here’s the secret with socks. Throw out all your current ones.
Then go and buy 25 to 30 pairs of the same socks.
A few years back I got a dozen pairs of socks….
Each sock was individually wrapped with a little card. Never laughed so hard in my entire life at socks!
My wife steals my sport socks. I get a few new pairs. Wear them once and they disappear.
I’ve been firmly against clothes as a gift since the following happened.
(1) My maternal grandmother gave me a hand-knit jumper, then died the next year.
(2) My mother gave it away after I grew out of it.
Of course, the problem here was not that I’d received clothes as a gift, but that my parents didn’t recognise that it had any special status as being mine; as clothing, it was community property. The sentimental value it had for me was disregarded (in fact I don’t think it even passed through Mum’s mind.)
Never, ever buy clothes as a special-occasion gift for children. Special clothes as an extra, maybe, but never as a primary gift.
Next worst would be the cheap wax vampire statue/candle holder received one year from my younger brother. It doesn’t look particularly good, and my need for candles is very limited (I don’t think I’ve lit a candle for 15 years or so.)
LOL – I’ve had the nose hair trimmer once, seriously women should think twice before gifting that to a man, however last year my brother gave me a beard trimming kit that came with a nose hair trimming attachment and that was way better and far less insulting!
After cancer treatment which left me (temporarily as it turns out, but didn’t know that at the time) sterile, at Xmas I opened up a DVD from my sister-in-law:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0220652/
The Most Fertile Man in IrelandAwkward silence followed.
Oh, that’s special.
Is it bad that I chuckled?
Coasters with pictures of pugs on it.
Coasters with pictures of my aunty in the her wedding dress.
Coasters with pictures of an Egyptian pharaoh on it.
…my family all seem to think I like coasters…
No.
They think you have a drinking problem.
If you don’t want them, can I have your pug coasters?
ermm yeahh can i have the ones of aunt??? no seriously that sh*t sounds HOT!
A Bongo drum
My wife has bought me ‘Catch Me If You Can’ (great movie btw) not once, twice, but three times as Christmas presents. The third time I just burst out laughing thinking it was a joke…. it wasn’t.
Never laugh at gifts folks. Not necessarily bad gifts but 3 times it was a bit much lol
Plot twist, she bought 3 when they were 3 for $10 at JB, and gives you them when she’s lazy.
:O hahaha I would appreciate such a devious move
A Black eye when i was 9 for asking why other kids got toys for Xmas and i didn’t.
oh man that took a dark turn
8/10 would awkwardly cringe again
on a side note, i hope you are okay now.
More than ok, i probably have the best life these days..
As they say, what doesn’t kill you…
…gives you PTSD?
*hugs*
Things that are really thoughtful but I don’t have any use for.
People should just stop buying me presents, so I don’t have to feel bad 😛
When I was 16 the girl I was keen on begged me to work her shift at work on Christmas Day promising me a “special present – *wink wink*”. With visions of pure fantasy in my head I couldn’t agree quickly enough.
The special present was a beanie baby toy with some other guys name on it… It promptly found it’s way onto the firepit at the Boxing Day party.
The year I got nothing because my brother forgot who he was supposed to buy a present for in our Secret Santa.
When I was 14 years old, I was given Tinea Foot Cream Moisturizer in the middle of January as a combined Christmas and birthday present…..great year!
Me and my brother get each other terrible gifts on purpose. We try to outdo each other every year.
Worst gift he got me: A 1kg bag of salt
Worst gift I got him: The empty box of a rare PS1 era JRPG.
Love it. A few months out from Christmas around 10 years ago, I asked my older sister what she wanted for Christmas – she couldn’t think of anything, so she said “I don’t know, cheese”.
Yeah, she got cheese that year. Crackers the year after, then cocktail onions, dip, cabanossi, olives. The year before last I got her a nice hamper just to wrap the joke up.
I would love a 1kg bag of salt.
Me too.
A 1kg bag of salt. Holy shit.
A voucher for music on some shit website that didnt allow you to download songs in a format compatible on iPods. This was back in the mid 2000s.
When I was like… 8 years old or something – possibly younger – my uncle got me a set square spirit ruler.
http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server2900/jijtg7/products/1085/images/2069/tramp18__35504.1419231969.1280.1280.jpg?c=2
To this day I have no idea what he was thinking.
Haha! I was looking at buying myself one of those last Sunday for a project I’m working on! Can I borrow yours?
It was nothing……nothing at all.
My parents had been overseas for a month or so when me and my bro and sisters were younger (I have 3). They had returned from overseas a few days (maybe less) before chrissy day.
On the big day we all knew there would be some pretty exciting gifts from the trip overseas. When the time came we all sat around and opened gifts from one another and extended family. One by one my siblings opened their presents from mum and dad and they were some pretty awesome things, as the number of presents around the tree dwindled I began to think maybe my present from mum and dad was to big to be inside…..but nope the last present was delivered and there was no present for me from mum and dad.
Being a quite young fellow in those days I didn’t want to speak up (I also remember thinking maybe it was a big surprise and they would drop it on me later). I cant remember how long it took, but it was after lunch when my mum asked me if I “liked my present” to which I replied something along the lines of “I liked my presents but wasn’t sure which one was from them”.
At this time the penny dropped and my mum and dad realised they had forgotten to get me a present !!!!
Middle child syndrome…..the struggle is real people !!!
Dude that is so sad. You sound like you were a polite child like I was. There were a few times when I got overlooked in various situations but didn’t make a fuss because I’d been brought up to be grateful for what I got and not ask for anything.
I am totally over it now…..other than my on going trust issues and all that 🙂
Yeah I was probably a little to polite for my own good most of the time, and your right I was still grateful for the presents I did get.
I was pretty understanding though, they had been on an overseas trip and all so I could see how I might have slipped their minds.
My parents moved house while I was overseas an didn’t tell me.
I walked straight in, sat on the couch, wondered who the ‘visitors’ were. It was a few minutes before anyone asked who ‘I’ was.
Very confused conversation after that. I’m first born, but apparently just can’t take a hint.
Hahaha that’s gold!
ha ha ha ……that’s the best thing ive heard all day.
at least you didn’t raid the fridge and use the bathroom…..that would have been awkward.
I feel your pain!
Hopefully they were overwhelmed with guilt which led to them getting you an awesome present afterwards? I would have milked that for all it was worth.
Yeah, I wasn’t really one to milk a situation though. My dad took me to the cinema by myself a few days later and I got to go through the shopping centre and pick out what I wanted. Which if I remember correctly was Street Fighter 2 for the mega drive, which I probably wouldn’t have been allowed (for being to young) if I hadn’t been forgotten in the first place. So I guess it was a win for me in the end.
clothes that are clearly the wrong size and clearly things I would never wear.
Other one that stands out was a diary for the year that was about to end from an aunty and uncle we don’t see much. My parents weren’t happy because they’ve bought all their kids (they have a lot of children) nice present’s and then all they bought for me, my siblings and my other cousins were diaries that were clearly being thrown out/marked down because there was only a few days left in that year.
My uncle bought me TMNT rollerskates that were made for a 6 year old. I was 17. I bloody well forced my feet in there and had a great time (for his benefit, obviously). Weeeeeeee!
A wooden pole with a skull and crossbones and a “keep out” sign on it. Looks cool but I was living with my parents at the time. So I had nowhere to put it.
Best I ever got was from my brother-in-law. Back when Dr. Pepper hard to get in Melbourne he got me $50 worth for KK.
I’m so glad my sister married him!
Wooden toilet seat. From my mum. It was wrapped and everything. 20 years later I still have no bloody idea what the hell.
Shadowman 2. Just because I’m a gamer, any piece of trash from the bargain bin is considered acceptable.
7.7 from IGN
That would be mine as well. Some dodgy one must fall knock off that I don’t think I ever got to work
I don’t think I’ve ever had a ‘bad’ present. I really love getting any kind of present. It makes me feel really lucky that someone has cared enough to give me something, even if it isn’t something they bought (homemade greeting card or an object they’ve had for ages and then given me) or if it isn’t wrapped up. I mind even less if people don’t give me presents these days because I think that the world has gotten too materialistic. Some people seem not to appreciate presents, no matter what they are. A present is opened and then 5 minutes later it is forgotten. I’d much rather share an experience with someone such as at a family gathering or outing than receive a present.
Yeah I agree, way to much pressure on people to provide gifts these days, it really can suck the fun out of this time of year. Just take a stroll around a shopping centre and see how unbelievable unhappy people look when Christmas shopping.
I am more happy with a catch up and some good times at this time of year than a present someone only bought me because they felt they had to.
A map of the world, made in china. It didn’t have Australia on it.
Maybe they assumed you already know where it is by this point? 😛
It was a future map where they had already bought it and shipped it to Mongolia.
Two bricks wrapped in an empty Nintendo 64 box
OUCH !!
The worst part was that they hadn’t actually gotten the nintendo 64 and were just playing a cruel joke on me.
They’d gone out of their way to get an empty nintendo 64 box, filled it with paper so the bricks wouldn’t move around and that was it. My present was crushed childhood dreams and my parents laughing at me
NINTENDOSIXTYFOOOOOOOO-YOUSONOFABITCH!!!!
Cost of a N64box………$0.50
Cost of 2 bricks……..$0.00 (obviously stolen from a job site)
Cost of wrapping paper…….$2.00
Seeing your Childs heart break right in front of you and laughing at them….priceless !
It wasn’t for Christmas but for my 21st. My grandmother got me one of those leaf-shaped automotive air fresheners you can buy at most petrol stations to hang off your rear view mirror.
I didn’t own a car at the time.
A little bit of a tangent but your post made me remember….
If you want a bit of entertainment on xmas day, go into any service station and without fail you will find at least one desperate person trying to scrounge up a gift out of what they can find on the shelves there.
Asking Santa for Optimus Prime
Getting Leader 1 from the GoBots
I would’ve loved that. It would’ve given Optimus Prime someone to beat up once you’ve obtained him.
LOL true, unfortunately that’s what all the other kids thought too on a ‘bring your own toy to school friday’ after the Christmas period, and it wouldn’t be Leader 1 getting beaten up either. Just to clarify, getting a GoBot instead of a Transformer in the 80s meant your parents were too cheap to shelf out for (overly priced I might add if look at it now) Transformers, and as a result you would be ‘the poor kid’ in class in everyones eyes.
Eh, they were originally called “Machine Men” in Australia and came out before the Transformers did if I remember right (ironically the Transformers were the knock-offs in this case). Those were some good toys before the transformer craze took hold and we all wanted the shoddier, more cheaply made Transformer toys instead.
I’ve got you all beat.
One year, I got a tank top made out of mesh with the ghost busters logo on it. And what makes it worse is that that year was when Jurassic Park came out.
I’ll be honest, that sounds like an amazing gift
Photos!
*Pompous voice*
I wanted an iPhone 6, but my parents got me an iPhone 5, ugh… Can you believe my parents? Assssss-hooooollles…
FYI – I had to google apple iphones to construct that joke cause I don’t know what they sell these days
They sell iphones.
I was surprised, I admit
A CD and ticket to attend a Hillsong concert from my super religious mother in law.
Just one of the many attempts to convert me and my atheist views……Christmas lunch was interesting that year
My first Christmas with my to be wife’s family i got given a really bad looking grandpa hat from her grandmother. I was quite happy with it didn’t want to offend anyone my wife on the other hand was not in the mood for nicey nice, she burst out laughing and asked who in the hell bought that for me.
I have tried to find something similar to show but nothing at all is close to how bad it looks.
It is now in our kids dress up box.
My ex girlfriend bought me a red silk g-string. She saw the look on my face when I opened it & said “I thought you’d like it”
“I don’t even wear briefs, I wear boxer shorts…”
“Oh yeah…”
The worst present I ever gave was to my very overweight Pop.
All the kids decided to chip in and get him one of those ‘stable tables’ that sit on your lap so that he could snack etc. while watching telly. (https://img0.etsystatic.com/006/0/6269707/il_570xN.365539082_ehkw.jpg)
We had it all wrapped up, and were walking out to him where he was seated in front of the TV as always, kids all singing Happy Birthday, then each kid dropping out of the song as the realisation hit each of us individually, that he was so fat that he had no lap for the table to sit on.
It was too late, we silently handed him the present and watched him unwrap it, our eyes darting to each other and to any possible escape paths.
It was horrible.
I have a tradition where one of the gifts is the Guinness World Records every year. So imagine the awkwardness when I got The Guinness World Records, not one, not twice, but THRICE! As in, 3 copies of the same GWR of the same year, at the same Christmas! From 3 people!
My family is very organised with Christmas and birthday presents – a month or so before the occasion, we give everybody a list of the stuff that we want, and when buying presents we inform everybody except the receiver so that nobody gets duplicates.
We’re free to give stuff that isn’t on the list, but those are “nice extras” to add a bit more spice of surprise.
Of course, the drawback is that there’s an honour code not to buy anything on our own list until the occasion in question. So there’s usually stuff that I want but can’t buy for that month…
My mother is the worst gift giver, throughout my childhood she put in thought and effort, once i turned 16 she must of decided that i had used up all my good birthdays and just decided to not pay attention to anything i liked. I didn’t super mind as a 16 year old but it always annoyed me that my aunties and uncles and grandparents knew me better than my own mother. The peak of her terrible giift giving was when i turned 21 and she got me a GPS for a car, I didn’t own a car or have my license. The even bigger kicker, i am a GPS technician by trade. I fix GPS’s and the one she gave me was one that i had taken home to repair and give to her. She gave it to me unrepaired.
On the otherside of the coin, my little sister is a gift buying demigod, she has a 6th sense for knowing exactly what i want, she bought me some electronics stuff for my birthday this year that she didnt even know what they were. SHe just heard me say they were cool once. I mean im 24 now and stuff i want i can always get myself but there is something nice about knowing somebody wanting you to be happy and smiling and paying attention to you when you say stuff.
Maybe it was a hint that by the age of 21, you really should have learned to drive.
Speaking on behalf of @puppylicks here, but with our group of friends we set a Kris Kringle limit of $20 and bought eachother gifts. For some reason my KK went all out and got me tickets to see Silverchair which at the time was awesome, easily an $80 gift. In contrast, Puppylicks received from his KK a plastic toy reindeer that pooped chocolate covered raisins. We saw the same reindeer in the reject shop afterwards going for $4.00.
I’ve always taken Kris Kringle gifts to be gag things or chocolates. My work one last year I bought a girl a toy gun with suction cup darts and little zombies to shoot as a joke because she’s into competitive shooting.
In return I got nothing because the manager had managed to leave my name out of the gift pool…so she gave me one of the chocolate boxes she got as part of the 10 piece gift someone bought her to suck up. Good times
At an old workplace, someone got 1kg of salt as a Kris Kringle gift. Someone else got truck wash (because of their personal hygiene issues).
Did you work with @ruffleberg ?
my worst was a gift card for $50 from game months after they closed, my mum has a bad habit of collecting gift cards when she has spare money and using them as gifts!!! she couldnt understand why i was dissapointed!!
Clothes…they aren’t presents! That and people generally buy things that aren’t my size or they’re something I wouldn’t wear. Big Bang Theory shirt with Howard on the front looking creepy with the words “Engineers do it with precision” that my sister got me one year was a bit weird (for reference I’m an engineer).
Also all the bloody deodorant/shaving/shower gel kits I’d get from grandparents that have no idea what teenagers want so just buy the same useless thing every year. Always in a brand that I don’t use, usually with something utterly useless like moisturizer thrown in. Generally sit around for a few months/years then get thrown in the bin. Times like that I’d prefer the same value in a gift card or cash.
A door bell.
They were sick of knocking 😛
That’s easy – my Nan (rest her soul) once gave me an already scratched instant lottery ticket. Just to top it off, when I complained – no-one believed me. I guess it’s because that’s exactly the sort of thing I tend to do 🙂
I think the worst I’ve given was a t-shirt with a picture of 19 year old me, with coloured hair and for god knows what reason only wearing a white singlet.
I printed off 20 of them at K-Mart and then gave them to my immediate family and friends for Christmas.
It probably wasn’t the best thought out joke because two years later at my 21st they all wore that shirt and they’d printed off a heap of others that they then gave out to guests.
Nothing terrible, thankfully. When I was a kid I hated getting socks as presents but now I don’t mind them. I can remember my best Christmas present however – a SNES console with All-Stars bundled in way back in the early to mid nineties! Sooo awesome.
I got and get pairs of the ugliest socks you ever saw from my best friend every christmas, paisley pink and blue one year, badly drawn cowboys the next. I damn well love the things; some of my favourite gifts honestly.
My brother bought me two tee-shirts in his size once. I think they had come straight from the hanger in his cupboard.
I’ve had a couple of mediocre gifts. I think the most memorable one was a book that I had already received for my birthday seven months prior. And it as the same person who gave me the same gift twice, so it’s not like they couldn’t have known I already had it. At least the book was alright.
Last year I got a chopping board and a water bottle… Like why do people even bother, I’d rather just get nothing, it’s borderline insulting like “I got you this crappy ass present you will never use, now you are in debt to me and must show unending gratitude for it’.
Gah, I’m just a grinch who hates the materialistic crap Christmas and other ‘holidays’ have devolved into.
Perhaps I am odd but I don’t give Christmas presents at Christmas (or birthday presents on birthdays) to the immediate family. Usually there is something during the year that comes up that they would like and I get that at the time they could use it. In the last few years I have given; 3 computers, internet plan for 2 years, a queen bed and base and a washing machine.
I’m really not one for giving useless nicnaks, and if it is something they need, why wait until Christmas.
When I was 9 a distant family member gave me a dictionary for Christmas