Presents that are more hassle than fun

[Bex5490]

Now before everyone jumps at me for how grateful I should be to anyone who buys my child gifts…I know this. I always send the thank you videos of DS gleefully opening said gifts and I’m more than grateful for the love and sentiment behind them. However…

Today I spent my one day off work trying to simplify a science experiment made for an 8 year olds for my 4 year old son! There is now rainbow food colouring on my carpets and a grumpy DS who is sulking because he wasn’t allowed to rub the chemicals on his face 😂

Over the years I’ve had a professional painting kit, a huge blackboard easel meant for a classroom and a second hand trampoline with no garden!

What were your (if any) most inconvenient gifts?

Couldn't you have just bought some things they had in stock, even if not to your taste - and used as gifts for friends future kids, saving yourself the cash of buying their presents? I did that with a voucher I was given for a shop that was not to my taste when DC was born. Lovely stuff but not my style, made sure it went to friends who would appreciate that "look".

@Notmatthewmcconaughey for some reason the birthday fish has made me laugh more than anything else in this thread - it's so utterly bizarre!!
I do hope you got out for your meal after all.

Some one4all vouchers are only for certain places eg it says "fashion favourites" on the front. I never realised this until I rang them up wondering what the issue was. I had tried about 5 places at that point. Ended up just buying whatever I could to get rid of it. It's a bit ridiculous to sell them, like what is the point? Just make them all the same where you can spend them in most places, arrgh 😡

Ah yes, the One4All vouchers are shit because you cannot redeem online unless the value is the same as or less than the voucher value. Basically unlike every other gift card. I'm not sure about how it works if you spend in store. It means they are quite hard to use all of the amount when using online.

Believe me she has lot of clutter so it was just weird, just didn't seem to think he would want to play with them again. But she's always into shiny new things rather than keeping old serviceable stuff.

Oh God, not sure if it still exists or if I'm remembering the name correctly, but fucking Moon-sand. In fact, anything messy.

I think Moon sand came out around the same time as kinetic sand - which is just messy.

But at least it's hooverable unlike playdough.

Always good to ask.

Another was a massage experience at a place 15 minutes from their house.
We live 85 miles from them, and it expired during covid.
It had three months left on it when gifted, so obviously a re-gift.
Also at a time when we were all unaware we'd be locked down for longer than anticipated.

A vineyard day out 36 miles away via 3 train changes. Only valid on Sundays.

A two day stay in a hotel in Cornwall, train journey would take a day each way...
On reading the small print, only to be redeemed over the winter months.

So much wasted money.

I think you summarised it quite well earlier when you said she was batshit 😄 She's spectacularly bad at presents, but this one was worse than usual. She somehow correlated lockdown with not being able to access fresh fish so thought it would be a nice treat I suppose (the fact that the supermarket, with its shelves stacked with fresh fish, was LITERALLY the only place you were allowed to go during lockdown somehow escaped her)

I did actually put my foot down and insist that they come and babysit, but that also meant that there was even more fish in the freezer...!

I think the worst was a joint spa voucher for all the women in my family. Lovely idea but nightmare to organise. No spas close by to us, scheduling 5 different people and ensuring disabled access for gifting relative...finally got a date. Then Covid hit. Finally after lots of messing about, the company faffed and rescheduled with a huge time-lag to a short list of dates that were available. I was two months post c-section and refused to leave my tiny baby for 8 hours for a spa day (had severe PnA). In the end the voucher stopped working and we gave up.

Also, that elderly wealthy relative who sent a cheque to us both for our wedding. Wasn't in either of our legal names so couldn't bank it. Sent it back politely with a long note to explain - she didn't reissue it and it was too awkward to chase it. Gutted - we were skint and would really have appreciated the money. So frustrating!

Cynical me: Is there any possible way she did this on purpose?

But then again - I know a few people who want to be 'thanked' for offering to do things that they have no intention of carrying out/know someone else will step in to do as soon as it's suggested.

@OVienna I think she was just a bit dozy tbh! It should be the thought that counts but... 🤣

My 3 yo( at the time) came home with 4 giant African land snails. OK they were not the most demanding of pets but having to scald the tank weekly to kill off the eggs and having to do all the work did annoy me greatly!

Gifting pets is out of order. No one should take on a pet they haven’t fully considered and agreed to home. It ends in disaster and isn’t fair on the recipient or the poor pet.

I'm sure other people have already said gift vouchers! We were given a general restaurant one where we had to search a list for a restaurant that would accept it, find one that wasn't a ridiculous travel time away, figure out what you are even allowed to use it for and when etc. In the end, I sold it for half its value on eBay, as it was going to expire in the next few months, and we were still no closer to being able to use it!

My BIL/SIL would often ask for cash for Christmas for some reason they were saving up for. In return we would get Next vouchers. We never shop in Next. Pain in the arse.

@TurkeyTwizlers I'd be putting an end to that. Let's not bother just buy the kids. Or just give us money for our new living room carpet

We don’t exchange anymore: I had to train DH to say we already had their gifts when they mentioned cash anyway
Last significant birthday DH gave SIL some money, she bought me some crap for mine for a 10th of the cost. That was the end of that. BIL had a significant birthday and DH bought him a gift which was on the same level as mine, he was pissed. We don’t exchange anymore which is great.

DC1 wanted a drum kit, MIL bought him a pair of drum sticks and said why don’t you take all of mummy’s saucepans out of the cupboards and practice really hard and if you are good when we next visit we’ll get you a proper drum kit 🧟‍♀️ I appreciated that one sooooo much.

I'm a keen gardener but enough with the plants already!!! I'm very picky as I'm trying to slim down my garden, and I'll screech if I get yet another orchid.

Garden centre/ Bunnings vouchers are gratefully accepted, though.

Before I had kids and older sister did I deliberately used to revenge gift (she pinched money and borrowed clothes that came back with fag burns when we were 13/15 so totally fair game), my finest gifts included the early learning centre guitar with no volume controls, rspb cuddly toys with screeching bird sounds, a kiddy camera that a 3 year old could use to take pics of people on the loo, a lock picking set and my best a “frozen” recorder set - please remember these not fun gifts may be good karma because you stole and trashed your sisters favourite top shop best!

The twotting furby!

ArchetypalBusyMum · 10/01/2024 20:38

I was given a Zorb experience as a wedding present. You know those ones where you climb inside an inflatable ball and they kick you down a hill. Possibly fun if you don't get dizzy easily and you were doing it with mates/your new husband. This was just for me alone - I was expected to go solo bouncing down a hill end over end because I had pledged my love to DH.

This is hilarious! Why would anyone think a Zorb experience is a good wedding gift, never mind a solo one