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?

why can't you get rid of it, it's broken?

I had a mental breakdown and was really unwell for about a year, lots of hospital visits etc. and now my birthday and Christmas presents to this day consist of notebooks that say 'be grateful for every day' or books titled 'how to be happy in this crazy world' or similar BS.

The best was a candle that said 'be happy'.

Really sorry to hear about that situation and hope that you're in a better place now x

Toys that aren’t in the child’s appropriate age range. My mil gave dd a collection of toys like a creepy doll, stuffed animal, lego etc, that aren’t safe until she’s 3 years +. We are planning to move countries in a year so won’t be paying to move them with our things, off to the charity shop they go.

vouchers for experiences or the theatre, I never use them. Poor dh received separately a picnic and bird of prey experience. We didn’t use as couldn’t afford to get to the far flung locations, total waste of money.

Salt art. Pebble painting. Paint a money box. Paint a crap fabric toy. Put together a cheap dinorsaur. The kind of shite sold in B&M bargains in the run up to Christmas. Straight to the charity shop.

Omg. I’d be keeping the waste materials for a new patio and inviting the gift giver around for a coffee once the hole was dug.

crafty kits, a knitting dolly
i have no idea

Concert tickets to a stadium for a popular band I liked.

Now this band were playing in London where I lived, but my DM decided to buy me tickets in a different country. So, I got stupid concert tickets, but would have had to cover plane, hotel, food, transport etc which would have been a lot more than the stupid tickets.

I returned them to her and told her to get her money back.

A friend bought my 18-month-old DD a soldering kit...

About 15 years ago, I bought my daughter a Thomas the Tank Engine bubble blower toy for Christmas. As it went along the floor, it blew bubbles and played the Thomas theme tune on a loop. The music was bad enough, but the bubbles landing on the floor caused it to be horrendously slippy, and the floors all needed mopping afterwards before someone had a fall. There was absolutely nothing to recommend that toy.

It was in the wheelie bin by boxing night.

This and the OPs original post when the gift is for an older child

Just put them away until they ARE older? Or regift ?

i get sometimes the DC are excited but usually I can redirect to start with another present that is more suitable

and then make those disappear or after excitement has calmed down explain it’s for an older child and swap it for something age appropriate

but I agree all of that is a hassle

id like to reduce the amount of stuff they get

I agree with others the volume of plastic gifts that will kill the planet is shocking

bur we have relatives that express love through stuff so it’s hard

My daughter was given a really perfect gift this year for a day trip for something she is really interested in. But the voucher only covered the cost for her entry and she can’t go alone as she is under 16.

We can’t let her down on a Christmas present, but we are forced to spend the same again on an accompanying ticket.

This thread has made me remember when I bought ds (18mo) a really cool little ride on motorbike for Christmas as he was obsessed with them. It was just one where you push it along with your feet. When he saw it he was so excited BUT he wasn’t tall enough so his feet didn’t touch the ground. Cue massive massive meltdown. We had to hide it for 6 months and then represent it for his 2nd birthday. Fortunately at that age by the time he’d napped it was like his memory of it had been wiped.

Boxing gloves for c.8 year old DS, from frenemies.
I can't stand boxing! (The only sport where the aim is to cause serious head injuries a knock-out to your opponent, according to the BMA.

Really enjoyed this thread. a good chuckle and a trip down memory lane. For myself, I tell everyone that when it comes to presents, if I can't eat it or drink it, I don't want it. At this stage of my life I am concentrating on getting rid of tat so my DCs don't have to do it when I'm gone.

My MIL decided to buy my 11 year old son (football obsessed) a toy box she painted it decorated it and put his name on it and filled it with pipe cleaners and lots of other crafts wrapped in spider man wrapping paper. He didn't even have any toys that year never mind needed a toy box to put them in. It stayed in the garage along side the one she made his sister that was given to us Christmas eve broken and I put them out on the front for free last summer. I honestly don't know where she expected me to put them.

I'm friends with a group of male friends who all like to prank each other. Now they all have young kids it's turned to buying the most annoying, usually loud gifts for each others children.
The latest one was all clubbing together to buy a 5 year old a drum kit....

Tickets for a family festival at the other end of the country, spent a fortune on travel and food and several annual leave days.
A piano, we had to pay for the music lessons!
A Fuck ugly bouncy castle.

Vouchers! And vouchers for things that we don’t have, so essentially nothing. A Nintendo store voucher that requires setting up an account when we have a PS. Just thoughtless, like getting someone an accessory for a Ford car when they have a Volvo. Or vouchers for the Lego shop when it’s half the price on Amazon.

A large, hideous garden ornament that was a plaster replica of the death mask of Tutankhamen. 😱 Garden ornaments....nope! Replica Ancient Egyptian garden ornaments.... a massive NOPE! Who seriously likes these things?

Anything crafty that involves me having to get involved/having paper, glitter and stickers strewn all over.

Look up the Anchor Butter Little Elephant advert from Christmas 2015, they've got it spot on!

A few years ago, DILs bought both children a really cheap, tacky robot shaped money box as part of their Christmas present. They came in those really awful thin cardboard boxes which the transparent plastic frontage has already torn away from, like you got on markets in the 1970s. Anyway, the one my eldest got already had a broken nose, so after Xmas, I binned it. He never mentioned it and already had three money boxes from his Christening. Over a year later, MIL looked after him and must have asked about this. Cue a massive lecture on my return about how devastated he was that he couldn't find it. That it was very special to him and mummy never looked after what he loved!

A water flosser. Bulky, faffy, needs charging, cords etc, just another thing to add on to life admin. Already have an electric toothbrush and a normal one.

Wondering whether to re-gift or send to a charity shop. Do people actually water floss 🤔.

School once gifted DD a huge cardboard "favela" that was the result of a whole class project. It was sectional but when put together was 8feet long. It lived in the dining room for about a year before I managed to move it to the garage, on the first stage of it's long journey to the tip.

You've reminded me of a blinking scooter. That I need to try and move on.
Second boy I didn't have many Birthday/ Christmas ideas for him. Mil whipped my best idea a scooter - I'd been thinking mini micro with the really low handle.

He was given a similar but different scooter, supposedly 'better' than the mini micro with a seat thing that didn't adjust. His legs were too short for it. And the scooter handle was miles too high.

Come summer I ended up with a second hand mini micro with the low handle for him.