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?

I have just remembered that a huge craft kit I bought for my friend’s dc never got opened. I must ask her what they did with it - I bought it 16 years ago!!

The same friend used to assure me that I didn’t need to buy her kid gifts. I thought she was being polite. This thread has made me realise that it was a desperate plea. Oh dear.

My SIL bought my kid slime, I bought hers a glitter tattoo kit with loose glitter. Not sure who’s trolling who every Christmas 😅

This thread has been cathartic to read.
Every Christmas has been the same since having children.
The kits...the bloody kits...
2 or 3 arrive every year without fail.

"Build your own rocket ship"
"Crochet a cool hat"
"Solar-powered walking robot"
"Solar-powered moon buggy"
"Build your own weather station"
"Make your own bath bombs"
"Grown your own bonsai tree"

For years they sit in cupboards, under beds or stacked on a shelf, making me feel like a crap parent. Occasionally I will suggest to a child that they might like to do one of their kits, to be met with groans. Once or twice they have a burst of enthusiasm, only to open the thing, look at the instructions and realise they're about as comprehensible as the untranslated Magna Carta, or consist of a doodle of the completed item and little else, and invariably have one or several important pieces missing.
I'm increasingly convinced the purpose of these kits is to be a "thing" to buy and hand over. They aren't designed to be used.

I am old so going back a long time here.

Mr Frosty!!!!
Damn. Mr. Frosty
That is all.

😄😄

Ha, completely agree, anything that involves a huge amount of effort on my part, mess (including toys with lots of little parts, beads etc) noise, has potential for being unhygienic or unsafe or cheap and tacky toys that clutter your house up and inevitably frustrate your child and don’t quite go with their other sets (e.g. knock offs of usual branded versions) Sorry I do appreciate the thought but please, quality over quantity.

fir Christmas this year ds was given an “osmo” kit from mil. Only it needs an iPad to work.
he has an Amazon kindle fire.

mil is refusing to return it saying we just need to buy him an iPad to get it to work.

if she returned it and switched it for the Amazon fire version it’d be absolutely fine. But no. We need to buy him the iPad.

it looks like a great gift annoyingly. So I might just buy him the fire version and sell the iPad one. But I’m more annoyed at her insistence that she won’t return it.

Someone gave me a pet tabby to replace my purebred Siamese who'd just passed, aged 17. I'd been very vocal about not having any more pets so gave it back.

Messy build-your-own-tech or craft sets that are complex & keep DC entertained watching DH & I do most of it. Then the hideous result hangs around the house for years.

Bible stories, and a Bible for DC. We're not religious.

I've become very good at slipping said gifts away & disposing of them later.

I also encourage no gift exchanges & GP's to give money (which admittedly the kids then use to buy rubbish anyway).

I have a good one.
My husband’s nan gave our niece & nephew some craft bits that she clearly had lying around the house.
Part of this was some pieces of paper that she’d cut in half & wrapped up. And it wasn’t even straight 😂
They were around 10 & 12 at the time.

My mil gave us a blow up ball pit. I have a cat. My partner thought it would be rude to ask her to exchange it. It lasted one hour before the cat did what the cat was always going to do, and then it had to go in the bin. Such a waste :(

One year my MIL bought my son a fish tank and all the gear for fish. No one in the family had expressed any interest in fish, but of course we had the initial excitement from my son or researching and going out and buying the fish. Of course the excitement wore off, of course DH declared it was DS’s responsibility to clean them, of course they didn’t get cleaned so of course I ended up doing it with my son “helping” and making loads of mess. I hated those fish and couldn’t wait for them to die!

Experience gifts that are a fair distance away when you have limited time due to school/exam schedules and hobbies. Especially if the value of the voucher means you have to spend more to do it in any case.

A kind friend gave me a wrapped present before Christmas (she didn't need to, no expectations). When I unwrapped it, it was a paint by numbers thing, for ages 7 up. Now to be fair, I am over 7, but I've been wondering ever since whether a perplexed and disappointed 7 year old somewhere got an unsuitably complicated and massive jigsaw on Christmas morning.

Not sure how to deal with it tbh.

I totally get most of these and have had a good laugh, but am baffled by those who were miffed at getting actual physical money (£50 note, £20 note).

CatMadam because its not like its possible possible to put the toy in a room your cats not allowed in and close the door or perhaps not let it defecate randomly in the house. Oh wait...

Pretty sure she meant scratch it, not shit in it 😂

The poster with the £50 note was miffed because lots of shops won't accept £50s they'll not take more than a £20. Taking them to the bank to get lower value notes is another job to do.

The poster with the £20 was really complaining about the lack of thought. I think it was given to her dying father. He wasn't fit to go shopping to choose something. So helping him spend it became another job for Op to do.

My parents buying me an enormous complicated wireless printer.

I already had a perfectly fine printer which I rarely used anyway but I think their thought process was just 'lawyer - must need documents' not realising that it's all done online now pretty much.

I think the biggest disappointment was the size of the beautifully wrapped box! My parents' gifts are always practical so I was kind of hoping for, I don't know, a coffee machine or an air fryer or nice bedding or something. Not a massive, expensive, unneeded printer!

Slime!!!!!! I absolutely hate the stuff!! It's currently all over my bay windowsill and all down my wall in my living room because my 4yo rifes it all out, gets it everywhere and then gets bored and bogs off, leaving me to try and scrape it up and get it back in the tiniest little tub 😑

Scrape it up and bin it

DD got a nail painting set with glitter. It included a fan to dry the nails quicker.
Guess what DD did to the glitter with the fan…. 🤦🏻‍♀️

JTRSOP · 10/01/2024 19:44

A giant ride on unicorn that can carry adults. It’s bigger than my actual pony. It broke within a couple of weeks and takes up enormous amount of space, because of course, we can’t get rid of the thing.

^^

My DSis got this for her DD. DD was nine at the time..

But they came into their own over lockdown when everyone was bored. My DM got her grandson a nice robot made of a tin can, which works.

Talking of The Works, I went there to get colouring books. Great place but oh my the potential for kits and craft gifts. Great if you’re a craft-type parent but not if you’re not (one friend isn’t).

This has all been a great read, made me really laugh. I'm nanny to 3 lovely grandchildren age 3 to 7. I take them to a toy shop with a budget and let them choose a gift...I know they're getting something they want and my daughters can't blame me 🤣🤣🤣