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?

Oh I completely get that, and absolutely understand how inconvenient/expensive they can be. Maybe I’ve just been lucky that I quite like having days out and as they’re things I’d like to do anyway I see it as cheaper than if I’d decided to do it myself. But I get that if you have a family, they’re not local etc then they would be a complete PITA

After a Google search 80% of people who receive 'experience' vouchers have issues using them.

Which might explain why 50% (going by a MN poster who worked for one if these companies) of them are never used.

They sound great in theory. But really the companies have the money they couldn't care less if you use it or not so they don't exactly make them easy to use.

Mil turned up with 100 gel pens a few months ago!!!! Fuming.

When the DCs were preschoolers it was always fiddly battery/remote control operated vehicles and things to build which were crappy quality and absolutely not robust enough to be played with by an impatient 3yo. There is a reason kids that age like Brio!

Mine liked slime and excavation kits but again, fiddly shitty quality science/craft/building kits that again are no use for DC1 who is ND and had zero patience or staying power with them especially if it didn't live up to expectations.

When DC1 was 4 PILs asked for Christmas present ideas and we suggested a watch thinking they would get a kiddie 'my first watch' type of thing. They got an adult's digital watch with fiddly buttons which was pointless and also got broken fairly fast by impatient DC who likes taking things apart and poking into the mechanisms of stuff 🙄

OMG! Who on earth buys a pet for someone without clearing it with parents first! I'd be livid!

Laughed out loud at this one!

I like the experience gifts, but I only buy them for DP and for us both to do.
Last year I got him an all you can eat sushi meal and a murder tour of London, we did those on the same day, he got me a Japanese tea ceremony which we did the next day.
He also got me a mini spa with afternoon tea which I took a friend on. He got me this again this Christmas but I'll take a different friend.
And I've got him two nights luxury glamping for two which we've booked in for September.

For special gifts for others I tend to buy vouchers from the place - there's some new restaurant in London I knew my nephew would like so I got him a £200 voucher for his engagement present, I know he'll use that. And I got his sister some vouchers for a well known vegan restaurant in London too. Then for a friend's fiftieth I gave her a home-made voucher (just a promise for me to pay the bill, I didn't want to book without her input) for me to take her to a local posh restaurant we both want to go to and my DP is acting as taxi service.

We really do all want different things. I'd have taken the trebuchet, messy crafts and slime to do at the park; the archery set would be taken to an archery club or a field behind a friend's house to share, we love the drum set, we do tons of craft kits and robot kits, and the kids know that we say a polite thank you for presents we dislike then quietly sell them so we can buy something better.

But I absolutely fucking hate chore presents. Plants, pets, experiences (if we wanted to do it we'd have bought it ourselves)...

My Homer's Bowling Ball this year was a Lego kit from the kids that they have now quietly sneaked away to their room.

I did have an unreasonable level of loathing for shitty baby clothes in the wrong size that said Mummy's Little Princess.

When DD turned two ILs gave her some marshmallow kebabs. Or as I called them, choking hazards on sharp implements.

Parents?? It was bought for me as an adult. Still bonkers.

MIL has given kids 2 guinea pigs and a hamster.
Thankfully all complete with hutch and cage, but didn't ask/tell us either time.
Luckily I like pets.

Red Letter Days and Buy a Gift. Have 2 one for a luxury 2 night break which covers absolutely nothing, you have to phone each hotel listed to find out you would have to pay a lot more money to stay somewhere you would not actually want to go and if you booked without the voucher it would be half the price. Red letter day again the same, you contact the company they say will accept voucher and they no longer do. Have spent hours trying to use them and feel so guilty if they get wasted as the person who gifted them was generous and thought they were providing a nice experience 😢

I would actually be tempted to fess up to the present giver so they could complain. I would want to know!

Otherwise these companies will just keep getting away with this shit.

Oh me too! My heart sinks when I see them being delivered …then I feel I’m such an ungrateful cow but I still hate them! 😀

You are actually right, I guess I just didn’t want to hurt their feelings, I know …..

Build a bear gift card!!

my DS had a £20 gift card a few years ago. I paid:

• £30 train into London. We went to the one by the London Eye.
• £50 lunch and snacks
• £30 in so he could get the bear and done clothes for it that wanted.

so it actually ended up costing me £110!! Fair enough we got a day out. However he had the bear in one of the cardboard boxes.

As we headed home the heavens opened up and the box got soaked

A childs plastic bead bracelet making machine. Was so fiddly Spent most of Christmas trying to get that to work. No instructions just qr codes to watch informational videos. Never worked. I was irritated and my daughter was upset.

A mega complicated board game for older players with lots of hard to understand rules given to an 8 year old child. It was too hard for any of the adults that we had to unfortunately donate it to charity. Definitely felt like a regift 😬

This year my dad bought a sunhat sized 0-6 months for my 1 year old daughter

Thankfully over the years the big plastic wrapped and boxed presents are much less. Too many plastic toys they play with once then never look at again, nice thoughts but practically just awful. Now v bucks, a small present and cash, so much better. Hate waste and the packaging really doesn't need to be so excessive surely. Xx

When I had my baby so many people sent / brought round bunches of flowers and it made me realise what a CRAP gift for a new mum & dad it is!

We had EIGHT bouquets on the dining table by the time baby was 5 weeks old. Each time someone brought round a bunch I would have to get off my arse and unwrap, trim stems, remove leaves, get pricked by thorns, find a utensil (I do not have 8 vases in my house so they were in jugs/bowls/watering cans etc) and then clear space for them in my small house. We couldn’t use our dining table, not to mention then cleaning up the dropped petals and pollen for days before having to throw them out and wash up the now gunky glassware.

I know it sounds ungrateful but I bloody hated it and have vowed to NEVER buy a new mum flowers ever again and if you are reading this I beg of you please THINK TWICE before buying a new parent a bunch of flowers.

Thank you OP for posing the question and giving me a chance to vent haha

Those d.i.y diamond picture kits. You need a magnifying glass if you want to help younger kids as they are so tiny and kids don't have the patience. Lots off diamonds all over the place and glue. Themn a disappointed child if you don't finish it!. Still in a drawer somewhere....

A potters wheel with a foreign plug and a thing to magnify drawings with a light to help draw using shadows.

I’m genuinely horrified. Who does this to someone they like?