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?

That Why I always buy flowers in one of those water filled plastic bases so the recipient simply has to put them on a windowsill or a table.

Omg, this!

I was gifted £50 voucher to spend at Liberty's. Now that's a v.generous amount of money, and I'm fully aware of that. But in Liberty's it's like the equivalent of giving me 10p to shop at Debenham's. You have to put an awful lot of your own money to it if you want to buy ANYTHING AT ALL!

We don't live in London, so spent 2hrs driving through horrific traffic, spent a fortune on parking, spent 2hrs trawling through Liberty's super-priced wares, only to come away with zilch. The only thing I found within my budget (The £50 voucher while adding £40 of my own money to it), was a tiny spaghetti-strap cropped top. I'm in my late 40s with a saggy stretch marked belly, so not my style anyway. Not to mention, even if it was my style, it was the type of generic basic top I could've found in any generic basic high street shop for a fiver. I spent most of my 2hrs in Liberty's agog saying "£500 for that!...£380 for that!...£1200 for that!"

The gifter is a Londoner who has been in Liberty's several times, but never bought anything because its so expensive and not a place for the average-income person. She just enjoys browsing. I'm on an even lower income than she is, so I couldn't get my head around why she thought this was a good gift for me.

Eventually, nearly a year later, I found a couple of things in an online sale. But they weren't things I would normally buy, or particularly love, and I still had to put a hefty wedge of my own cash towards it, but I didn't want the gifters £50 to go wasted.

The gifter had previously made loud remarks in front of me, saying "I really hate it when you buy people gift vouchers for something nice, and they don't spend them. It's so rude and disrespectful. Its like throwing gift wrapped money into a fire". The glare shot across at me was a clear indication that the remark was aimed at me. I had to hold my tongue, because I really wanted to say "well fifty quid doesn't go far in fucking Liberty's unless you've got several hundred quid yourself to put towards it! And even then it'll still only buy you a fucking pompous pretentious neckerchief! Where the fuck would I wear something like that...Aldi? And what with, my New Look sweater and leggings?!"

I know £50 is unbelievably generous, it really is. But fuck me, it was such a stress trying not waste it while not leaving myself skint as well.

Well I love flowers!
For me it would be any present thst ends up costing me more than it does the giver i.e a gift voucher for a hotel or a dinner or a theatre voucher that only covers a fraction of the cost or any toy that needs a lot of batteries and giver doesn't include them.
MIL gave my 2 DC remote control cars that were cheap from a market stall that needed 8(!) D batteries in the car and one of the rectangular ones in the remote control. Batteries cost a lot more than the toy.

Gifts given to DD since birth for birthday and Christmas.

• Any craft kits from The Works, etc. I hate them. She gets bored within 30 seconds, and the bloody thing ends up in the bin.
• A candle from sil to celebrate baby's birth. It was a used Yankee candle that she didn't like.
• A phone from my uncle. He had upgraded his and gave my then 3 year old his old phone. Who is a 3 year old going to call?! Father Christmas?! Social services?! Batman? He thought that we could use it for facetime. Yeah, right. That will work. He got given that straight back with a no thank you and a warning that if he tried it again, I will smash it in front of him.
• SLIME!!
• A fitbit watch from well-meaning grandparents who have no clue. (Age 4.)
• Age inappropriate clothes, too big or small.
• MIL, shit from Boots like Yardley gift sets for an 8 year old or a small tiny bag of haribo.
• Book, so many books.
• Soft cuddly toys, I could open my own build a bear now as we have over 100 of the bloody things. DD has 5 favourites and won't play with the others but refuses to part with anything.
• Anything battery operated. Includes musical instruments.
• Puzzles, DD won't touch them. She doesn't like them as she can't get the pieces in the right place, cue massive tantrum and me loosing my shit.
• Gifts that have an age on them. I turned 40 this year and have received 5 wine glasses with 40, lots of 40 badges, any cheap tat that has 40th birthday on it, I had it.
• The dreaded experience voucher, I don't want a spa day or drive a supercar, I CAN'T drive and have no interest in learning how as I'm dyslexic and have terrible eyesight, I'm short sighted and have issues with double visvision. Thanks MIL, just what I always wanted.

Everything ends in landfill or charity shop.
I do feel bad for the charity shops, the volunteers must hate January.

Same 😆

@BakedCrud

The gifter had previously made loud remarks in front of me, saying "I really hate it when you buy people gift vouchers for something nice, and they don't spend them. It's so rude and disrespectful. Its like throwing gift wrapped money into a fire".

Maybe it's time to say loudly, clearly and early before the next gift becomes due to say that as funds are tight (with us all, surely) you will be reducing actual gifts to just your children (if you have them) and suggest secret Santa for everyone else up to, say, £20-25. In the past I've had furry hot water bottles, a bottle of single malt, fleecy socks, cashmere bedsocks, etc - all things I've really loved and enjoyed using. 🌹

Unfortunately, this wasn't a xmas gift, (we do actually do a limited budger secret santa at xmas, wherenwe compile lists of things we'd happily receive, so rhe gifter isnt wasting money or stressing about what to buy), it was a birthday gift. So it made it all the more awkward and stressful.

However, due to the gifter being angry at me not spending the Liberty voucher immediately and considered me rude and disrespectful, I'm pretty certain I won't be gifted something like that again.

*apologies for the typos!

I have given gift experiences, but only if I am able to take the recipient myself - giving a gift experience and then expecting parents to give up their time/money to do so isn't giving a gift, it's giving an expectation. I bought one a couple of years ago and couldn't find a venue to do it within 100 miles (website was out of date), but at least the company I bought it through let me use the price I'd paid towards another 'experience' (soft play sort of thing I'd probably have taken said child to ordinarily anyway).

I admit I've got it wrong in the past, but I do always own it and say to the parents, "yeah, this was a mistake, I'm really sorry!"

My 'go-to's for children are age-appropriate Lego, a book (if I know they're a reader/enjoy stories, even better if it's in a series they enjoy), generic good quality art/craft supplies (definitely not slime!!), or a wooden toy from Hape or similar for babies and toddlers. I buy outside of these categories if I know the child well (nephews and nieces), but otherwise these are 'safe' I've found!

Could you maybe give a list, of presents your child would like, with his age on in brackets.
My son received a dinosaur, off his grandparents. Which was romote control and designed for older children. It gave my son nightmares. He couldn't even have it in his room.
Grandparents, see stuff they think your child might like, but don't look at the age. When we made a list, they had an idea of what he wanted, then we gave each set of grandparents a slightly different list, so he didn't get the same present.
My MIL, got my son a musical thing, which made a horrible noise, as a stocking filler. Let's just say, that got "lost" not long after Christmas and stayed that way for a while, it rid resurface, when it's hidy hole moved, but I managed to "lose it again".
When he recived a toy, that was loud and annoying and needed batteries. When it's batteries died, I couldn't find the right size. It still worked, but no annoying sounds.

The board game "Root"
DS tells me it's a simplified, child friendly, introduction to table top war gaming.
If that's the case...I never want to see what a real table top war game is like.....
Because this thing is absurdly complex. Trying to understand the convoluted rules took are up several hours of Christmas day that I'll never get back.
And then several more hours of a "board game meet up" that DS dragged me to.
Worse thing is ......I was the one that bought it.
DS loves it...the little nerd. 🤓

I got gifted a set from Amazon. It was a box with ‘you are brave, beautiful, fearless etc’ shite drivel printed on it. Inside were random bits like a small metal straw, some essential oils, a bath bomb and a coffee cup with the same ‘inspirational’ crap on it. I hate stuff like that it’s so impersonal. They probably searched gifts for women and it was the first thing that came up

BIL bought adult dartboard and darts for 4 & 6 year old sons. We told them they could have it when youngest was 13, by that time we couldn’t remember where we had hidden it.

When he was a toddler, youngest son was obsessed with toy cars, he always carried a couple in his pockets. Same BIL bought him a pack of 50, possibly from the £1 shop. The wheels either jammed or fell off and they all finished up up in the bin within a month. I appreciated the intentions but he would have been happier with one reasonable car.

We bought our 6 year old science experiments and a magic kit last year for Christmas.
Jeezus, the science experiments were a nightmare and also a hit.
They were such a pain in the arse but said kid loved it.
The problem was that they expected a miracle science thing to happen.....most of the time it was a let down, cause loads of mess and disappointed child.
We ended up saying all the ingredients had gone off and was no longer any good. 😫

A present from work, which is a very male environment. They spent a lot of money buying me vouchers for beauty treatments.

I haven’t worn make up since I was in my teens, a facial is my idea of hell, and I was pregnant so couldn’t get a massage. By the time baby was born and I could get a massage, the beauty place had gone bust. My boss quietly apologised and said he tried to tell them that I’d prefer book vouchers but no-one would listen to him. He had asked to buy the present himself, but the admin manager wouldn’t hand over the money, and insisted that she wanted to do it herself.

(He bought me a book, which was much appreciated.)

My ex bought me entry to a marathon, in Madrid. The year before I had done the London Marathon and said categorically I would never do another.

He printed the date of it on a key ring, which he presented to me in a jewellery box, and wished me luck with my training.

He was an Arsenal fan so as revenge I got him a stadium tour at Spurs for Christmas.

Luckily covid got us out of both events 😏

Pregnant is no reason not to get a massage. I was 40+ weeks and stressing over the thought of being induced.

I was wandering past a small salon and noticed the sign they did massages. Went in and asked were they free - yes give us 10min - went back 10min later - em are you pregnant? We settled on me lying on my side she worked wonders. Labour started within hours.

@Outthedoor24 they didn’t allow their masseurs to massage pregnant women.

It's fine to be miffed or unimpressed with a gift, however, complaining to the person who sent it is bang out of order (I know you didn't do this). I spent ages looking for suitable Christmas presents for a friend that is very ill. She told me that she has 5 of one gift and won't be using the other; I wasn't enamoured by her gift to me, but I would bite off my tongue before I upset her. Either bin the gifts, send them to a charity shop or regift to someone that will like them if they are of good quality. Sorry for the rant! Try very unsubtle hints as to what your children would actually like. Good luck!

PIL were obsessed with ‘value’ so if you said DD wanted a Barbie, they would find a giant 4ft plastic doll as it was ‘better value’. Of course DD didn’t want it, never played with it and it took up loads of room.
One of their GC was saving up for an iPad and asked for money for Christmas towards it.
MIL saw a tablet being advertised on QVC or the like and it was ‘as good as a ipad’ for £30. She bought them for all the GC. They were shit, I never got ours working, it had zero storage, I had to buy a card to stick in it, still never worked.
All 5 of them ended up in the bin. When her GC got his iPad she was furious about it as she had ‘got him one already’.
DH says they were always the same and wasted so much money when he was growing up.

I'd say unwanted pets would be the big one.

For me generally it's vouchers especially for experiences. I can use a M&S voucher but a voucher for say a spa day is more of a chore to use.

It wasn’t given by someone whose name began with D was it? We sold them in our museum shop and I had been demonstrating the finished model to a group of volunteers while we waited for a school to arrive. One of them said it would make a great present for his grandson, but I later discovered the boy was six…. No idea whether he bought it, or spotted the 14+ on the box first!

🤣🤣🤣 this is so funny, wish people could get the message that would much rather £10 spent on something small and decent than £10 of useless frustrating clutter

Vouchers to a really nice local spa maybe but there are some seriously rubbish ones out there for which I would of far rather of spent the day on my sofa (usually the sort you can book with these generic vouchers) I actually think their whole business model must be based on people being gifted these experiences and the buyer never becoming aware of how rubbish the spa actually is. I always worry the same when I buy hampers as no one is ever going to be rude enough to actually tell you all the food was stale etc 🙈

@TurkeyTwizlers thats exactly why we ended up with a scooter contraption that was too big and useless for our tiny kid.

Someone had told SIL that this was "better and lasted longer" than the mini micro that I wanted to buy. It only lasted longer because overall its bigger, and takes longer to grow into it.
MIL who bought it, never asked me for my opinion only that of SIL. It still bugs me because I need to get it moved on