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?

When I was a kid (many moons ago ). I received a pair of glittery plastic shoes with heels and glittery straps of elastic to hold them on.
Of course I wanted to wear them but having being born with club feet my mother wasn't having any if it and they went straight in the bin
I remember overheating her say to my df why would anyone give such a unsuitable present to someone with feet like mine.
I thought they were lovely

Is it slime @SSprogonthetyne? I genuinely thought she'd given the dc kits to lose weight or it was swim kits!

An empty scrapbook. Great, I have to start printing out photos, collecting leaflets, not throwing away tickets etc and sit with completely disinterested DC gluing and sticking.

I am aware that I am sounding like the most disinterested mother ever.

A soap making kit was surprisingly fun

Bought a candle making kit, we'll see how that goes

Once got a photoshoot gift card as a gift.... That we had to top up with around £100 🥴

SIL tried to buy us a drum kit once

And she has had her own kids too!!!

I banned beads as a gift when my daughter was very young …absolutely hated them !

BIL and SIL once gave the kids 6 months worth of bloody kids recipe kits which would be ragey enough (I work full time and am not particularly interested in cooking!) BUT we were just starting a big renovation project so HAD NO PROPER KITCHEN... Which I'm sure they did know about, or would have done had they asked!
It pretty much all went off and ended up in the bin unfortunately!

I bought a cazoo for my grandson. He loved it. His parents not so much!

I fully agree but if I'd done that,I would never of heard the end of 'nanny bought you this game,but mum is too mean to do it with you'

Rinse and repeat for years

She's an evil cow who knows exactly what she was doing

I'm about to become a granny myself at the end of the year,and every present I buy will be with full approval from both parents-even if its to be left at mine

Well, I love the person who did it, but I got theatre tickets (well, one of the pair) to a show she really wants to see (I do but not as much) in the other end of the country and “shall we make a mini break of it” -guess who’s paying for the hotel and rail fare?

A child’s sewing machine has to be one of the worst. It was useless! But to make matters worse, I have a small sewing business with a basic (adult) machine that the kids could use. My sister knew this!

This one wins for me omg

Sorry predictive text, but yes I meant slime. The older one had a kit to mix the ingredients to make slime, the younger one's kit was putting glitter or sequins into slime for no apparent reason.

Family ticket for an expo in an arena 2 hours drive away. For a hobby/activity that only DH has any interest in. On a weekend in the middle of DC1's exams.

My pet hate( lighthearted) is age tagged gifts- I was given a lovely solid silver bracelet by colleagues when I turned 40 and it had a charm that said ‘fab at 40’ which is no good now I’m 52! At 50 different work colleagues got a me a gin glass with 50 on it. I didn’t really want reminding and now I’m not 50 anyway. I don’t see the point.

My experience of this after the initial excitement was “We’re just standing here holding down buttons.”

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.

It’s the devil’s work! 😆

We used to get these until we moaned about what an absolute pain they are, forgetting that the people we were moaning to were the ones who bought them for us 😂

Flowers when youve just given birth. No I don't want to prepare a display of bloody flowers then clean it all up when they die.

Come on, you are being silly. You can spend a £50 in loads of places, starting with any major supermarket.

A friend of mine’s mum has a thing where she thinks that for a present to be good, it must be massive. It got to the point where granny presented a massive thing at Christmas and friend said “Oh, how lovely! It can stay here and the children can play with it at your house”. Granny said “Errr - I don’t have room for it”. “Neither do I” said friend.

My husband got his 2 teenage sons a morning experience gift. It was useless at best and he got really defensive when I told him it had been a shit present (after the event, oops)

Another pet hate... you mention you like something, for example Donald Duck. Then get a plethora of inappropriate gifts connected to said character.

10yo DDs favourite character is Stitch... so a relative got her a colouring set aimed at 4yos.

Same relative got me 5 jigsaw puzzles... they know I rarely have time for them. I manage 1 or 2 a year...

A fucking hamster