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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Presents that are more hassle than fun

446 replies

Bex5490 · 10/01/2024 17:23

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?

OP posts:
IMustDoMoreExercise · 10/01/2024 21:02

Sunflower8848 · 10/01/2024 17:52

Flowers. They are pretty, but the hassle of cutting the stems, finding a vase, remembering to change the slimy water, taking out the ones that die early….i just cba.

I thought I was the only one. My husband knows not to buy me flowers after his first time.

PeloMom · 10/01/2024 21:03
  • a set of super tiny sticky beads that were gifted to a 3 yr old.
  • hot wheels tracks that take sooo much space and my kid doesn’t play with them for more that 2 mins
blitzen · 10/01/2024 21:05

Those All 4 One gift vouchers. Not easy to spend online at the listed shops. Very convoluted and if you don't spend it by a certain point, they start taking away the balance as some kind of fine.

TimeIhadaNightCapwithSanta · 10/01/2024 21:06

I was given a generous voucher from friends after giving birth. The voucher was for a continental children's boutique, of which there was one shop in the UK. In London.

I live in the North of Scotland, and go to London once a year, staying nowhere near said boutique. To get there would take up the best part of a day, and it really didn't seem worth it with a newborn, especially when trips to London are only of short duration, and I have things to do when I'm down.

The boutique had a website, but the voucher couldn't be used online. I could ring up the London store and order over the phone, but only what they had in stock. The website was not helpful (few items on each page, no way of filtering by price), and the shop had nothing in stock that I wanted and that came to less than (or equal to) the vouchers value. Did I mention the goods were expensive?

I gave up in the end. I tried a few times, and had the use by date extended, but I was never able to use it. I still have the voucher, and it makes me sad thinking my friends wasted their money.

strawberryswizzler · 10/01/2024 21:07

a toddler bed tent. massive pop up thing. she still sleeps in our bed so went straight on vinted

LastRites · 10/01/2024 21:11

We’re not massive gift-givers in our family but my brother in law is. This year he bought my youngest a farting teddy. It farts when you touch it, farts when you go near it, farts when you look at it and farts periodically throughout the day and night even in another room.

For my eldest he bought a board game called Sinking Sand which we got ready to play this weekend - beers chilled, crisps in bowls… - until we discovered it has actual fucking sand in it. Needless to say that went in the bin immediately.

He bought us a murder mystery set last year, and a haunted castle board game the year before which required a PHD in physics and engineering to construct

VenhamousSnake · 10/01/2024 21:17

Tickets for things that require us to
a) pay £50 to travel by train to the city
b) spend £60 plus on a babysitter
c) can only be used on a handful of dates/times.

A friend got us something like this last year. It was for a food based walking tour, the sort of thing you fill your weekends with when you are thirty and childfree. We never got around to booking it because the time it was at was when kids have their swimming lesson and to be honest we just didn't want to spend the £120 it was going to cost us in travel/childcare for a 2 hour, £30 "experience". Our time is precious to us and it would have taken up about 5 hours on a saturday afternoon to travel to.

I have a suspicion a lot of these red letter day experiences aren't ever taken up and make a fortune for the companies selling them.

OakTree16 · 10/01/2024 21:22

My DM does this. This years unexpected massive Xmas gift was a pool table!

Thestreets · 10/01/2024 21:29

An ant farm.

Sharontheodopolodous · 10/01/2024 21:31

Every single year,my aunt would buy the kids cheap toys that needed batteries

All fun on Xmas day,when they'd opened them and wanted to play with them but couldn't as I couldn't pull the right batteries out of my arse

Then I'd have to scrape the money together (skint single mum at the time) to buy the odd shaped and expensive batteries-only the the toys to break and go in the bin

Every bloody year

Best laugh is,she'd been the skint single mum herself-scraping the money together to buy her own dc the basics just like I was doing

Shed giggle,say sorry and do it all again the following year

And somehow I was the ungrateful one!

Tare · 10/01/2024 21:40

An ant farm complete with live ants. My daughter was given it for Christmas and the fuckers keep escaping!

Newsenmum · 10/01/2024 21:46

Tare · 10/01/2024 21:40

An ant farm complete with live ants. My daughter was given it for Christmas and the fuckers keep escaping!

This made me laugh! I would definitely ask a parent first!

MiddleParking · 10/01/2024 21:47

I find nearly all of what my children get bought to be a huge pain in the arse. I know that sounds bad but there is just so, so much of it and I do find myself wondering what the relatives who buy it all, mostly former parents of very young children, are thinking. I don’t actually mind a physically big present at all as long as it’s in one piece - usually the kids love opening something massive and once I’ve identified a home for it that’s where it lives. It’s the boxes and boxes of small stuff with small parts, most of which is complete crap and/or totally beyond my kids’ ability to play with without uninterrupted supervision of. The worst is when people buy my preschooler toys that are literally fatally unsafe for the two year old that shares her bedroom. Like, did you forget he was born or are you trying to get revenge on him for something?

Tare · 10/01/2024 21:47

Thestreets · 10/01/2024 21:29

An ant farm.

We are in the same boat I see!

Ggttl · 10/01/2024 21:53

When my relative asked if my young DD liked cooking I was expecting a DIY brownie kit or some cake sprinkles but instead she gave her one of those tv chef books with sautéed calves liver and wild boar type recipes. Most of them seem to require ingredients from a specialist butcher, a French farmers market and some foraging in the local woodland.

cadburyegg · 10/01/2024 21:58

Any noisy toy that doesn't have an off button or volume button. Fortunately as the kids get older that's become less common.

Any poxy science kits or anything else that requires an insane amount of parental supervision.

Slime, I learnt early on not to buy it myself but last summer ds1 was given it in a party bag, he accidentally lobbed it over the fence into next door's garden. They have dogs so I went over to try and retrieve it as idk if it's toxic. Spent about 10 minutes scraping the shitty stuff off their patio. A real low point.

My ex text me last Christmas asking if I thought a digital keyboard was a good present for ds2, yes I said as long as you keep it at your flat as no room here. Sure enough it did not stay at the flat. It lives in my mum's house.

Ex also bought a fucking huge hardback book for ds1 about musicians, ds1 not the slightest bit interested in music, but ex is so of course I have to find somewhere to put it 🙄

Scalectrix or hot wheels crap or anything else that the kids are excited to put together but that breaks easily, there is only one way to play with it so they get bored within 1 minute but it still takes up space.

I sound like a snob but anything that's shit quality, if you only have £5 to spend that's fine but spend it on a colouring book not something shit that will break within 2 seconds.

Anything that has an obscure battery because no I don't have random unusual batteries in my house on Christmas Day.

One year the in laws bought a hideous electronic ride on Range Rover which is nearly as big as an actual car. It lived at their house for awhile before mysteriously appearing here. The battery died and of course my ex thinks I should replace it.

And yet we feel compelled to keep these things because they were gifts. If I sound angry it's because I am 🤣

cadburyegg · 10/01/2024 21:59

Tare · 10/01/2024 21:40

An ant farm complete with live ants. My daughter was given it for Christmas and the fuckers keep escaping!

Fucking hell, I think I'd move out

Crooklodge · 10/01/2024 22:00

My mum got dd theatre tickets for Christmas. Lovely gift... Except it's for a Thursday night in the city, there's no way back from the city at that time of night except £80+ taxi, not been able to drive for 3 years due to health reasons. Hotels are about the same. Dd is an absolute dinosaur when tired so Friday will be fun either way.

The shows tomorrow, two weeks after christmas, just what we needed.

My mother, God fecking love her. She loves us all dearly but by fuck is she daft.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 10/01/2024 22:01

@Lastrites, my Gds would adore that farting teddy! I’ll now have to Google it for his birthday.

thecatsthecats · 10/01/2024 22:02

MIL asks for ideas. I say vouchers for a specific spa near us with a masseuse we rate, especially for husband to go a few times. This is well within her usual budget.

Gets enough for 1.25 massages and five or six random bits of crap that he specifically asked not to get - new wallet, fleece etc, because we have more than enough stuff. But apparently he couldn't have what he wanted, it had to include £75 worth of shit to unwrap.

TheChosenTwo · 10/01/2024 22:03

Definitely those gift experience vouchers. Just awful and I don’t bother using them.

cadburyegg · 10/01/2024 22:07

Oh my ds2 got bought a cardboard model kit shark once. Had about 500 pieces. That was about 2 years ago and I think I've finally chucked out all the bits.

Ilovelblue · 10/01/2024 22:14

This wasn't for me but was a shared gift for a friend of mine, to be taken with her brothers, their girlfriends and a nephew and was an Escape Room experience - my friend is claustrophobic!

Outthedoor24 · 10/01/2024 22:19

Experience vouchers worse has to be DHs tank driving - he has no interest in tanks - the Experience lasted 15mins safety chat and 15 mins driving - 1.5 hours there and the same back again.

I'm sure MIL bought it so we'd be forced into letting her baby sit.
She also bought me a beauty voucher for a tiny beauty place - she wasn't impressed when I did it with my pal on a Saturday leaving lo with DH

Goldbar · 10/01/2024 22:36

A make-your-own candle set. I like nice candles, it's true, but...