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 would love to see a photo of this.

I'm sorry, but I'm roaring. Have you thought of doing some stand up? (Serious.)

For some reason known only to herself, MIL gave DH 10 portions of fresh fish for his birthday during covid. She rang me up the day before it was delivered to tell me that I needed to stay in on my day off to take delivery of it so that it wouldn't go off in the hot weather, and that because it was fresh I would want to cook it for him for his birthday supper rather than them coming to babysit while we went out (we had been trapped at home with small child all lockdown and were REALLY looking forward to getting out.) Obviously it's hard to eat 10 portions of fresh fish before it goes off, so we then had it rammed in our tiny freezer for ages, and guess who does the cooking in our household, YES, ME, and obviously it couldn't just be a basic shove-a-packet-sauce-on-it meal because this was special birthday fish. OMFG it still makes my blood boil.

MIL also turned up one time with flowers... no, not pretty ones, courgette flowers which she somehow expected I would transform into a wonderful meal that I had researched, shopped for and made - when I was on my knees with a non-sleeping 5 month old. Arrrrrrrrgh. I ended up just refusing them.

Your MIL is batshit.

I can't even picture this !

The ball pit! Bloody things all over the place.

OMG. who ever invented this? And why? Had your 5 yr old expressed an intetest in smooth rocks? This sounds like the very worst present ever.

expressed an interest in smooth rocks I'm crying 🤣🤣🤣 but I've got a terrible cough so I fear I may lose a lung.

When I left a job the staff had a collection (the norm there) and gave me some kind of garden centre vouchers. I didn't have a garden 😁

My parents still talk about a 6ft cardboard rocket playhouse thing that they bought for us when my dsis and I were about 5 and 3 years old. They decided to put it together on Christmas Eve after we'd gone to be so ready as a surprise on Christmas Day morning. Apparently it was an absolute nightmare and they basically finished about 5 in the morning!!

My dsis and I are now 57 & 55 so the trauma has long lasted in the memory for my parents.

I think we probably played with it for all of one morning before we got bored.

🚀

Oh, I would kill for those!!!

I actually really hate being given plants. So annoying as then I have to spend a year watering them before they die. I want to see friends and family because I want to see them. I really don't want them to come and see me and to also get me a present especially if it's a nuisance.

My husband said what should I say to the people that brought him a present. I replied say thanks again for getting another present way out of age range haha

I live in Cardiff and my child got a voucher to a theatre show in Nottingham.
That wasn’t fun.

In fairness, we've got some, and I love it! Have to invest time heavily supervising/joining In though!

I was desperate for one of these when I was a kid! I was never allowed!

When DS was two months old my father's wife sent a pack of bibs I'd never use (fiddly tie-strings instead of Velcro fastenings, plus tacky prints on them) and underpaid postage by 1p so I had to drive an hour round-trip to the local sorting office, pay to park, then lug DS with me from the car to the sorting office and back having paid a £1 Post Office fine (plus the 1p shortfall) to retrieve my surprise parcel.😡

An all-day Christmas wreath workshop in Cumbria. I lived in Kent at the time.

Large second hand, old and broken play equipment that filled our entire garden. The “gift” basically made our garden unusable for 2 weeks while we worked out how to dispose of it. It was given on the basis I might want to fix it.

I had a newborn when PIL gave me a voucher for a craft shop so that I could
do some crafting whilst I was also seeing to my new baby. Apparently they had wanted to buy me a new iron, but DH steered them off the idea. I think I would have cried.

Nowadays they are fond of buying those craft kits for DC from places like The Works where they are wildly inappropriate for a young child. The last one was a jewellery making set, but you needed sharp tools like wire cutters.

Oh god. Now panicking about the ant farm DS got and really hoping I've not just shoved it in the cupboard without realising there are actual ants in the box 🤦🏼‍♀️

Flowers due to the faff.
Voucher for a hotel night away, for a hotel 5 minutes away. When we had a new born who I breastfed for 18 months and the voucher expired in 12 months.
Craft sets for a 12 year old, that are aimed at pre schoolers. So I end up 'buying them' off her to regift at a later date.

With the vouchers send the giver a message "what a lovely gift for DC! Please let me know when you want to take them to do 'Y experience'. Saturdays are usually good for them, or Wednesdays after school when I take their sibling to football training".

Or better still, rock up at their house with your child, said voucher and say it in person!

Ooh, do that and post it on Social Media - "burning all the self help books has really lifted my spirits"!