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?

Flowers - we have to find a place where the cat can’t get to them. And if any of the flowers are poisonous to cats, the flowers have to go outside the house (cat is an indoor cat).

MIL got us this inflatable pool that was huge - seriously, I’d say the bottom was five feet by twelve feet. So we had to clean leaves out of the water, change the water, and move it around so the grass underneath wouldn’t die. It lasted four days and then I told the kids we were done with it.

Anything that has to be dry-cleaned. I don’t need another errand to run.

Gosh I feel bad as I've bought some things like this and given them...mostly the kid gifts....the dinosaur fossil one because had been gifted it once and we liked it. We had the same exact slime things at Christmas and spent a whole afternoon on them which was great because we used it up in one go.

Agree with the Stem solar powered toys....everyone single one we have been bought has been crap and not worked! We sent one back 3 times and each replacement still didn't work
!

I'll take biscuits as hostess gifts now rather than flowers or plants I think 🤔 😅 🤦‍♀️🫠

Real food for thought here x

Yes this! Husbands grandma always gets us this and we have never been able to use it. You usually have to buy another night to get the free one. So what's the point? One place we tried to use it had no idea they were even in the book.

When my dad died, my mum was 88 and living on her own for the first time in her life. My youngest sister thought it would be a good idea to buy her 2 budgies and cage to keep her company, as she remember mum had a budgie 50 years earlier. The reason why she had not had a budgie since didn't occur to DS. Anyway, they drove mum crackers with their squarking and shitting, I forgot to mention, mum had a hip op a few year earlier that went wrong and left her with a leg that was painful and didn't work, so getting up and down was a real struggle. Anyway, after a few weeks she managed to find a friend to take the budgies off her, and peace returned to the house. My DS has a habit of storming in buying stuff that is unnecessary and not wanted. She bought my dad a new cd player cos the old one had broken. It hadn't, she just didn't know how to work it. She bought mum a wall mounted cd player and some taking books on cd to keep her occupied. Sounds a goid idea, but it was a few years too late. By this stage, mum was incapable of folllowing a 30 minute drama on tv, so following an 8 hour talking book was way beyond what she was capable of. The cd played was mounted on the wall where it remained untouched till the day she died, and we then had to patch p the holes in the wall to avoid having money deducted from mums landlord. Her heart's in the right place and she is well meaning but, i suppose being younger, the reality of mums situation was harder for her to accept.

A family member who has a history of fat shaming others gave my 6 year old a fitbit and said things at the time about how important it is to combat child obesity. For context, my DS was under a paediatric dietician at the time as he was severely underweight due to ASD-related sensory issues around food and we were on a supervised programme of trying to get him to gain weight. Which she knew. She also knew that we did not have any sort of kit required to make it work at that time (we were always being laughed at for our ancient Luddite phones that could not connect to the internet for example). It was kind of baffling. I've tried to work out if it is clueless, or thoughtless, or pointed or just a bit odd.

I am not that great at gifts for other peoples kids though. After a few misses I ask for a list or just give money. It delights me when someone says to me; 'Thanks for the money, i spent it on x' as I know they got something they wanted.

You're right. I should definitely have taken the kids to Tesco, silly me.

A hearty FUCK YOU to my friend who gave my sons a slime kit and opened it for them to immediately do it, in their nice clothes and in my clean house.

Similarly people who gift me restaurant vouchers for restaurants on the other side of town or in the middle of the city when I have small children including a EBF newborn baby.

I end up blowing more than the voucher on a babysitter, have a stressful night managing a grumpy baby in public, and come home to kids who haven't slept enough.

All of those craft kits for small kids who can’t read instructions or have the dexterity to actually do the crafts - friendship bracelets, hair braids, slime etc. Just means the parents end up doing them with a militant, inpatient small person looming over them, or loads of mess and chaos if the kid tries to do it themselves!

Anything involving zillions of beads. 😫

Yes, you are still being ridiculous. You could take the kids anywhere you like for £50 and then use the note your mother gave you when you next went to the supermarket.

You’re being very rude and condescending for no discernible reason. It’s a lighthearted thread where people are mildly complaining about presents that annoy them, which is up to them to decide, not you.

A friend who should know better got me fancy moisturisers and cleansers for Christmas. The day after I used them for the first time I was covered in rosacea. She knows which brand I use (not a cheap one) so why she got me a different premium brand I don’t know.

Transformer. DD desperately wanted one and was finally given one. She has never been able to transform it and I can only achieve it after ten minutes and a lot of swearing. If the future of the world depends on that car's ability to change into a robot at all, let alone at speed, we're all doomed.

A marble run for a four year old with autism that suffered from meltdowns and pica, while I also had a crawling 10 month old in the house with a passion for consuming whatever she could find on the floor.

ExMIL...in my sleep deprived state,I did wonder if she was trying to assassinate my children....

And a toy drumkit,but like a proper one that needed screwing together.

Why don't you all just say no presents? It's so much better! Kids get cash or vouchers of something they like. We get nothing. We have saved our family so much money and time and saved the environment. One of my sister's wants presents still so we have agreed to talk about what sort of things and stuck to that (food!).

Oh, and scented candles. I know lots of people love them. They smell lovely before they're lit. Once they're lit they make me feel sick. Ditto incense, room diffusers, those water things etc. it's a shame as I would love to have a lightly scented house but I cannot sit in a room with those things.

People dropping by WITH the present

😂

This isn’t something I’ve received but DM and me got this in a shop recently. It’s a mini dinosaur sort of roller coaster where 3 of them go round and round the track accompanied by flashing lights and music. We played it a few times for DNephew (5) who loved it! They were selling more types.

I also got DNephew a Malandadorian figure with a sword that was the size of a bloody small needle, came off packaging when opened and vanished under sofa. None of us could find it but DNephew wanted it back…

My kids have zero interest in cash or vouchers and requesting them would do the opposite of saving people money.

The experience family photo shoot in a box when those big white canvases barefoot type action photo were all the rage .
Sounded fab ! Cue Lovely studio in a naice nearby local town - we would get a free framed print and the option to buy any other photos . Red flags showed up with my dh when he was asked to give credit card details to secure the booking but. I was insistent it was ok.
Day of photoshoot went well - ds1 ( 6months ) was the first PFB and we just asked for shots of him. Photographer super complimentary “so cute etc , he could model “ I was so proud I could have burst ( remember he was PFB )

Followed by day out in naice town , lunch in cafe rouge ( height of sophistication ) mooch round yummy mummy expensive shops . DH grumpily getting his wallet out each time !

We return two weeks later for “choosing appointment” which had been booked with the credit card . Ushered in to a room with a presentation complete with champers ! All photos of DS1 stunning and probably photoshopped a little to make them pop . Impossible to choose the “ free print” but no worries … the killer- you can have all these options - fancy frames etc starting at 1k ! And we can offer you payment plans etc … total stealth hard sell for 30 mins . DH refused point blank to salesman - I cried all the way home at the loss of never having the other photos at his meanness ! 😂
The one we got was cute but in the cheapest pound shot frame and literally a print - not even the digital copy !!!! Grrrrrrr

Thanks well meaning relative !

This reminds me of the thread where someone's MIL booked them 3 nights in an Air BnB, two streets from their house, midweek, during school term. So basically normal life with the inconvenience of packing your stuff.

Yes! I do my best to avoid having people touch me, let alone with a bunch of oils that make me feel like I'm going to slide off the car seat when I brake hard going home.

The last one was a head massage which triggered a migraine.

Those jewellery making kits that have instructions that are impossible to follow. DD always got loads of those when she was younger 😫