What is the worst Christmas present you ever received?

[Newdad19]

In the spirit of helping others prevent the same mistakes... what is the worst Christmas present you ever received?

Mines has to be the sculpted hand photo frame I received one year... that looked like someone's decapitated hand that held a photo for you in its palm

A walnut whip.

Dog toys…

Not a cuddly stuffed dog. Actual toys meant for dogs.

I was also 26 at the time…

@CharlotteFlax

Fucking Dyson handheld vac. Shittest thing ever. Fifteens mins of sook, three hours to recharge. Didn't even want it!

I’d really like one of those!

Work secret santa- a very small jar with some grey powder in, labelled as 'Highly aphrodisiac' and claiming to contain oysters, animal horns etc. Quite apart from the fact that it was a weird present anyway, the purchaser knew I am vegetarian. I know some of them considered me to be a bit of a prude (not laughing at their sexist 'banter' and not hiding my distain for the men cheating on their wives with younger colleagues) so I suspect it was intended as a dig.

I have to buy extra long length trousers for them to fit me and had discussed this with (now) MIL. The first Christmas that I spent with her she proudly presented me with 2 pairs of trousers and some pyjamas. She had decided they would fit me because they were about 3 inches too long for her. Only she is 5ft 0 and I am over 5ft 10, so they were still far too short for me. She really meant well and I appreciated the thought but she insisted that I put a pair on for dinner. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I pretended to think that they were supposed to be cropped and spent the whole day wearing too short jeans.

My cousin gave DSis and I a pair of cheap, scratchy knickers each. They were identical and were probably bought off the market as a set. They were size 8. I was a size 20 and DSis was a 24. Cousin knew we were big women, of course. Our DH's each got a pair of shapeless grey socks that looked like dead rats. My DD, who was little, got a thin metal brooch that looked like it had come out of a slot machine at a funfair. DM got an ancient manicure set. The previous year, cousin had given her parents and her in-laws 2 tiny ash trays each, out of a set of 4 that she had won at bingo whilst on holiday. They weren't poor. They were better off than any of us.

DSis twice bought my DH a thong for Christmas. One was silver and sparkly. DH is a boxer shorts wearer. He didn't have a jokey relationship with my DSis and was very embarrassed each time that he opened the gifts.

My eldest DD's in-laws gave her and her DH a plastic donkey which dispensed cigarettes from its bottom. Neither of them are smokers. They were supposed to use it "when guests come round."

@Violinist64

My worst was a birthday present rather than a Christmas present. An older friend gave me a second hand dress that had been gifted to her with the words “it was too big for me so l thought it might fit you.” It was grey (a colour that makes me look as if l should be six feet under), of a style that has never been fashionable (think extra from Little House on the Prairie) and probably size 26-28. I was size 14 at the time, smaller than her.

I hope she's an ex friend as that's rude and nasty.

@Darlingx

Mine wasn’t a Christmas present but I had been looking for a mannequin for my clothing designs at an Antiques fair and I had spotted a silver new looking one for £30 but as I didn’t have a car at the time I didn’t buy it. My father surprised me by buying a mannequin and it was dropped to my mother’s by the son of what had previously been his mistress. It was a mannequin with drawn nipples on , no hands and a big hairy faux fur triangle merkin/ lady garden stuck between its legs . It had been customised so there was crusted glue all splattered down the inner thighs. Freaky was not the word. It was so ugly and my thoughts at the time were what had the mannequin been used for ??How could I possibly use these when its so ugly and with no hands. It had a used sex doll vibe ( shudder) it was bad ju ju and I made sure my uncle collected it and took it away immediately plus I wanted a family member ( father’s side) to see what he had given me. It could have been in the bargain section or it was ment to be offensive? My Sister got loo roll as a housewarming present from them which just seems bizarre unless she was running short and they knew in the future loo roll would become rare and precious 😂 I don’t get gifts from my father Thank Goodness as this was a long time ago but wins the worst present by miles in memory but nothing beats 3 dead rats!

The image of that mannequin is going to give me nightmares

My mum strongly objected when I moved in with my boyfriend.

The next Christmas she gave me a high-necked, long-sleeved, ankle-length, old lady-style winceyette nightdress.

I got a lot of craft things as a kid, and was very much not an art or craft type of person (still am not). Those bloody copper scraper pictures were the worst, I received one every year from one particular aunt, never did anything with any of them and even if I had I wouldn’t have known what to do with the result.

I got a box of extremely out of date non-brand chocolate bars once from a patient who ran a shop - had obviously done a stock take and decided to give them to me instead of binning them.

DH is usually a great present giver, but one year he bought me a Les Nereides ring which was way too small (made of wire so couldn’t be resized), and matching hairpin (I had really short hair at the time, far too short for an updo). Both were really ugly and not my style at all. I can only assume it was a panic purchase. Doubly annoying because he’d obviously spent a fair amount of money on something completely unusable.

I was 17. The yer before someone gave me a bottle of Charlie perfume which I disliked so I left it in the family bathroom untouched. My mum assumed it was in there because I used it every day so told family members that was my favourite and all I got that Christmas was several gift packs of the perfume I disliked too much to use.

Ok, so most people would be disappointed with this one but not me, I was about 9/10 and my parents gave me a small red Bambi Stapler. I absolutely loved it and still use it 55 years later!

1. Box of saucepans from DH as a ‘surprise’.

1. Free shower sponge thing and sachet of shower gel from a secret Santa, I’d bought win so was v annoyed!

A shower cap. From poundland. From my mum. I was a teenager. It wasn't my only gift, with it was some packs of wet wipes.

A mirror with a £2.49 price tag still left on,
From someone who had ‘told me’ that they wanted a very expensive perfume

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

Three dead rats that my dad found in a bin.

I know it sounds bad... basically the science department in his school were having a clear out, and he found them (foetuses in various stages of development, encased in perspex), brought then home and wrapped then for me 'because I liked science'. I was doing a physics degree....

God this made me laugh, made up for the insomnia

Pensioner clothing from my mum every year. Every year she says I won't buy you clothes this year, I'll just give you the money. She then buys us more pensioner clothes. They all get donated to Age Concern.

Many years ago, not long after I'd bought my house and had the conservatory added (for my pedigree house cats to play in), my bf bought me loads of plants to put in the conservatory. This might have been a nice idea if the cats weren't going to be allowed in there but I'd told him why I'd had it built, then he bought these plants (none of which I would have chosen myself plus one would actually have been lethal to the cats). I was actually at his house for Xmas, so he'd given these to me there, I was deliberately in a really bad mood for 2 days and intentionally left the plants there when I left. He called me the following day telling me I'd forgotten to take them with me and I said I'd not forgotten anything, I'd left them there because they were a rubbish gift.
The following xmas he bought me a very expensive but vile watch (I already had at least 8 watches),I opened it, looked at it, closed the box and left it on his display cabinet and that's where it sat for several years. He found it after about 7yrs and asked me why I'd never had it out of the box and I told him it was ugly, it had a stretchy wristband (old lady style - I was only 30 when he bought it).
Soon after this I have up on his shirt gifts, left him and started buying myself gifts I liked/wanted instead.

@Harlequin1088

My Mum has this awful habit of doing her Christmas shopping in whatever shop she happens to find herself in on Christmas Eve.

One year, it was Halfords. On Christmas morning, I opened an ice scraper, a car air freshener, and an AA Road Map of Great Britain.

I was 14.

Sorry, but at 5:30 this morning I lol at this.

It’s not funny though is it. Sounds like the sort of thing MIL would buy for a teenager several years too young for a licence, and if questioned would just shrug and say “oh well, you know me, I forgot” - no Margaret, you just CBA as usual.

From my MIL, a used shower puff. It stank and was 'wrapped' in used wrapping paper that barely covered it, so I could see what it was as she handed it over. I thanked her for it (as I was never going to descend to her 'tantrum throwing level.')

Second worst (also from her), everyone else got boxes of beautifully wrapped Thorntons chocolates. She got me a bag of unwrapped maltesers (they were family size, so I suppose I'll give her some credit for that!)

Masks are mandated in Wales and most people where I am in South Wales are still wearing them.

Oops wrong thread!

A car boot organiser from my Mum. She got me some other presents too and said to me as I was opening it, “I don’t know why I thought buying you that was a good idea”. We had a good laugh about it.

A hideous nightie from a relative. It was a white sleeveless affair. Just truly awful. I really don't know who would wear something like that. It wasn't sexy in anyway, but it wasn't functional either - not even a warm flanelette nightie like my Mam had in her late 60s.
Also don't know why the relative thought it appropriate to buy nightwear like that.A nightie??? Yuk. Cosy pyjamas might have been ok, but not that.

I used to nanny when younger and for my birthday they got me a book along the lines of "nannying for dummies" ( I already had very high references and qualified, plus extensive training lol) let's just say I didn't last long there lol

A hardback set of classic children’s stories. I read a lot and this person used to always buy me book vouchers which I loved but one year bought me these. I don’t read and have never read that type of story. I was gutted.

From my Nan…a training bra for 10-11 year olds when I’ve already developed breasts and was 16