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Original poster

What is the worst Christmas present you ever received?

853 replies

Newdad19 · 12/11/2021 18:08

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 Blush

OP posts:
SingingSands · 14/11/2021 14:26

Some Clarins samples and a box of chocolates, without the cellophane wrapping and which upon opening, had two missing.

Thank you MIL.

I must have done something bad that year. However I was very gracious and thanked her very much for my lovely toiletries and offered the chocolates around to share.

Shannith · 14/11/2021 14:39

@gulliblestravels

I am considerably older than my husband. Every Christmas his parents bought me wrinkle cream. Eventually our kids got old enough to crack on and one year piped up that it wasn’t a very nice present to give as their mummy didn’t have wrinkles. Next Christmas they bought me a magnifying mirror Grin
That is... fabulous. I mean evil but you have to admit they have superb passive aggressive style.

I'd have laughed - I hope you did.

Harmonypuss · 14/11/2021 14:44

@jellybeans4

He knew that plants were a totally unsuitable gift but still bought them, so I immediately 'gifted' them back to him and he also knew I had no need for a watch (especially something that not even my granny would wear) so he got to keep that too.
Whenever I bought him gifts they were thoughtful items he'd expressed a desire for but couldn't afford to buy for himself at the time, especially after the one time when I bought him an incorrect/unwanted gift. On that one occasion I learnt never to get it wrong again because I knew that if I'd got it wrong he wouldn't have just put a gift down and ignored it, he'd have thrown it across the room barely missing someone's head (mine or the kids and smashed it, the way he did that one and only time I got it wrong.
Leaving him was the right thing for me and my kids, not him, he spent 3yrs begging me to go back, but I couldn't put up with his pathetic ways any longer and we're better off without him, I should have done it a lot sooner for our mental wellbeing.

YanTanTetheraPetheraPimp · 14/11/2021 14:47

MIL gave me a facecloth and used bar of coal tar soap for two consecutive Christmas’. I told DH in plain English what I would do with them if she did it a third time.
DSIL gave my DS when he was 5 a coat hanger. Nothing else. Just a wrapped plastic coat hanger, nothing fancy, plain black plastic.
Weird family.

backtolifebacktoreality · 14/11/2021 15:04

Back in the late 70s my boyfriend's mum, who did not like me, gave me a
bottle of perfume called .... "Tramp"!!!

NoPaintedPony · 14/11/2021 15:14

It has to be the first Christmas after my husband died. My mum always bought me a family calendar. Having 2 kids, was genuinely helpful.
That year she got me a normal calendar as according to her, I didn’t have a family anymore!

Hen2018 · 14/11/2021 15:15

The last Christmas before I left the ex husband, he bought me a bottle of cheap shampoo.

My parents’ presents can be interesting. I haven’t had a birthday present yet this year (summer birthday). One year they bought a sports club membership for my brother and for one of my children. My brother is very much the golden child....

Let’s pretend it was tennis membership and it was a sport that my brother is actually v good at and chairman of a local club. My son is disabled and has no interest in this sport at all.

My mum kept going on about “keeping us all the same” so I knew immediately that she hadn’t. She told my son that he had the same membership as my brother and we were “all equal”.

Of course, when we got home my son went online and my brother’s membership was £185 and his (completely unusable) was child’s membership at £25! It is incredibly rare that my son cries, but he did that day.

Tomasinabombadil · 14/11/2021 15:23

@SpookyScarySkeletons

Oh and I once started at a new company at the start of November. Apparently they had already drawn for SS. It was fun fucking miserable on the last day sat at my desk while they all opened their lovely presents.

How horrid for you.😢

One place I worked we also had drawn the SS names and then had a new person (I think she was a temp) start 2-3weeks before Christmas, however she didn’t go without, the dept manager bought a gift so the newbie didn’t miss out on the last working day. 🙂

Sundancerintherain · 14/11/2021 15:24

ExP. Nothing at all for Xmas .......but apparently it was ok because he had lent his bestie my Christmas present money so bestie could go to the Xmas piss up.
My next Birthday after this he borrowed £50 off my brother to buy my present. Got me a family sized bar of Dairy Milk then used the rest to go to the match ON MY BIRTHDAY.

28 years on it still rankles.

Juniper68 · 14/11/2021 15:24

@Hen2018

The last Christmas before I left the ex husband, he bought me a bottle of cheap shampoo.

My parents’ presents can be interesting. I haven’t had a birthday present yet this year (summer birthday). One year they bought a sports club membership for my brother and for one of my children. My brother is very much the golden child....

Let’s pretend it was tennis membership and it was a sport that my brother is actually v good at and chairman of a local club. My son is disabled and has no interest in this sport at all.

My mum kept going on about “keeping us all the same” so I knew immediately that she hadn’t. She told my son that he had the same membership as my brother and we were “all equal”.

Of course, when we got home my son went online and my brother’s membership was £185 and his (completely unusable) was child’s membership at £25! It is incredibly rare that my son cries, but he did that day.

Sorry but I'd have to go NC Angry
Anjunna · 14/11/2021 15:25

My Dd received a cream shirt with green shamrocks all over from my Mil. Never seen anything like it, went straight to the charity store.

HideousKinky · 14/11/2021 15:57

@backtolifebacktoreality

Back in the late 70s my boyfriend's mum, who did not like me, gave me a bottle of perfume called .... "Tramp"!!!
backtolifebacktoreality This has reminded me of a horrible Christmas in the 70s I spent at a vicarage with the stern parents of my then boyfriend. I didn't see much of the vicar himself but his mother spent the entire time looking at me with disapproval. Christmas morning arrived and her present to me was the fugliest petticoat you have ever seen suitable for a granny to my eyes (I was 20). The message was clearly "Wear this and stop corrupting my son, you Jezebel"
lentilsforever · 14/11/2021 16:29

@Anjunna

My Dd received a cream shirt with green shamrocks all over from my Mil. Never seen anything like it, went straight to the charity store.
Totally would have kept this for an p secure fancy dress outfit!
lentilsforever · 14/11/2021 16:30

Obscure

lentilsforever · 14/11/2021 16:30

@HideousKinky

Impressive they allowed to stay over pre marriage in a vicarage in the seventies!

Mamaneedsgin · 14/11/2021 16:33

A book of penis puppetry. Like how to turn a scrotum into a yacht and a willy into a windmill 😂

It was a secret Santa gift from a very prim and proper colleague!

Shannith · 14/11/2021 16:44

I think I might win for the most passive aggressive gift. Given by me to ex DH.

We had a cat - he's not an animal lover (what was I thinking?) but it was his idea - I was so controlled by him I'd never have suggested it. When we split I did take it with me but the poor thing got utterly beaten up by my neighbours cat so it had to go back to him.

He hates the cat and considers it a milestone. DD (we have 50/50 custody) loves it.

We are actually amicable now we don't have to live together but...

I swear it was DD's idea. Honest. He did a lot of jigsaws in lockdown. So I got him a personalised 1,000 piece jigsaw.

Can you see where I'm going here?

It was a photo of the cat. A close up of its face.

It's a black cat. In the picture I chose its eyes were closed.

To give him his due he did laugh and actually complete it. He even sent me a picture. The following March.

ifIwerenotanandroid · 14/11/2021 16:49

@ChequeredHistory

A waterproof case cover for the violin I rarely played indoors and which never left the house.
Was it a hint that they'd like you to play it elsewhere? Grin
lentilsforever · 14/11/2021 16:53

@NoPaintedPony

It has to be the first Christmas after my husband died. My mum always bought me a family calendar. Having 2 kids, was genuinely helpful. That year she got me a normal calendar as according to her, I didn’t have a family anymore!
Are you actually being serious?
DottyHarmer · 14/11/2021 16:58

@NoPaintedPony - oh, that’s so awful. Similarly dsis bought dm the year she was widowed one of those teapots come teacups for one.

A friend was widowed and at the funeral her sil asked if she could have her king size bed as she wouldn’t be needing it now….

ifIwerenotanandroid · 14/11/2021 17:00

@HideousKinky I think we went out with the same 1970s vicar's son! I only stayed at the vicarage for a couple of days, during which his disapproving mother told me how much she liked his previous girlfriend & after chatting to me for a whole minute asked about my brother with a sigh, saying, "I suppose HE might be interesting" - !! Unsurprisingly, that relationship didn't last until Christmas, so I never got a present off her. Sour old bag.

Violinist64 · 14/11/2021 17:01

@bubbleblower85 thank you. Fortunately, despite my incredulity, the manager of the local hospice shop accepted it, saying that someone would definitely buy the hideous dress. Another friend happened to be in the shop at the same time and said: “that dress is for you and who else?” The friend who gave it to me is over twenty years older than me and has a lot of problems so I try not to take things too much to heart.

My birthday is just before Christmas so DH has a double whammy. After a few “surprises” in the early years of our marriage l have found the best tactic is to be explicit in what l would like. Sometimes I buy something l would like and get him to pay for it such as a new metronome a few years ago. At other times, such as this year, we were travelling home from our holiday in Devon, which is the other end of the country from where we live, and stopped off at the shopping outlet at Street in Somerset. There is a Radley shop there and I made a strong suggestion that he might choose my Christmas or birthday present from there while l looked elsewhere.
My grandma, many years ago, takes the prize for the worst Christmas present in our family. Grandpa proudly presented her with…. a new chip pan! It took all her self control not to brain him with the thing.

Violinist64 · 14/11/2021 17:04

@LindaEllen

My auntie used to buy me earrings every year from when I was very young, despite my dad telling her I didn't have my ears pierced (I only got them done when I was 18).

She'd apologise, say she was 'mortified', and then do the same thing the year after.

At least you had plenty of pairs of earrings to choose from once you had your ears pierced!
nosuchluck25 · 14/11/2021 17:05

A large plastic plug in snowman off my ex inlaws. When we split I made my ex take it with him!

petridishmystery · 14/11/2021 17:18

I’ve generally been pretty lucky with presents, I haven’t always liked everything I’ve been given but that’s just bad luck rather than there not being any effort put in.

I would have said my worst present was a cardigan my mum got me, as one of the arms was randomly really stretched out so not wearable - except a few months later I broke my arm in two places and it was the same arm that was stretched out in the cardigan, so I was able to wear it. Such a weird coincidence!