Worst present YOU’VE bought for someone…

[DottyHarmer]

… when you thought you’d got it really right.

I was remembering when mil had mentioned a book she’d enjoyed at school, and for Christmas I tracked down a first edition and presented it proudly to her. The reaction was… silence. I garbled about how she had talked about it fondly. Shortly afterwards I overheard her loudly whispering to fil, “Why on earth did Dotty give me a charity shop book.” Pah.

Years ago I bought my friend a small pottery fish from a vair expensive art gallery, I could only afford a small item. It looked a bit like a tiny bud vase but a label said it was a toothbrush holder. I was worried she wouldn't know what it was for so bought a funky glittery toothbrush to go in it. She was so upset and thought I was implying she had bad breath. I don't know what I was thinking. But we are still friends.

A gorgeous green wrap, my daughter daughter-in-law said it was gorgeous but she'd never use it. She gave it back so I could use it.

I got my Tory loving ex-boyfriend (our political views did not align) a Maggie Thatcher nut cracker thinking he’d find it hilarious….he did not! Oops!

About six years ago I bought DH a telescope for Christmas. It was a nice one and cost quite a lot. I had visions of him outside with DC stargazing and having fun. He just looked at me quizzically. Six years later it is in the corner of my DS's room, unused with the tags still on gathering dust. Turns out DH and DC have no interest in stargazing.

Not me, but I was present as it was unwrapped in front of the whole family.

Uncle and auntie were late 60's; living separate lives under same roof because he was an alcoholic and having an affair with much younger woman. We're all sitting round the fire on Xmas day unwrapping etc and Aunt unwraps her gift from Uncle. Fortunately she doesn't recognise what it is; the entire younger generation does and can't speak; Uncle closes his eyes and wants to fall through the floor and I realise, he's drunkenly got his gifts mixed up. Right now, wherever she is, his mistress is probably unwrapping a scarf or pair of gloves meant for Aunt . My cousin regains her wits first and tells her mother "It's a massage thingy for arthritis".

     It was a vibrator.

I bought DIL a cute salt pig and some exotic sea salt when we were in France.

I would have loved to receive that, but it went down like a lead balloon.

Especially as she was given the salt package to open first.

I felt awful.

A ‘how to give up smoking’ book.

In fairness this person had gone on & on about wanting to give up but didn’t know how to go about it. I did buy other stuff to give them too but their expression told me exactly what they thought of the book.

I bought son's girlfriend a bottle of Baileys. It was his previous girlfriend who liked Baileys. I suddenly realised as I handed it to her.

Bought DH a book about grebes once. At the time we’d only been dating a few months, but it makes us laugh looking back at it.

@Hairwizard

That makes me sad reading posts where your younger child self saved up and tried hard to get something thoughtful only to be shamed and made to feel bad.

I was actually thinking of taking my older 2 to shops and letting them choose something for dp for the craic. I just know they will be so excited to pick something for daddy.

I always let my schedule loose in the £1 ship when they were wee and could choose anything they liked for people!! Hilarious results and they were do chuffed with themselves every year!

In my first job, I was only 18. In my first ever secret Santa I had to buy for a woman in the team who I barely knew. She was in her 50s, set budget was £5, I had no idea what to get her, genuinely didn't know what women that age were in to ( I lived a sheltered life!).
Ended up going to Lakeland at the last minute and for some reason thought that a pair of oven mitts would be perfectly well received.

Everybody swapped presents at the Xmas team meeting, when she opened hers, her face was like "wtf" and she said out loud "which weirdo would buy their colleague oven mitts?". She was fuming and started going on about how she'd made loads of effort on her secret Santa gift and that she was pissed off that hers was treated as a joke.

Everyone sympathy laughed, I just laughed along and hoped that the boss's PA who organised who bought for who didn't sell me out by telling her!

Never been told I’ve bought anyone a rubbish present but I suppose my family and friends aren’t mean an ungrateful like most of the comments I’ve seen!

Probably toiletries gift sets 3 for 2 from boots lol I hate receiving toiletries etc but it’s the thing you buy when you don’t know what to get someone it’s so easy too lol

'My beardey beloved' beard care kit for DF who promptly went clean shaven

One year many years ago I gave my nieces the BBC Pride and Prejudice series (they're not in the UK) on DVD. It went down extremely well. So I thought I might give them another BBC DVD set the next year. I gave them Walking with Dinosaurs. I checked with DH first (they are his sister's children) and he thought it was a good idea. They opened it, my SIL gave a silent gasp and hid it under a cushion.

I asked DH about it when we got back to MIL's house where we were staying. He said, in a particularly patronising way, "Oh yes, that's because they are creationists." I completely lost my shit with him because the time to have fucking mentioned that was before I bought the fucking thing, or even before I wrapped it because I showed it to him then.

That was the last time I bought Christmas presents for his family, he had to do it himself. He said to me that the nieces and nephews much preferred the money that he gave them for Christmas as they could buy what they wanted, but when one of my nieces was an adult she said that they had really missed it when I stopped choosing the presents as it was always things that they couldn't get over there. I told her the story of the dinosaur DVD and she agreed that it was a good reason to stop buying for them.

When I was about 6 or 7 on a school trip I bought my mum a sanitary towel out of the machine in the public toilets with my spending money.

God knows what I thought it was, but my mum laughed about it for years afterwards. I think she might have even kept it 😂😂😂

I decided to give my then boyfriend tickets to a play, as he's hard to buy for but does like theatre. The play sounded like it might be funny, and it was but it was VERY dark humour and then descended into utter bleakness. At the end we just sort of sat there, a bit stunned.

A year later, by which time he was DH, I bought play tickets again, for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The description sounded like it might be a bit tough but uplifting with music. Immediately before the interval was a scene about witnessing lynching, and then the ending was a bit like a punch to the gut.

The year after I bought tickets to a musical.

A bag of compost... I got my granddad a window box/tray and seeds as he loved gardening and naturally thought he'd need something to plant them in. It was the biggest gift. He seemed so disappointed when he opened it!

Oh God, the dancing James Brown. It was a 3 foot tall dancing James Brown doll from The Gadget Shop. The recipient had just bought her first house, and for some reason I thought this was a hilarious gift. It was motion activated, and when someone walked by it would say "Whoa! I feel good!" and do a weird clicky dance. Lucy, if you are reading this, I'm so sorry.

Small similar to cross bow for a 9 year. Bit dangerous in retrospect, I did say need supervision. Sorry!

It was wooden from a craft fair and at the time I thought it looked “naice” (for a weapon)

This was someone else, not me, but the worst present I heard of was a friend of my mum's. She'd just passed her driving test and her husband sid he'd got her something special for Christmas and gave her the clue "it's got wheels". Obviously expecting a nice car, she was more than a little disappointed when she discovered it was..... one of those pull-along shopping bags on wheels

Once I was invited to a friend's 10th birthday and my mum got a present from her gift stash at the last minute - a scented candle and copy of the Shawshank Redemption 🤦‍♀️never heard the end of that one

I bought my boyfriend (a Londoner born and bred) a lovely white wool polo neck jumper for one of his Christmas presents. On opening it he looked horrified and said he couldn't possibly wear it as he would like a Hampstead heather. I had no idea what he was on about. It turned out that Hampstead Heath was well known as a place where gay men would cruise for sex and apparently a lot of them would wear white polo necks. I have no idea if they all really did wear them, but my boyfriend was adamant he would not be seen dead in such a garment, so back to the shop it went.

Not Christmas but exDH bought our 3 year old a drum kit as a present from his newly born sibling. Why I stayed with him for 10 years after that I will never be able to explain.

When I was 16 I worked in a kitchen. I had been there since September, so not long.

We did a secret santa, and my recipient was the cook, who was 70. She had a 'man companion', who I now realise was just a friend and they kept each other company.

My 16 year old self knew better and thought I would give her a little push in that department.

We all sat down to our Christmas meal in the posh hotel, all dressed up and looking pretty. Everyone else had their partners with them, and I was the youngest by about 20 years, so I didn't bother taking anyone as I was going clubbing afterwards.

We had a beautiful meal, I was directly opposite my recipient and her man friend.

As the gifts got passed out and opened I realised I had made the WORST mistake ever.

I got a lovely set of handkerchiefs, others got a nice bath set, a beautiful tie, a lovely cosy scarf... and then my recipient was next.

When I tell you time slowed down as the lovely cook opened her chocolate body paint and bullet vibrator in front of her man friend I mean those 5 seconds felt like a week.

The look on her face will haunt me until I die.

And that's the story of how I learned, very quickly, to read the room before I buy a work secret santa again 😂😂