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.

A video (it was a long time ago!) for PiLs which was given back with a demand for a different film "which we actually want".

@Stinkyslippers

I’m going back a few years now but when I was about 8 I spotted an ornament I loved in a shop and thought it would be lovely for my mums birthday

I save up for weeks to buy it (I got £1 a week and I think it was about a tenner)

I proudly bought it,got it home and wrapped it up

The big day rolls round and she unwraps it

She make a huge fuss about how ‘fucking awful’ it was was and ‘you have such shit taste’ (my golden child brothers gifts where always loved)

It went straight to the charity shop-I’m talking within a few hours

(She never got any better with gifts I bought her over the years-best thing I did was to go nc-the charity shop has taken the hit from me not buying her anything)

Worst bit is that there is a vintage charity shop where I live and the rotten ornament seems to always be there,sat on the shelf mocking me

Still stings

exactly same dynamic with my 'D'M. Still same 50 yes later, though I no longer have to engage with her behaviour

Not Christmas, MIL’s 60th just recently. She always admires my very amateur crafting and chats about it, and her best friend is crafty too. She was getting a she shed for her birthday in the garden, so I bought her loads of craft bits for various hobbies. She’s not touched a single one of them, and when I asked if she wanted a big thing or some smaller ones for Christmas she practically shouted ‘oh a big thing!’

The boy next door who used to come and play with my DC told me he had really got into painting by numbers. So for Christmas I ordered him a Mona Lisa painting by numbers. When it arrived on about 23rd December, it was not a box with paints and a hard canvas like I expected but instead must have been printed on material and was a package the size of a 50p. I was horrified at how crap a present my brilliant idea was so I had to rush out and get him a couple more bits. I also apologised when handing it over.

@jocktamsonsbairn - my DC's dad took our 2 to Poundland to get me some Christmas presents last year. I think they had a lot of fun picking things and got me some decent things - a few funny things too!

My brother lives hundreds of miles away, when his children were little I delighted in sending noisy toys to them.

BettyOBarley* you've just made me cry with laughter with sanitary towel. I get it though, they were wrapped up and there were paper bags to put used ones in the loos. I used to steal them and out sweets in them, I could never understand why my mum threw them away immediately. I thought to bags were cute.

My grandmother used to have a book that my grandfather was mentioned in. She went on and on about how it had been borrowed and lost and she wished she had it back. For her birthday one year, I managed to track one down (it wasn't easy!) and get a hold of it. Her birthday is a few days before mine and it arrived on my birthday, so I excitedly wrapped it and took it straight round. She opened it and looked confused, she already had a copy, why would she need another? I was gutted, and I wished she'd have offered me the book instead, but now she has two copies and I just had disappointment!

@Mxflamingnoravera

BettyOBarley* you've just made me cry with laughter with sanitary towel. I get it though, they were wrapped up and there were paper bags to put used ones in the loos. I used to steal them and out sweets in them, I could never understand why my mum threw them away immediately. I thought to bags were cute.

When I was little I would steal tampons and pretend they were toy mice and take them them on little adventures.

My mam would get annoyed (surely because they would be missing when she needed them) and my dad still calls them Little Micey's now.

I bought DH a book on bar codes.

In my defence he’d been reading the book in Waterstones before saying the immortal line… “you know, bar codes are really interesting.”

In infant school I decided to give the dinner ladies a present. So I made one card for all of them to share and included their joint gift - one and a half pence! It was a fortune to me! They laughed, but kindly, and thanked me.

I pride myself on I pride myself on buying great presents but I sometimes get it very, very wrong. I bought my daughter a huge gift box of a fragrance I thought she loved and slowly realised that they sat unused in her room for months. Eventually I urged her to sell it on eBay the next Christmas and she got more than I paid for it. Another year I bought her a heated electric throw which I thought she'd love but she actually cried with disappointment when, having saved it for her last present to be opened, she hated it. I bought it from her on the spot and I still use it but she would rather sit and go blue with cold than snuggle under it with me.

@VitalsStable

I bought DD a car cleaning kit to give to XH the week after I got the car in the settlement. He was an abusive arsehole and after years of abuse me having the car which he was still paying off was karma.

Why would you do that to your child?

@ABCeasyasdohrayme

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 😂😂

How odd.

I didn’t end up buying it because I was only about 8 or so, but I ALMOST bought my mum a knife for Christmas one year. She was a single parent and didn’t have any sharp knives (which my grandparents complained about a lot), and I thought a small knife hanging off the Christmas tree with a bow tied to it would have been the perfect present.

”Why on earth did Dotty give me a charity shop book.”

Oh how disappointing, when you’d tracked it down so carefully! It was a brilliant present. You are appreciated here, at least.

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

A friend was scared of caterpillars, but had just done a work course which included identifying caterpillars - she'd done it and passed the course so I bought her a big caterpillar (about 12", on a stick to put in a plant pot) to celebrate. The look on her face as she opened it pretty much confirmed that it was quite a serious phobia and much more than a dislike - oops! I still have it somewhere in the loft.

A gradient puzzle for my husband. He is colour blind… somehow I totally forgot about this. His face when he opened it…

@Practicebeingpatient

I pride myself on I pride myself on buying great presents but I sometimes get it very, very wrong. I bought my daughter a huge gift box of a fragrance I thought she loved and slowly realised that they sat unused in her room for months. Eventually I urged her to sell it on eBay the next Christmas and she got more than I paid for it. Another year I bought her a heated electric throw which I thought she'd love but she actually cried with disappointment when, having saved it for her last present to be opened, she hated it. I bought it from her on the spot and I still use it but she would rather sit and go blue with cold than snuggle under it with me.

Why did she cry?!

I bought my 12 yo ds a pencil case and a calculator (early September birthday), he's 20 now and always cites this as the worst gift he's ever had, if I ask him what he wants he always says "not a pencil case, that's for sure!). Ha ha!

I had a secret santa at work, I think it had a £10 limit and the present had to begin with the same letter as the person's name.

Mine was B, and I landed one make-up brushes. I ordered some from Groupon which were actually worth way more and I thought looked really nice, but they turned up just in individual plastic casing, no box etc.

I saw the girl open them and she literally looked at them as if she'd unwrapped an actual dog shit 😂 I don't know why, and luckily I didn't really know her and she never knew it was from me, but I was mortified at the time. Tbh I wished I had just kept them for myself, they were good brushes!

I bought my sister a hamster. She was moving into her own flat and mentioned once that she wasn't allowed any pets except fish and hamster in the lease

I took this information and thought it would be a brilliant moving in present.

2 year later and the bastard thing is still happily living with me after my sister declined my gift.

@itsacat

A gradient puzzle for my husband. He is colour blind… somehow I totally forgot about this. His face when he opened it…

Oh this is utterly brilliant.

How odd.

That was the point of the story it was a weird thing for me to do.