Well meant gifts that didn't hit the mark

[imnotthatkindofmum]

Here's a thread to post your disappointing gifts that you can't be disappointed with in real life! Let off a little steam without upsetting anyone!!

My lovely daughter bought me some novelty earrings. I never wear novelty earrings but she's so proud of them i have to wear them. She was so secured about me opening them but now I have to work out how little I can get away with wearing them so she doesn't realise I hate them!

Also DH only bought what was on my list. It was a cheap and simple list. I would have liked him to choose something he thought I would like. After 22 years not sure why I expect that though!

Not a gift for me, but a gift given to my 17 month old daughter by a well meaning relative, and i feel so ungrateful.
Its a beautiful designer dress, but by god i hate it. Its all floaty and boho style with puffy sleeves.
My daughter is a proper grotty wee tomboy too (just like her mummy) and i just cannot think of what kind of event i can even use it for shy of a birthday party

This reminds me of when I told my MIL I loved Ferrero Rochers- for the next 3 years it was nice to be given them every birthday/Christmas. But my husband also got me them each time, to the point where I started to go off them. I pretended to my MIL I still loved them years after that as I wanted to be polite!

My DH bought me a cheap watch from Argos. It was actually what I wanted, but he could have put some effort into presentation. He ‘wrapped’ it in a dirty old bit of much too small wrapping paper he found in the bottom of a cupboard, sealed with masking tape. It couldn’t have said ‘I don’t give a toss about you any more’ more clearly

I love Molton brown, and a couple of other brands.

but my family - parents and two siblings- have bought me it for Christmas and birthdays for years now. My bathrooms are stacked with bottles of shower gel, hand wash, soap. At least I do eventually use those, they just keep coming faster than I can use them. Worse is the bits you get in the gift sets like body or hand lotion which never get used.

I thought it was the one that I received from a friend, it’s a Clinique one so it looks like there’s lots of these perfumes out there 🤣 maybe I’ll get a different one next year.

You could donate those bits that you never use - the body or hand lotions- to a local charity shop or women's shelter
@Ohnonotmeagain

Oh I do. We also have a system at work where there’s a box for such stuff in the showers for communal use.

more of my Christmas/birthday gifts have gone to charity than I’ve kept! Going back 30 years. Make up, shower gels, even handbags.

I think you might have won this thread. 😂

My boyfriend got me lots of really lovely things, but the main present was an absolutely enormous canvas print he'd had made of a photograph of me on holiday. I am not the most photogenic of people and I hate seeing photos of myself. I can honestly say that it is one of the worst pictures of myself I've ever seen....weird overpriced nervous grin on my face as I hate having my picture taken, mental windswept hair, and my face is taking up almost the whole picture to the point of being terrifying. 😂 I honestly thought he had done it as a joke and I actually rolled around on the floor, laughing. He was really hurt as he said he thought it was romantic because my favourite view from the holiday we had is in the background of the picture. The trouble is that my head is so massive in the picture that you can barely see the view in the background. He was so hurt at my reaction and I felt terrible. Lesson learnt......watch giver's facial expression before reacting to present in any way, shape or form. Poker face from here on out!!!!

They might be popular but I don’t like them, put photos up and tell stories is fine

A hair wrap towel from MIL. I got 6 already in the Black Friday sale.

Still waiting for the present that’s ‘on its way’ from DH (joint for Christmas and my birthday >3 weeks ago; December birthday people will feel my pain.)

It had better be fucking good.

My family bought me noise cancelling headphones when I was in hospital last month, turned out to be very useful for helping me to sleep, couldn't hear the other patients and the rattling of machinery.

But your MIL wouldn't necessarily know that.

if it helps my friend took her husband window shopping approx 3weeks before christmas and pointed out about 10 items she liked.they both knew this was hinting at possible gifts.he then went back and bought her whatever he wanted.it could be small gifts like a clock or large gifts like shoes 😀he bought 5 or 6 gifts each year

I read that as DH.

I thought why are you concerned about the water when surely you wouldn't be doing it. 😂😂

Dh went to Costco for a cake and just got everything he could see on that isle close to the tils.

Razors
Some weird face cream
Deodorant
4 pairs of pjs

Pissed me off really.

I did see something about some poor woman who asked for a Dyson Air wrap and ended up with a dyson Air blade 😅

Oh dear!

After shit Christmas in some ways we have come to see lovely, lovely MIL who has Alzheimers. Today she asked to be taken to the florist and when we arrived said she wanted to buy me some flowers. We don’t have anywhere to put flowers here and have a 7 or 8 hour journey home in 2 days’ time so it wasn’t actually possible but the thought was so kind that it touched my heart (it was also really nice just to go to a florist and see and smell some flowers.)

@AnnaDelvorkina that's so sweet. I remember when I worked on a supermarket checkout a gentleman used to come in with his wife who had Alzheimers, they always bought flowers because she liked them, and sometimes she would sing to me.
On a sillier note, I bought a little Santa bandana for Dcat. I didn't want to make it too tight, but I went to the opposite extreme and spent an exhausting few minutes chasing her around because she had managed to get it half around her waist and half around her front leg, and seemed to be trying to run away from it. I don't know who's sillier, her or me!

My worst ever Christmas present a few years ago was a Brillo pad holder for the kitchen sink in the form of a horrible bright yellow frog with a gaping mouth.

My granny had one of those in green.

Update: DMIL managed to buy a (huge) box of (posh) chocs this afternoon and has just presented them to me in a lovely gift box. I can’t eat them but she does not understand that so it is a lovely, kind gift and quite remarkable as she never goes out and only has some pocket money cash. It’s the only present I’ve received in ages after a really shit few months (despite being surrounded by able-bodied and minded adults who have things like Amazon and credit cards and don’t have dementia and don’t even have to remember what I like as they can just listen or ask) and it’s so sweet and thoughtful that I’m just sitting here having a cry. Will ‘share’ the chocolates with DMIL and the DC tomorrow, and they will love them.

Isn’t that why it’s well intentioned? If MIL did know it would be a deliberately bad gift and not relevant to this thread. Or am I missing something?