Worst present anyone ever gave your child? And the best?

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

I’ll start - youngest BiL gave dd1 a book of cartoon strips entitled Cuba for Beginners.

Dd was 2! So luckily too young even to be disappointed.

I did ask BiL why on earth he’d thought a political book for adults was suitable for a 2 year old.
He said, ‘Well, it does say for beginners…’.

Many years later (dd were mid teens) same BiL did redeem himself by giving them each 2 x £50 notes. That was over 20 years ago now, so it was a lot.

Why was it the worst gift if she loved them and why did you hide half of them instead of letting her play with them? I don’t understand?? 😆

My worst gift was one I mistakenly bought for Ds a few years ago. I bought him a build your own robot which was hellishly difficult and fiddly to build and reduced both of us to tears of frustration on Christmas Day. Boxing Day I managed to finally complete it (alone as ds had lost interest) only to discover that the damn thing had a severed connection and could only trundle around in left-handed circles and let out pathetic little burps instead of talking. He went in the bin!!

Best gift was a weird one, my parents bought him a set of little wooden traditional games. He unwrapped them and I thought he wouldn’t touch them…we ended up playing them for hours every day over the Christmas holiday.

Way too many worst ones to mention but last year MIL carried in this humongous ride on horse, we have absolutely no room for such a monstrosity and would never ask for it. I made DH put it in the shed and eventually it ended up at the tip after asking MIL if she wanted it back first.

Also a drone helicopter thing, DS flew it into my face and it absolutely killed.

@housethatbuiltme oh the toddler will love it! It's the parent it's torture for.

The one I bought myself and regretted was a motion activated Puss in Boots from Shrek. Would be sneaking in the dark into her room to check on sleeping DD when it would suddenly start yelling 'dooo not walk byyy...just one keeeessssss' in Antonio Banderas voice.

Bratz Dolls
Metal detector

A flimsy plastic kids’ karaoke set by my brother who openly gloated about how annoying it would be for us to listen to. I let DD play it with that day then got rid of it immediately.

I had to look it up on Amazon on the day because it came without instructions and discovered that (a) it had set him back <£20 and (b) all the reviews were 1* and said variations of “it’s unbearably loud”.

Every Christmas my MIL gifts my son a tracksuit and trainers. He doesn't wear tracksuits, and the shoes never fit well (they're often pointy and he has wide feet) I feel like you need to be a teen's parent to be gifting clothes and shoes in the correct size. Thought that counts I suppose, but they always end up getting thrown out by spring

Worst but funniest- my 14 year old daughter wanted a leather corset for dressing up in costumes. Her grandma bought it for her but didnt realize a leather thong was also part of the package....

This - from MIL to my four year old daughter! I got a kick out of how bizarre it was though tbh, and she LOVED it.

My Aunty gave my Mam a duck-shaped lavatory brush one Xmas - then she was the one ducking as Mam threw it back at her 🤣

Great Nan liked to buy things with room to grow in which was fine but the year she bought him a tracksuit with dinosaurs on which he would have loved except he was 3 and the tracksuit was for age 11.

My daughter opened a present from a relative yesterday only to find that the box was full of used batteries instead 😬 Not an intentional gift, I think the gift giver was scammed but was it pretty upsetting for my 4yo 😢