A World Of Excitement
The beautiful paper, the glistening bow, and a box that’s bigger than big, promising to hold something more than spectacular – something that’s just pure magic. But alas, you open the gift and it’s not the item you had hoped for or imagined; instead, it’s an object that seems more suited to be a gag gift. At the very least, it’s strange, out-of-touch, or just plain thoughtless and terrible.
So you feign gratitude, work hard to widen your eyes with delight, and look toward the gift-giver with pretend pleasure, all while you’re really thinking, “What the heck were they thinking?” We’ve all been there at one time or another come the holiday gift-giving season. The truth is that when it comes to disappointment, disenchantment, and all-around displeasure with certain gifts, you’re not alone. Here are some of the worst gifts people have ever received…
Not A Positive Reaction
When I was seven years old, I received a bad gift. You know when you’re a kid, and you see a big present, and you’re like, ‘Oh man, this is going to be good’? Well, it was in a giant box, and had a huge gold bow around it, so I was all excited and waited to open it last.
It was a globe. A brown globe, like the ones you see in the library. By no means was I a history aficionado at that age, and my parents knew I hated the geography subject in school. It wasn’t a joke gift, they honestly thought I’d love it, and that it would be a great homework tool.
Yeah, just what a kid wants for Christmas – something that reminds them of homework. It’s still just a decoration on a mantle in our house, and I can’t think of a single time in the past 20 years when I went, ‘Hmmm, well, that’s a tough question, better consult the globe to be sure.’ Reddit user: [redacted]
Just Ducky
My mom once gave me half-a-pack of batteries. It wasn’t really a big deal because I usually don’t do the gift exchanges with my family, and my mom had some left over batteries from one of the kid’s toys, so she gave them to me. I still like telling people about it though, because it sounds horrible.
Runner up would have to be the year my mom re-gifted a set of measuring cups to me, that someone at her office had given her. She neglected to take the little card off of it, so for a moment I was left wondering why my mom’s assistant was giving me measuring cups. Reddit user: [redacted]
Cushion The Blow
When I was in college, my sister ended up giving me a Donald Duck cement lawn ornament for Christmas as a gift. It was heavy. It must have weighed at least 40 pounds. A couple things: I didn’t have my own lawn, and I didn’t particularly like Donald Duck.
She happens to have an excessive number of lawn ornaments in her yard. I suspect that what happened was that she realized she hadn’t gotten me anything and, as she was getting into her car, just grabbed the closest thing she could find. Reddit user: [redacted]
Just What You Wanted, For Reel
One year, my parents found the Amazon wish list of someone with the same name as me, but it wasn’t actually me. They thought it was a bunch of weird and out of character items, but decided not to check in with me, or any other family member, to see if they had the right list.
That’s how I, as a 24-year-old male, ended up with a maternity body pillow for Christmas. I’m pretty sure we ended up returning the maternity pillow and a large number of the other of the gifts so they could get their money back. They ended up using that money to buy me actual gifts. Reddit user: [redacted]
Getting Jammed Up About What To Give
I have a super duper cheapskate aunt. She’s the kind of person that goes to Chili’s (I could stop right there) and orders a $3.00 bottomless chips and salsa, and then of course doesn’t leave a tip. For Christmas a couple years ago, she gave me a discount Cinemark movie ticket. Just one ticket.
And it wasn’t for a free movie. It was a 50% discount movie ticket, only valid at Cinemark brand theaters. In the city we live in, there is only a single Cinemark theater: the dollar theater on the north side. Thanks aunty. I can now go by myself and see a dated $1.00 movie for fifty cents. Reddit user: [redacted]
Not The Right Type Of Gift
I was spending the holidays with my ex and his family in another state. He presented me, in front of the entire family, with a triangle shaped box, beautifully wrapped in shiny gold paper, and covered in ribbons and bows. Everyone thought there’d be something fancy and/or special inside. Boy, did they turn out to be wrong about that.
They are the type of family that takes turns while each opens one gift at a time. So, I’m in front of everyone, and I had to open the box and pretend to be thrilled about a ‘jam tree.’ It was three tiny jars of (utterly unremarkable) fruit preserves, arranged in a triangle box. A JAM TREE. Reddit user: [redacted]
That’s A Wrap
The year the Nintendo 64 came out, it was all my brothers and I wanted for Christmas. We rented a system from Blockbuster every chance we got. Fast-forward to Christmas morning and a Nintendo box is under the tree. We thought maybe my parents had gotten a used one or something, and we were beyond excited to open that puppy up.
We saw the tag was from our grandparents, who were very anti-video games. ‘Maybe they came around,’ we thought. ‘Maybe it’s a Christmas miracle.’ We popped open the lid and sitting inside was – a typewriter. An electric typewriter. My grandfather thought we could use it to work on our typing skills. All three of us were devastated. Reddit user: [redacted]
A Toast To The Holidays
One year, as a bad gag gift, I was given a roll of wrapping paper. The lead-up was that I’d only asked for one thing from my big family. All I asked for was a $25 Banksy poster. I was really into street art at the time, and just really wanted the poster. That was it – nothing else.
Well, I went through all the unwrapping motions and there was a poster box/tube. I was overjoyed. When I opened it – wrapping paper. They thought it was hilarious. Later that night I was nearly in tears because some of my cousins and siblings got things that cost nearly $1,000, and all I wanted was a poster. Reddit user: [redacted]
Left Holding The Bag
My boyfriend’s mom has had trouble with accepting that we’re the real deal, and I’m not going anywhere. My family has accepted him with open arms for five years, and gotten him really good birthday and Christmas presents. They spend the same on him as they do on my brother and me.
His mom, the first year we lived together, got me a $1.00 scarf from Walmart. It still had the clearance sticker on it. His nieces and nephews got me washcloths. Last year, they showed up to our house with a toaster oven and a bunch of other gifts.
All of the gifts were for my boyfriend. At the last second, his mom grabs a pen from her purse (at her husband’s urging), crosses off my boyfriend’s name from the toaster oven, and writes mine over it. Of course, she misspelled it. Reddit user: [redacted]
Quit Clowning Around
My incredibly wealthy uncle gave me the world’s most hideous pink fabric bag for my high school graduation. I tried to be polite about it because it was nice that he’d gotten me something, even if it wasn’t my taste. But he couldn’t help but brag about how he had purchased it from a blind street seller in India, and that he’d haggled the woman down from fifteen dollars to five.
He made a great big show of explaining that he’d just yelled louder and louder at the poor woman until, I assume, she gave him the bag as cheaply as she did out of fear. The gift itself wasn’t so bad, but it was a constant reminder of just how horrible some people in the world are and that, sadly, I have to be related to some of them. Reddit user: [redacted]
Smile And Say ‘Cheap’
Clowns is what I get as a gift. Every year, it’s a new clown – and I don’t like clowns. They’re weird. I get a new clown figurine, doll, lamp, picture, or whatever every year for Christmas and my birthday. I literally have boxes of clowns at this point.
On the bright side, since I kept them all on my dresser growing up, I was never afraid of clowns. They’re just background noise to me. I could probably walk into one in a dark alley and just be all, ‘Oh – it’s just one more dang clown.’ Reddit user: [redacted]
Sole Searching
One year my dad got into photography, but not like art photography; it was like family photo studio kind of photography. Specifically, churches would hire him to take photos of the members to put in their directory. So for Christmas that year, he gave each of us (my sister, my mother, and me) a framed photo of himself holding a camera.
They were large photos, like the size of a magazine. We all just kind of looked at him in confusion, trying to figure out if he was serious or not; he totally was. And this wasn’t even like an extra/side present – this was his major gift to each of us. My sister and I found it hilarious, but my mother wasn’t impressed. Reddit user: [redacted]
All Dolled Up
The first year I had a family Christmas with my now-wife’s family, her nana gifted me one pair of socks. But the best part is that it was one pair of those sports socks you get in a pack of 10. So, she must have bought a pack, and just wrapped one pair for me. A single pair.
Of course, at the time, I wanted to act all super grateful, so I pulled off my current socks, very enthusiastically, and put on the new ones as soon as I opened them. I think the socks I’d been wearing were actually a little damp from the winter weather anyway, so it worked out. Reddit user: [redacted]
DVD Disaster
One time I was out shopping with the ex. I saw a small porcelain doll with an interesting costume. I spent about five minutes looking at the doll because I sew, and was interested in the way the costume was made. That Christmas, I got the doll as a gift from the ex.
He also gave me a little stand to display the doll. So, like a good girlfriend, I put the doll on the stand, and stuck it in the bookcase. And when it came to the next gift-giving occasion, the ex thought it would be a cute idea to do a treasure hunt, which was fun.
Unfortunately, with every solved clue, there was another porcelain doll. So now, I have a collection. And since I’m now a collector, everyone in the family starts giving me porcelain dolls for every birthday and Christmas. I have porcelain dolls all over the house. Reddit user: [redacted]
Words Can’t Express The Gratitude
My very first Christmas with my husband’s family after we got married, we were all passing around gifts. Most of his family very graciously gave us the standard newlywed gifts – dishes, towels, picture frames, etc. But this one uncle fancied himself a media producer (TV, radio, YouTube).
He gave me (and all the other women in the family) a DVD that he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, about how to be a good mother. No, I didn’t have children at the time, nor was I even pregnant. No, he doesn’t have children. No, he isn’t in the childcare/child development field.
No, he didn’t notice the bewildered looks on any of our faces. My husband is polite to a fault and wouldn’t let me re-gift it back to the uncle the following Christmas, even though my mother-in-law thought that would’ve been hilarious. Reddit user: [redacted]
Alarmingly Clueless
My cousin and I always got the same presents, so we wouldn’t fight. The same little purses, the same cutesy jewelry. One year, my mom showed me what my cousin’s present was, and it was Kirby for the Game Boy. I was so excited, because that had to mean that I would get it, too.
But my mom said, “No sweetie, I got you something a little different – it’s kind of crazy.” I immediately knew that my present would be a pet chameleon. Or so I thought, but I was wrong. Mom got me a dictionary. My cousin gets Kirby, and I get a dictionary, just a year or two before the internet was good enough to replace it. Reddit user: [redacted]
Loafing Around
When my wife was in college, she used to have to walk back home through a scary neighborhood, and in the winter it was particularly frightening, because it would be dark out. She sometimes gave her stepdad a hard time about this because he was capable of giving her a lift, but didn’t want to be bothered.
One Christmas, in his attempt to give her something to help her through those times, I swear – but you aren’t going to believe it anyway – he got her a security alarm. And that isn’t even the end of the story. Because I was a teenager, I decided to set that alarm off in her house as a prank. You know what? It didn’t even work. Reddit user: [redacted]
Mask The Disappointment
A roommate/friend of mine was dating this really boring guy. He had a job making a lot of money, but wasn’t really interested in a lot of things, didn’t have any hobbies, etc. My roommate and I were going to spend Christmas together one year, and he decided to invite himself along, but that was no big deal.
I, not wanting to be rude, spent time finding him some gifts that fit the few interests he did have. He got me a bad bread baking kit with a pan that said something about Jesus on it. I’m not religious at all, and it was a really bad bread-making kit. Needless to say, it immediately got donated. Reddit user: [redacted]
A Real Nail-Biter
My dad gives the worst gifts. Every year I tell him exactly what I want, even send him links to various items. Every year, he still gives me a bunch of random stuff he thinks I’ll like, but that I’ve never said I like. For instance, while I was away at college, he gifted me a children’s jewelry case.
It was Barbie pink, with these weird little neon green peace signs and purple flowers all over it. I told my mom to give it to my nieces. Then, last year, he got me a purple masquerade mask and an elf mug. I still have no clue what I’m going to do with those. Reddit user: [redacted]
Endgame
A couple years ago, my brother started a tradition of buying people clever gag gifts for birthdays and Christmas. Last year, my brother got me a box of about 200 small nails. Before he gave it to me, though, he removed and bent every single nail to a 90-degree angle, so that they were completely unusable.
Other gifts included a portable shovel he gave to my other brother for Christmas – a regular shovel he’d sawed into a bunch of pieces and packaged in a box with a roll of duct tape. He also got him a nice set of wine glasses packaged loosely in a box, along with some scrap steel and rocks, and then told him to shake it to see if he could guess what it was. Reddit user: [redacted]
Pegged For Someone Else
When I got home from college, I found myself with some excess cash. I decided to invest in some new video games for myself, and had them sent to my house. The strange thing was that I only received half of the games. I emailed the suppliers and told them I hadn’t gotten all my packages yet, and was growing quite angry.
Well, Christmas morning came around and I was opening up my presents. I got to the one from my older brothers. I tore the paper away and opened the box. Inside there were several other packages that had been mailed to our house. With my name on them. My brother had taken half of my games and hidden them from me until Christmas. Reddit user: [redacted]
Red In The Face
Two years ago, I got weird gifts from my mom. The first was a bunch of screws. ‘Okay,’ I thought. ‘Thanks mom!’ ‘It’s something you asked for,’ she explained. ‘You’ll understand when you open the rest of them.’ Well, I continue to open presents, and some are things I asked for, but most were just strange; weird brackets and pegs, hardware type stuff. I remained clueless.
After a while of opening up strange hardware, it dawns on both of us that most of the presents I’m opening are for my dad, and they’re part of a workbench he’d asked for. As my dad and I have the same name, my mom had wrapped all of his presents and had mistakenly given them to me. Reddit user: [redacted]
Warm Memories
This mortifies me even to this day. Eleven-year-old me was chubby and awkward. Gifts were always under the tree early because Mom was like that. There was a beautiful cylindrical tin, printed with some iridescent whatnot, and graced with a very big, glittery bow.
The card was made out to my name. I was stoked to open this gift for a good three weeks. Finally, it’s Christmas morning, and everyone is there, the whole family. I mean, everyone from grandparents, brother’s girlfriend, and pets, and the whole nine yards.
I’m so stoked to open this gift, and everyone’s wondering what it could be. Mom knows what it is. With the equivalent of fanfare, I open the top of this thing and pull out bright pink granny panties. I was so mad. I’m still mad about it. Reddit user: [redacted]
Baby, You’re A Doll
Back in high school, I mentioned casually during a visit that my bedroom was chilly at night. Come Christmas, I open my gift from nana, and it’s a space heater. As a teenager who was hoping for video games, I put on the forced-smile rictus and thanked her for the gift, while internally bemoaning all the loot that could’ve been. Later that night we headed home.
I plugged the space heater in when I went to bed, because why not? The DIFFERENCE that space heater made. The next time I went to her house, I gave nana a giant hug, and told her how much better my room was at night with that space heater – and gave her an actual, genuine thank-you. I still use that space heater 20 years later. Reddit user: [redacted]
Burst Your Bubble
One year my brother was at the mall with my 17-year-old niece. She walks by this porcelain doll that’s like $200, and it had her name. She said something like, ‘That’s cool.’ He then tells the rest of our family that she wanted this doll. Well, no one could afford it, so he got one that was very pretty, but around $50. Everyone else got whatever doll they could find, some at Walmart.
Come Christmas Day, she unwraps his gift. He tells her he couldn’t afford the one she wanted, and she tells him that one had her name on it, so it might have been interesting, but that she didn’t really want a doll. Everyone got very quiet, very quickly. She ended up with 12 different dolls that year. Reddit user: [redacted]
War And Pieces
Every year when I was younger, my family would have a white elephant celebration party on Christmas Eve. About a month prior to the party, everyone who participated would select names from the hat. One year, my older cousin pulled my name. I was extremely excited when I found out, due to him being very wealthy, and the gifts he’d given in previous years.
The big night finally came. I opened my gift, only to find that he’d got me soap in the shape of an ice cream cone. The kicker to it all is that I’ve always been lactose intolerant, and didn’t even eat real ice cream. I’m still not sure to this day if it was some kind of sick joke on his part, or not. Reddit user: [redacted]
Bark, The Herald Angels Sing
I once went out with a girl whose family all hated each other, and they seemed to have a formalized ‘rules of war’ for family holidays. I had no idea this was going on the first time was at their house for Christmas, so imagine my puzzlement at receiving (and having to be publicly appreciative of ) gifts like a 50-cent thing for holding a book open, an ice-cream scoop, and a pack of AAA batteries.
They basically gave her a box of stuff that you would find in a Christmas cracker, but they went to the lengths of wrapping all of the worthless pieces very carefully, in bright colorful paper. She was always hoping there’d be a real present in there somewhere, until she emptied the box. No such luck. Reddit user: [redacted]
Jingle Bell Rock
I once had an awesome cocker spaniel Lab mix. He was a very quirky dog. For three straight years he brought my mom a Christmas present. The first year, it was a live squirrel. He laid it at her feet. Of course, the squirrel shot up and ran around the house.
It took our entire Christmas Day to get it out of the house. Second year, it was a rabbit, but learning from his past mistake, it was dead this time. Again, he laid it at my mom’s feet. The third year, he brought this huge goose-down, king-size comforter.
I have no idea where he got it, or where it was from. It was in surprisingly good shape, considering that he’d had to drag it to the house from somewhere. Christmas was the only time he ever brought in anything from outside, and he always gave it to my mom. Reddit user: [redacted]
Revive The Holiday Spirit
A few years ago my aunt gave me a rock. She gave presents to me and my two older cousins, and said that it was time for the big girls to open their gifts. She made my cousins go first, and they got scarves. I opened my present, and pulled a rock out of the package, and looked up waiting for her to laugh. She said, ‘Isn’t it wonderful??’ So I had to be like, ‘Yeah, I loooove it!’
Then she told me that she’d dug it out of her garden the previous summer, and that she just knew that I’d think it was so cool. The following year she gave me acorn tops because, ‘Some people know how to use them to whistle, and I don’t know how to show you or explain, but I’m sure you can figure it out.’ Reddit user: [redacted]
Starting A New Chapter
I once got a gift that was a shirt that read, “I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll take a look anyway.” The best part was that it came from my stepdad’s mom. She knew that I wanted to be a doctor, and her English is what I’d call certainly call no bueno.
I actually found it hilarious. But then we decided to translate the shirt for her. When she found out the meaning, she ended up almost crying from embarrassment. I proudly wore it for the rest of the day. with a smile on my face. Reddit user: [redacted]
It’s No Secret: Someone’s Cheap
On the very first holiday after my wedding, my mother-in-law sent my wife and me a gift. She sent it to each of us separately. It was the same self-help book on the topic of how to survive living with an abusive spouse. Just a real great gift for newlyweds, huh?
The book wasn’t on how to divorce or anything, but just how to live in a relationship with a spouse that’s abusive to you. And again, she sent it to not just to my wife, and not just to me, but to both of us. Two copies of the book. Reddit user: [redacted]
Ride Out The Disappointment
The minimum amount for the Secret Santa was $50. I bought him a pair of leather gloves, an X-Men beanie (since he was a comic book fan), and a bottle of cologne. The person whose name I drew in the Secret Santa just happened to be the one who’d drawn my name.
When it was turn for my gift, I open it and see that it’s an unwrapped and clearly-used dollar-store flask with a cheap gumball machine sticker of a tiger stuck on it. Some people just don’t get the idea behind the Secret Santa tradition. Reddit user: [redacted]
Out Of This World Gift
Not once, but on two separate occasions in my life, my parents bought me a brand new bike for Christmas. I was so excited. They watched as I was thrilled opening it, and then they had me take it out to the driveway and try it out… That’s when things went downhill.
They then explained to me that the bike was too big, and told me that my older brother was getting the new bike, and I would be getting his old one. I know they loved me, but they were just clueless of how much this hurt. Twice! Reddit user: [redacted]
You Don’t Know Beans About Gift Giving
At our family’s Secret Santa gift exchange a few years ago, I got some really strange gifts. I was gifted not one, but TWO, bobble-heads from characters on the show The Big Bang Theory. Oh, I was also given a pair of The Big Bang Theory socks in case that wasn’t enough.
Here’s the thing: I don’t even watch the show. So I don’t get it. And keep in mind we usually give nice, thoughtful things to each other. It’s definitely not a joke-y, white elephant situation. I still don’t understand where that idea came from. Reddit user: [redacted]
Didn’t Nail It
The worst gift I got was a box of instant coffee packets that my dad mailed literally across the country to us. They were wrapped and everything, with a handwritten note, addressed to me and “Brad.” For the record, my husband’s name is NOT Brad, it’s Bram.
Since I’m sure you’re wondering, yes, my father has spent significant time with my husband. And yes, he was at our wedding and everything and, no, he doesn’t have some sort of brain illness. Not really sure what happened there. Reddit user: [redacted]
Horsing Around
I once got my aunt’s used nail polish for Christmas. It was all the stuff she didn’t want anymore. It’s wasn’t like they were even sealed or anything. Also, none of the colors were colors I liked or would have worn. They were tans/browns, oranges, and neutral pinks.
This was common to get bad gifts when I was a teenager, and I was always very uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the gifts haven’t gotten better over time. I wouldn’t mind if we just stopped the extended family gifting, aside from the children. Reddit user: [redacted]
Horn Of Plenty
I once got a rubber figurine of the wrestler Hulk Hogan. It honestly just looked like it was a Christmas ornament with the loop snipped off glued to a very effeminate toy horse. An elderly friend of the family gave me the gift, which is totally random.
He wouldn’t stop mentioning how, “They are supposed to look like that; that’s how it came from the store,” even though I didn’t voice any doubts to him about that. It was so weird, but is also kind of the best gift I ever got in a way. Reddit user: [redacted]
The Patience Of A Saint
I got a gift once that was a handmade conch shell horn. They also just haphazardly sawed the pointed end off. I also got a $5.00 O’Charley’s gift card, and three packets of Swiss Miss. What was the the catch? These were three different Christmas gifts from my in-laws.
These were the only gifts that I ended up receiving on those given years by the way. For starters, I’m not a musician, I’ve never eaten at O’Charley’s, and I’m lactose intolerant. So 0 for 3. But I guess it’s the thought that counts. Reddit user: [redacted]
Not So L-ovely
My grandmother at one point decided to convert and become Catholic. Since then, she keeps trying to gift my family prayer cards and rosaries. My parents happen to be Protestant, and my siblings and I are agnostic, so it’s not really something we’d use.
This is the same woman that would always give me makeup, jewelry, girly clothes, hair accessories, and so on. All of the stuff that I wasn’t really so into. I was such a tomboy that strangers often would mistake me for being a boy. Reddit user: [redacted]
My ex-boyfriend used to call me “Larry” as a joke, instead of my actual name, which is “Perri.” For the holidays one year, he gave me a Tiffany robin’s-egg blue box. So exciting. Inside, I found a beautiful, initial necklace – but with an “L,” for Larry.
I tried wearing it, but it was way too hard to explain to people why a pricey piece of jewelry would have the wrong letter. To this day, I’m still in search of a best friend whose name starts with an ‘L,’ just so I can pass it along. Reddit user: [redacted]