The worst gift ever!!!

I sent someone a Twinkie this year, but you probably already know about that.

I was once given a "Teach Your Cat To Read Kit" for christmas by my mother. Now I have to fight three cats for the bloody paper!

Adrian - I've got one of those, too! Possum still reads the writing around the edge of the bowl - but he found the book boring!

Wow. This is a great topic!

Well, mine probably pales in comparison to all of yours. For my sixth birthday, my grandma gave me this hideous hat. It was like a baseball cap, except the top was made of more pliable material and flopped a bit to the side. The bill was hot pink and the crown was blue with pink, green, and yellow polka dots. I never wore it. One day Grandma asked me if I'd been wearing my hat.
"Hat? What hat?" I turned to my mom.
"I'll tell you when we get home," she said through clenched teeth.
I love my grandma very much, but that hat was too ugly. Even for a little kid. I have a picture floating around here somewhere. I wish I knew where it was.

I received a gift one year that may have been the most hideous thing I have ever seen. Surprisingly, I still have it.

It's made of plaster and weighs about 5 pounds. I guess it's supposed to be a wall hanging or something. It looks like a tv dinner. It has different compartments, one has corn, another appears to be spinach, some french fries in another.

There about six different compartments. I forget what each one contains and don't ask me to look.

The thing is buried somewhere in my attic.

Time to purge, gus.
Free yourself from this albatross. I'm curious, who would give you such a thing? and why?

ya know. i can picture that 'thing' that Gus describes. they were at all the craft shows some years ago. fascinating.

I have another somewhat unrelated story.
When I was 9 years old, my Girl Scout troop had a Christmas party. We were each to buy a little gift that cost $5.00 and we'd draw numbers and trade gifts. Well, my mom took me shopping for it and she saw a necklace with a painted, wooden Santa Claus on it. She said she thought it was cute and bought it, even though I thought the other girl wouldn't like it. But I didn't want to hurt my mom's feelings.
Well, we traded gifts and we were car pooling on the way home. This somewhat snotty, spoiled girl got my gift. Her mom was one of the helpers.
"Mo-oom," she whined, "I really don't like this gift. It's stupid."
"Dont say that, honey. You might hurt someone's feelings."
"Hmph." She turned to me. "Wanna trade?"
I thought about it for a second, but then I figured it would hurt my mom's feelings if she knew, so I said no.
It really hurt my feelings at the time, and remembering it makes me sad for whatever reason.
Well uh...I'm a sensitive kid, I guess.

Gee Honey, I had a hat with the same color scheme, but it didn't flop. It did have a propeller on top, though. Sadly, it wasn't a gift. I bought it myself, , and can probably find a picture in the a2k gallery if I try real, real hard.

And, welcome to a2k, by the way.

Humm....I hate to even think of that, but now its funny.

One Christmas..my husband family decided that we'd buy for everyone, instead of just the kids.
To my surprise...I got 24 pair of socks...and one crocheted dish towel. I guess the good side to that is I didn't have to buy socks for awhile.

Lets not forget the scrub buster my mother bought me one year....to her utter dismay, instead of using it to clean the house, I used it for cleaning the vehicles...it works good on scrubbing tires!!!!!

One Christmas, when I was eight, my best friend gave me a quarter ounce of pot. And a book with a rip on the binding where the library sticker used to be. There wasn't much else he could steal or give.

Come to think of it, the fact that he took the time, and was able to give something at all . . .


Nevermind.

Worst present - easy. NOTHING! We invited an old friend of my husband's around for a full Christmas dinner and we all exchanged presents...even my kids had bought Uncle P a little something. He turned up empty handed - nothing for the kids, nothing for the host and not even a thank you as he walked his fat tummy full of food and alcohol out the front door!!
On a more positive note, friends from England came and stayed the festive season one year and as a present bought a case of champagne!

How about a copy of the Koran with all the references to infidels highlighted? That would suck.

Hahaha. I love this site so incredibly much.

My mother bought me a plastic-gold necklace with a variety of plastic-gold teeth and fangs hanging from it. One cannot feign delight at such a thing. She said the teeth and fangs were good luck. I didn't wear it, but she kept asking me whether I had. I told her that the fangs didn't "lay right," and that maybe it would be better on her.

She took back the necklace, removed the teeth and fangs from around the necklace and bunched them all together in the front. Then she gave it back to me. The horror. She insisted that it would now lay right.

I still didn't wear it. She continued to ask me about it. I finally had to tell her that I would never wear it; I just didn't like it. She was stunned. How could I not like such a masterwork? She took it back muttering something about my having my taste in my ass.

Geez, that sounds really awful, Roberta. Good luck fangs? <snort> I'm glad that you were able to stand up to her. It is sad she couldn't accept it.

I once gave a truly awful present to someone. (I probably have given others unbeknownst to myself, but this is the only one I really, really regret.) It was a long time ago -- twenty-five years or longer. A young friend of my twin sisters' showed up on Christmas Eve and my sisters said, "You have to give her a present, she's got you something." (Why did I listen to those twerps?)

I had nothing... really nothing at all to give except for a branch of fresh rosemary which I was saving for myself. To me it had value. At that time it was very rare to have fresh rosemary and rosemary is for remembrance after all, but I hadn't put myself in her shoes. I wrapped it up nicely, but the disappointment on her face was just awful. I still rue the day. It would have been better to just not give her anything. That's one of the reasons I won't scramble for a present to give someone just because they give something to me. It won't be chosen for them and is likely to be a big mistake. <sigh>

I will now go and whip myself with some wet rosemary branches.

I would've liked it!

Thanks, Sozobe. You are a person of discerning taste!

My best friend and I exchanged college graduation presents. I gave her what I wanted. She gave me what she wanted. I learned something from that.

Well? What did you give each other?