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Now that we're through pretending we care about our veterans for another year, we can talk about the most important holiday season of them all: the one where people give us all sorts of tacky gifts in the name of baby Jesus. They can be the wonderful, the horrible, to the questionable. We all have stories about this time of year, and I want to hear about some of them! One year my dad worked for an Acura dealership, and in our stockings my sister and I both received a car key as a gift. Because it had a button on it that could light up a tiny green light on it! It was intended to light up the key hole so you could find it easier. But for a 6 year old girl, I could light up all sorts of things. A tiny spot on the wall! A little spot on my hand! I could shine it through the sheet and see it on the other side! The possibilities were endless. To be completely fair, it was a pretty neat little gadget that was pretty high tech for the mid-80s. But in hindsight it is pretty strange to give a car key to your kids as a Christmas present. When I was 13 he also gave me his ex-girlfriend's leather jacket as a present, complete with tobacco in the pockets. Christmas 1993 was supposed to be the most magical Christmas ever. I was 12, and Jurassic Park had come out. I had been obsessed with dinosaurs my whole life and JP was the greatest thing that had ever happened in the history of ever. I was flipping through the Sears Toy Catalogue specifically looking for raptor toys, it's all I cared about. I found several and circled them, including a Muldoon action figure that came with an ADORABLE baby raptor! I just wanted that, didn't care about him. Christmas morning arrives, and I got the Muldoon action figure! But it was the one with the T-Rex instead. Still awesome. Wouldn't have complained. Until my family started talking about how Muldoon was clearly my first crush and how badly I wanted a toy of him. For a 12 year old girl, that was the most mortifying moment of my life.
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Nov 12, 2015 04:07
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My nanna gave my socks for xmas one year when I was a young teenager. I don't think I ever spoke to her again before she died. loving socks??? Thats like the most thoughtless gift you could possibly give anyone. I would rather receive notjing more than a "merry xmas retard" than socks. loving socks. Unreal.
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Nov 18, 2015 14:55
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Automatic Retard posted:My nanna gave my socks for xmas one year when I was a young teenager. I don't think I ever spoke to her again before she died. My great aunt always gave us socks before she died, they were awesome. I judge people for not appreciating getting a good pair of socks (well, it's different if that's the -only- present you get at Christmas of course) One of my most embarassing memories was when my dad gave me a cool Canon Having said that, I remember getting some salad tongs from my uncle age 11 or 12 which was a bit puzzling to say the least. edit: It was this camera actually!:  As you can see probably, a real neat little thing actually! But I knew gently caress all about anything back then so welp. I did end up using it quite a bit though I've since lost all the photos I think. NLJP has a new favorite as of 15:08 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Nov 18, 2015 14:59
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My dad has not given me a Christmas or birthday gift ever in my memory. I was well into my teens before I cottoned on to the fact he probably didn't give a gently caress, and it was my mom paying for and wrapping all my gifts, even the ones labeled from him said 'Dad' in her handwriting. I buy him a gift every birthday, Christmas, and Father's day.  The best present I ever got was a countertop dishwasher from my father-in-law last Christmas. Maybe this is the sign that I'm getting old, that I am totally cool with socks and underwear and household goods as presents. I would have taken your nanna in a heartbeat. Socks for days!
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Nov 18, 2015 15:05
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Hanukkah means getting your Game Boy one peripheral at a time until the actual unit on night eight. Now that my niece and nephew are old enough to appreciate them (and for their parents to hate my ever-lovin guts) it's time for the toys that make the noise! 
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Nov 18, 2015 16:07
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I would be pretty hype about socks these days, as long as they were a step up from the 6-pair bags from Walmart or whatever. Most puzzling gift for me was a Splenda cookbook from my aunt when I was 11. Knowing this aunt, one of two situations led to this gift: 1: "oh poo poo I forget to get this kid a present! oh well here is a book from my shelf I haven't touched in a while, good enough." 2: "this kid is getting a little chunky lately what with puberty and all... sugar makes you fat right?"
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Nov 18, 2015 18:13
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Automatic Retard posted:
It's difficult to give a gift to someone you might care deeply for but not entirely understand, so it's probably a safe fallback in ones mind to get something you can understand the value in. I can totally understand the value in socks. Burn on dead Grandma I suppose, but it's a shame that's all it took for you to cut her off. Mines a manipulative lunatic racist piece of poo poo that refuses to roll over and die quietly, thank jebus she refuses to talk to me so I don't have to get butthurt over "just" getting socks. But I don't really get Christmas and getting butthurt over not getting a turkey stuffed with an Xbox just seems unnecessarily miserable to me.
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Nov 20, 2015 07:49
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One year, a pair of lace Victoria's Secret panties. Very nice ones. I was sixteen and stoked as gently caress, taking this as tacit approval from my parents to gently caress my fedora-wearing idiot boyfriend on the couch in our filthy basement. At least, until my mother chirped, "Your grandma bought me those, but they didn't fit!"  Happy bday jesus
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Nov 20, 2015 14:45
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My birthday is December 19th, so I've always gotten "combination gifts". It hasn't really ever bothered me, though it did suck that I had precisely one friend around to spend my 21st birthday with. At this point, I'm just flattered and happy when someone thinks of me. However, the worst of these combination gifts was from a guy I was dating when I turned 23. We'd only been together a month or so at that point, though we had slept together. His gift to me was a bottle of mid-grade vodka and a bottle of vermouth. So I could make us martinis. At the time, I bartended for a living; mixing drinks on my birthday was just about the last thing I wanted to do, and vodka martinis were his drink, not mine. It's not like I was expecting a fancy present or anything, and I like booze, but at least go for a bottle of gin or wine or something else that I've actually expressed interest in, y'know?
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Nov 20, 2015 15:57
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My grandmother gave me this for my 14th birthday. All my friends laughed at me. It's ages 3 and up grandma! 
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Nov 20, 2015 18:45
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For years, my brother has been lording the fact that he makes more money than I do over me and constantly says, even in front of my art-school graduate father, how worthless my degree will be. It’s as if the concept of me not caring how much money I make so long as I’m doing what I love is completely alien to him. I’ve been really trying to mend bridges with him for the past year and I decided I would go out and splurge a little bit on the christmas presents. I’ve never had much money so I made my family artwork this christmas, but in addition to that, I got my brother a nice and warm $80 jacket that he needed as well as the swiss army knife that he’s been dropping hints at for months. He gave me a stained fleece that he wrote “fag” in bleach on and a key chain that he got free from work. After the present opening, his girlfriend comes up to me and says that I shouldn’t use the key chain as a key chain. Apparently the one he gave her months before shattered after she tried to put some keys on it and cut her hand.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:50
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gentle pete posted:He gave me a stained fleece that he wrote “fag” in bleach on and a key chain that he got free from work. Those bridges should probably stay unmended 
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Nov 20, 2015 18:54
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My favorite holiday gift story:quote:I remember asking my mom for Mouser from Ninja Turtles. So along comes Christmas and there's a present under the tree just big enough to be an action figure box. I hurry into the living room and nearly dive head first at that box. Ripping it open I find a wooden box. Confused, I open it up only to hear a screeching siren-like noise coming from inside. I look around terrified, seeing all my friends from school standing around me.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:02
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I have never seen that before and all my coworkers are asking me why I'm in tears from hysterically laughing. I was not expecting that, thank you. 
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Nov 20, 2015 19:04
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bringmyfishback posted:One year, a pair of lace Victoria's Secret panties. Very nice ones. I was sixteen and stoked as gently caress, taking this as tacit approval from my parents to gently caress my fedora-wearing idiot boyfriend on the couch in our filthy basement. Sounds like your genius mother worked out how to keep your honour intact.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:09
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My family tries to give gifts based on actual interest, and I don't mind socks or practical things. I always end up getting cheap smelly body lotion from whatever store in the mall always smells so bad, but whatever, those can be donated and they're cheap enough that it's not a huge waste of money. They do tend to latch on to things and never let go, though. Like, we used to watch scary movies together a lot, and at some point everyone was really into Silence of the Lambs. I was probably 11 or so when it first came out? So I barely knew what I was watching, but I did a fairly good impression of Buffalo Bill when he's yelling at the girl in the well, and my family thought that was just HILARIOUS, and for some reason they're trotting it out now, some 25 years later. My sister got me a t-shirt that said "it puts the lotion on its skin" and I was so confused at first because really, who has even thought of that movie in the last ten years? She keeps posting memes about it on facebook, and tagging me in them, too--I'm not totally sure why. We watched it once back in middle school, I did a dumb impersonation, and somehow it's a thing again. I'm trying to come up with a nice way to say I don't want to do gifts this year. My hobbies are really loving expensive, and I don't want them to waste their hard-earned money on knockoff versions of running shoes or skydiving equipment that I won't use. I'd rather just get together, make some cookies, and drink a lot of wine.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:24
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spog posted:Sounds like your genius mother worked out how to keep your honour intact.  dear lord
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Nov 22, 2015 06:30
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Volte posted:For Christmas my parents got me gloves, a pair of running shoes, a set of drums, a piano, a skateboard, a bicycle, 10 rock climbing lessons, a ladder, a hammer, a pair of scissors, and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I have no arms or legs. They know this.
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Nov 22, 2015 07:34
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bringmyfishback posted:One year, a pair of lace Victoria's Secret panties. Very nice ones. I was sixteen and stoked as gently caress, taking this as tacit approval from my parents to gently caress my fedora-wearing idiot boyfriend on the couch in our filthy basement. Oh god, something very similar to this happened to me. My boyfriend's parents gave me Victoria Secret panties on year for Christmas. We had been dating for several years at this point, and they weren't lacy or anything, just practical things. But it turned out his dad bought them for his mom but she didn't like the colours so they were passed on to me instead.
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Nov 22, 2015 08:11
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Picnic Princess posted:Oh god, something very similar to this happened to me. My boyfriend's parents gave me Victoria Secret panties on year for Christmas. We had been dating for several years at this point, and they weren't lacy or anything, just practical things. But it turned out his dad bought them for his mom but she didn't like the colours so they were passed on to me instead. That's pretty uncomfortable, but at least it avoids the implication that they were tried on. This isn't technically thread-appropriate, since it was a birthday gift and not a Christmas gift, but the martini story reminds me of the last gift I received from an old boyfriend, who was a master of giving me weird sets of unrelated, largely nonsensical gifts, inevitably based on some sort of platonic ideal of "gift for girlfriend" that existed in his mind and/or things he liked that he wanted me to get into. The last such set was a chintzy "erotic reader" (okay, I guess I can see how he'd think that was romantic?), a Van Gogh calendar ( I like Van Gogh as much as anybody, but now we're getting kinda random), and... a can of Japanese rice seasoning. What? Why? The only connection I can even think of is that I'd purchased a rice cooker several months beforehand, but it wasn't like I had become some kind of rice hobbyist. Who gives rice seasoning as a gift? His mother once sent me a Christmas gift that actually probably does qualify for this thread -- a very small, Christmas-decorated plastic replica of a Chinese takeout container, maybe two inches on a side, containing a plastic penguin pin and a sub-travel-sized bottle of hand lotion. It was like someone tried to create the smallest discrete particle of "gift set," and I still have no idea why she sent it to me. Did she decide that my existence as her son's girlfriend had to be acknowledged somehow? I didn't expect a gift from her, and somehow I was more insulted to receive that weird-rear end gift than I would have been to receive nothing.
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Nov 22, 2015 11:40
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One of my grandmothers gave me an open package of underwear, sized for a very fat old lady, the Christmas when I was nine. One of the underwear had a filthy skidmark in it. She was not suffering dementia or any mental illness, she was just a mean bitch who did it on purpose, tbh. That same year she gave my mother an empty Avon box which had originally held a watch. When it turned out to be empty, she ostenatiously put a hand to her face and exclaimed that this was such a strange mishap. She was wearing the watch from the box on her wrist at the time.
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Nov 22, 2015 14:24
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My ex-girlfriend would always buy me posters. Like every birthday and Christmas for 3 years was a poster; I never once put them up because my walls were tacky as poo poo and I was constantly waiting for the day that they would be striped and re-painted. On the forth year of Christmas (or maybe it was a birthday), my ex-love gave to me: a Kindle. Which when I turned it on was registered to her brother. Turns out she couldn't figure out what to get me so just gave me the Kindle she brought for her brother. It was nice and all but it was one of the first gen ones with no back light, and I'm one of those people who prefers a solid brick of paper anyway; so I only really used it when she was around. In retrospect I was a crumby boyfriend to buy gifts for. She gave up giving me gifts after that and just spent money on holidays. In all fairness though for her 21st birthday I brought her a set of $250 ear rings which she claimed to really appreciate. Didn't wear on the night of the fancy, expensive party her parents threw for her at one of the function halls at her dads golf club because she already had an outfit picked out; annnd then I never saw her wear them again. I asked and apparently she lost one of them about a week after the birthday. 
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Nov 22, 2015 15:01
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When I was overseas, I bought my then girlfriend a metric poo poo ton of VS underwear and bras. Nothing slinky really, but nice poo poo. I had it l shipped to her house, prewrapped by the morons who lack the stuff at VS. As I was checking out, I was less than ten dollars from free shipping or some other thing like that, so I added on the only skimpy type thing in the entire order. I forgot to click gift wrap for that item. So she gets two giant boxes from VS right before Christmas. She opens the first in front of her then ten year old brother and mother. The only thing not in a pink box is the floating lace panties that I added for free shipping. She was mortified, her mother laughed, and her little brother asked, "How are those underwear?" I was very sad I missed it.
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Nov 22, 2015 20:26
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I'm not going to waste time rehashing the idiotic gifts/non gifts my own family used to give me (as I think I've told those tales before), but my in-laws must be mind-readers, as their gifts to me follow up this grand tradition. [Disclaimer: my inlaws aren't bad people, it's just we don't really know one another, and I've never been family orientated; if I had my way, I'd send Mr Boods the 3 hour drive out to his home vllage for a few days, and enjoy lovely lovely peace and quiet home alone -- a win win situation that sadly never happens]. Every xmas, we drag-rear end out to the east coast to see his family and have to stay overnight; invariably, his sister, brother-in-law or one/both nephews have stinking colds, which they pass on to us, having no concept of using tissues to blow's one's nose (the boys like using their sleeves or collars of their jumpers -- they're 15 and 18 years old at this point, by the way), like to hug (which I don't, even with people I *do* know), and have no concept of staying the gently caress home when they're so far gone with the lurgy they can hardly stand up. I keep my distance from the younger nephew who, at the tender age of 11, grabbed by tit when 'giving me a hug' -- that's the last time either nephew got anywhere near me, thanks. Meanwhile, we sit in his parents' conservatory for hours on end while they fill him in on village gossip, what relatives have been up to, their own adventures. Like I said, genuinely nice people, but when you don't know anyone whom they're talking about, eight hours of this gets really, really dull. On the positive side, my father-in-law is a fantastic cook, and there is always a loaded sideboard of buffet goodies (his mum alternates with a sit-down meal every year, and every year I have to explain that Mr Boods is the vegetarian, not me -- sod ladling nutloaf onto my plate and gimme some of that tasty, tasty lamb). Then the present exchange comes along. Huzzah! Mr Boods is the Generous Bachelor Uncle who gave fantastic presents to everyone in the family; they give him really neat items that fit his hobbies and interests. Everyone is happy. I usually hit up the V & A Museum for gifts for them, as they have a terrific gift shop especially during the holiday season, and you can find really lovely things that meet the £10 per person limit (which, admittedly, I go over, because I like giving gifts more than I like receiving them). I pay attention to their conversations; I know what they're interests are, &c. I try to give them thoughtful, lovely things, and to be fair, theyr'e really exicted and happy with my gifts. Every year, from them collectively, I get a £10 gift card from Boots. (For Americans -- Boots is more or less like CVS). WTF. Ms Boods has a new favorite as of 13:06 on Nov 23, 2015 |
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Nov 23, 2015 13:02
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From my aunt; I don't even watch the show. to clarify, yes those are socks, yes those are capes on the socks
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Nov 23, 2015 13:42
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Crow Jane posted:My birthday is December 19th, so I've always gotten "combination gifts". My birthday is on the 25th and I've never gotten combination gifts in my entire life. Xmas in the morning with family, Birthday after dinner. What the gently caress is wrong with people that think 6 days away is acceptable, let alone the practice of "combination gifts" in the first place 
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Jan 1, 2016 14:41
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Astrobastard posted:My birthday is on the 25th and I've never gotten combination gifts in my entire life. Xmas in the morning with family, Birthday after dinner. What the gently caress is wrong with people that think 6 days away is acceptable, let alone the practice of "combination gifts" in the first place It's an excuse to be stingy so of course cheap people are going to do that.
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Jan 1, 2016 15:41
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Astrobastard posted:My birthday is on the 25th and I've never gotten combination gifts in my entire life. Xmas in the morning with family, Birthday after dinner. What the gently caress is wrong with people that think 6 days away is acceptable, let alone the practice of "combination gifts" in the first place My dads the 25th, he got a combined present from all us kids but it was a double value thing. That way he got something really nice and you didn't have to think up two gift ideas.
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Jan 3, 2016 01:03
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Astrobastard posted:My birthday is on the 25th and I've never gotten combination gifts in my entire life. Xmas in the morning with family, Birthday after dinner. What the gently caress is wrong with people that think 6 days away is acceptable, let alone the practice of "combination gifts" in the first place My birthday is even earlier and I still got combo presents for large portions of my life.
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Jan 3, 2016 03:52
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Mine is in May and I still get combo gifts.
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Jan 3, 2016 04:40
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My brother-in-law's birthday is the 21st, and one year, when he was 14, his Dad decided to combine his birthday party with the staff Christmas party he was throwing for his employees. It was poo poo.
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Jan 3, 2016 07:57
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Astrobastard posted:My birthday is on the 25th and I've never gotten combination gifts in my entire life. Xmas in the morning with family, Birthday after dinner. What the gently caress is wrong with people that think 6 days away is acceptable, let alone the practice of "combination gifts" in the first place My dad grew up poor as dirt with three brothers. Everyone got one present on Christmas and one of their birthday- except my dad, who was born December 28th. He only got one gift all year. Luckily, we all try and make up for his sad upbringing and give him a ton of gifts on his birthday every year now.  But he doesn't need anything and always asks for socks. My birthday is January 13th and I did occasionally get combo gifts, but they were usually from relatives didn't care about, anyways, so who cares?
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Jan 3, 2016 14:19
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The first year my friends and I got together to do a secret santa gift exchange, I was really excited because I had never been able to participate in one before. We were all teenagers with jobs, so we had a get together where we explained the concept, set a $20 limit on gifts, drew names and then dispersed to go about our shopping. When we got together for the christmas party, everyone's gifts were slipped under the tree someone cut out of cardboard and painted green. After some eating and socializing, it was time for the main event, presents! I was handed a tiny little packet about the size of a deck of cards. It was about then that I noticed that there were nine more of the exact same thing under the tree, each labelled with a different name. So I opened it. My friend had spent twenty dollars buying cassette tapes, onto which he recorded copies of his musical theatre singing auditions. He had given one to everyone because he felt secret santas were unfair, he just didn't want to tell anyone. I sort of regret throwing it into the river on the way home, because I want to know now if he was as bad a singer as I remember him being.
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Jan 3, 2016 23:14
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Way back in the mid-90's, my sister asked for a keyboard for Christmas. As an eight year old that took piano lessons, she was super excited to get a keyboard that would let her play with special sound effects. Christmas Day arrives, and my grandfather told her to open a gift that was shaped exactly like a small, semi-collapsible keyboard. She tore it open to find that Papaw had indeed gotten her a keyboard. A keyboard that was a plank of wood with several old keys nailed to it. Papaw did eventually unveil the actual gift of a (piano) keyboard, but my sister still has the original board and keys.
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Jan 4, 2016 04:23
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This is from like 22 years ago but it still bothers me. One Christmas as a nerdy teenager I asked for the Alien Omnibus which was the collected novelisations of the Alien movies. My mother somehow went into a large chain bookstore with a piece of paper with the title, author and ISBN for the paperback of that book and came out with a book self-published by an insane person about how the grey aliens were the demons from the Book of Revelations.
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Jan 4, 2016 04:48
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Every school year when I was little we would have a gift exchange. Any kids could bring in a gift and put it in a pile, and then if you brought in a gift you got to pick one to take. Except A) We went in alphabetical order every year and my name was last and B) Kids that forgot/couldn't bring in a gift would still want to participate so they would throw in a pencil or eraser or whatever they could get their hands on in school that day just so they could take something. This was apparently a totally okay thing from the teacher's perspective so every year I would come to school with a kick-rear end action figure or something, have to give it away, and then go last and get stuck with like a mostly-used pencil stub or some garbage as my gift. In third grade I got a chalkboard eraser that a kid stole and put in a brown paper bag. I had to give it back to the school.
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Jan 5, 2016 19:11
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El Estrago Bonito posted:My birthday is even earlier and I still got combo presents for large portions of my life. Heck this year I think I got 1 gift on my actual birthday. Which was 1 gift more than last year 
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Jan 5, 2016 19:41
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My birthday is near Halloween. I've gotten a lot of crummy themed gifts and parties because of that. But one of the strangest was 20 feet of blue, heavy duty outdoor LED rope when I was 14. Did they think I was a decorator setting up outside seating at a restaurant or something? 
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Jan 8, 2016 09:10
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C.M. Kruger posted:My birthday is near Halloween. I've gotten a lot of crummy themed gifts and parties because of that. I wish I got that when I was 14, I think I got socks or something.
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Jan 8, 2016 09:12
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:43 |
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My birthday is in early December. Far enough away from Christmas to still get separate presents, and sometimes larger combo gifts as well.  I've never taken issue with socks as a gift, probably because the socks I've been given were usually pretty cool. However, I was much less cool with the time mom gave me frilly underwear for my 9th birthday. At a party. In front of friends and family. Family members kept urging me to hold up each gift to show it off, and I had no idea what was going to be in there so of course I held it up to look at it.. My mom rushed in and said something like "don't show that one off!" and laughed. Like it was totally my idea to show off my brand-new underwear to the world that day. Thanks, mom.  I can't for the life of me remember what any of my other gifts were that year.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:04
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