Every great Christmas movie or song out there teaches us that, rather than being all about expensive gifts under the tree, the annual Christian celebration is really about spending quality time with your loved ones, breaking bread with family members you haven’t seen in forever and all-round spreading joy and merriment. But they’re wrong.
Everyone knows that if you get a shoddy Christmas gift, it can be a holiday season disaster and rather than Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree with that Mistletoe And Wine, you’ll be having a truly blue Christmas.
That being said, there are some Christmas gift misdemeanours that simply can’t ever be forgiven. The people of Reddit will back me up on this one; they shared stories of the most horrific Christmas gifts they’ve ever received, and I have to say, I’m pretty grateful for the vegan cheese I received from my aunt that one year now.
“It was from my Grandmother. I unwrapped it and it was a little tin box. I opened the box and there was a fake gift card there, like an indication of this is where you put the gift card. And I just looked at her like... what is it or whats going on? And she goes "It's a gift card holder. You can put all your gift cards in there." And I just started laughing saying noooo, you are supposed to put a gift card in here to give to someone! It was really cute though. Bless her heart.”
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“This wasn’t my gift, but it was the most awkward situation ever. So a few years ago my grandma had her legs amputated. Don’t feel bad. Since then, her health has improved a ton. Anyway, last Christmas my Aunt bought her socks. It was so awful.”
“A fairly distant relative once gave me three promotional (freebie) vouchers for a clothes shop I didn't really like. Each gave £5 off a purchase, per £50 spent. 15 year old me didn't have enough money to be spending £50 on clothes in one go, and the vouchers had actually expired on December the 23rd.”
“I had left some video games in my mom's room, she found them and assumed my dad had bought them as Christmas gifts for me. So for Christmas I got... my own games.”
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“Every year my family does a secret Santa on Christmas. When I was about 10 my aunt had to buy me a gift. So Christmas morning I open my gift, and i find a Christmas sweater along with a pair of my aunts stained underwear. Apparently she was doing laundry and wrapping gifts at the same time and got the two mixed up.”
“A giftcard to a lingeries store from my grandma. The f***ed up part wasn’t the gift itself, but the fact that she made my poor 19 year old brother go in and buy it. As he told it, the conversation went something like this: Cashier: 'shopping for your girlfriend?' Brother: 'no, my sister…well my grandma…' Awkward silence…”
“My worst gift was getting my favorite Nintendo game, The Little Mermaid. I was overjoyed! I played that game everyday for a week. Then it mysteriously disappeared! I looked everywhere for it. Distraught, I told my mom that I couldn't find the game and that I hadn't lost it, because I hadn't moved it from the living room at all. She told me I wouldn't have lost it if I took better care of my things. Flash forward to me at 21. I find out I hadn't lost the game but that the game was a 7 day rental from a video store and was returned.”
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“My grandma gave me bright red undies with google eyes on them and an extra piece of black cloth to put your dick inside as the ‘nose’ …I’m a girl.”
“One year when I was a kid, my parents bought me a computer mouse.
What makes it bad is that I didn't have a computer, and had been asking for one for years.”
“A few years ago my aunt gave me a rock. She gave presents to me and my two older cousins and said its time for the big girls to open their gifts. She made my cousins go first and they got scarves and I opened my present and pulled a rock out of the package and looked up waiting for her to laugh and she said "isn't it wonderful??" So I had to be like yeah, I loooove it!! She then told me that she had dug it out of her garden the previous summer and she knew that I would think it is sooo 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." She is a tad eccentric. Both were pretty terrible presents.
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“This year I got a pair of pajamas that were identical to the pair I was wearing when I unwrapped them.”
“A hedgehog exercise wheel.
I do not own a hedgehog.”
“One Christmas I got 18 pairs of socks. I was probably 12 and I tried really hard to look grateful and thank my parents, but with each pair I opened I got progressively more upset. It didn't help my brother was tearing through his toys and video games. I ended up excusing myself to go to the bathroom and started crying. My mom came to get me and asked me what was wrong. She said to stop crying and come back to the living room. She then gave me my real gift — a laptop. The reason I got socks was my mom just wanted me to have something to unwrap because my brother had a lot of cheaper stuff, where I had one bigger thing. I felt incredibly spoiled and embarrassed. Definitely a happy ending!”
So, socks for your amputated leg, your very own video games and a rock. I don’t think many awful Christmas gifts could top these. On the other hand, if you
can
top these, I think it’s officially time to disown your family and move to Kyrgyzstan.
