With Christmas just around the corner (or literally happening right now as the shops would have you believe), it’s time to turn your thoughts to the presents you will be giving this year. And specifically, the presents that will be genuinely appreciated by the recipient.
We mention this, because it turns out that sometimes people give less than zero thought to the things they foist upon others in the spirit of ‘generosity’. Over on the AskUK subreddit, user bigpussystance posed this question:
What’s the worst gift you’ve ever received? Talking to my mum about this recently.
She was recalling the time she turned 40 and her mum gave her a book about vinegar and a box of teabags. When it was my granny’s birthday a few months later, my mum decided to be petty and got her a book about salt. Funnily enough after that the gifts stopped entirely.
Bleak times indeed. And this example of terrible gifting prompted lots of other people to chip in with examples of their own, like these…
1.
‘Cliff Richard calendar. Was an in-joke with his ex that he’d mis-remembered as being an in-joke with me.’
–Affectionate-Owl9594
2.
‘I once got a cardboard cutout of Cliff Richard from one of my American bosses, and he demanded it be in the background of all Teams calls. Awful.’
–CozJeez85
3.
‘I got a pack of electric tooth brush heads, I don’t own an electric toothbrush. I expected an electric toothbrush as another gift. Nope.’
–jaBroniest
4.
‘JML pen set (from my boyfriend), I worked at a stationery company at the time.’
–RachaelBlonde
5.
‘A bottle of wine that had been opened. I assumed they tried it and didn’t like it, then wrapped it up for me as a present. It had gone off.’
–Holiday_Cat_7284
6.
‘When I was a child, my Nan would buy all of her grandchildren a face flannel each Christmas. This went on for years. It was wrapped up in a toilet roll tube covered in crepe paper to look like a cracker.’
–reclueso
7.
‘I received a bag of parsnips as a leaving gift from work once. No idea why.’
–_idle-hands_
8.
‘Not me, but my mum received a dove body wash set that was suspiciously heavy. When she opened it, it was in fact two cans of baked beans.’
–PotatoPortal123
9.
‘My aunt re-gifted me the tea towels I had bought for her. I was about 12.’
–Individual-Fox9173
10.
‘My grandparents got me some paper one year. That’s pretty shit if you ask me.’
–brutal_and_beautiful
11.
‘My mum bought me a massive box of powdered mash potato pouches for Christmas once. Wrapped up and everything.
She gave it to me and said I know you like mash. I was SO confused and disappointed. The worst part is it didn’t even taste good. It was vile. Worst gift ever!’
–Limit_Ok
12.
‘A VHS tape from a charity shop. It still had the 30p sticker on and this was around 2009 so we only had a DVD player.’
–lime-enthusiast
