Posted on 12/14/2008 6:49:52 AM PST by yankeedame
Came across this while cruising AOL this a.m. They listed something like 50 examples but here's just s few (in no particular order). Enjoy!
P.S. What was your worst?
For the second time, we asked AOL users to share
their stories of the worst gifts they ever got, and boy,
some were doozies.
"My husband and I... He set one of
mine aside and told me it would be last, as it was
really special....It was a very high-tech bathroom scale.
================================
"My grandmother purchased a container
made from four emply coffee cans connected...and decorated with paper cut-outs and
stickers...Inside ... were five rolls of toilet paper...
==============================================
The first Christmas after we married,
my mother-in-law gave... My husband...a rock out of her
backyard. Pet rocks were "in" but she didn't want to spend money
on something she could get out of her yard.
===================================================
"For Christmas one year, my
mother-in-law gave me a video tape on how to give yourself a
breast exam ... that she got for free some place. It was
placed in a gift box wrapped with Christmas paper and ribbon
I wonder if you could get away with giving a liberal clean coal for Christmas =)
Actually, if you could get a certificate that says you bought clean coal in their name or something, they’d probably actually be pretty happy cause they could flaunt it to their liberal friends....
Worst! Not having Sara for VP.
Best! Not having John for President!!!!!!!
My mother dying on Christmas morning, 1992. It put receiving Christmas presents in a different perspective. That year I didn’t care what I got for gifts.
My husband gave me a soft seat for our main toilet.
From my mom - a padded, no waisted, no drape hemp vest. A very curvy girl like me looks like a potato sack in that. Not being curvy herself, my mom subscribes to a “hide it with bulk” philosophy when it comes to clothes for me - and she did it for many years... it was the every yearness of it that really got to me. Expecting disappointment eases disappointment - she has finally stopped buying me clothes (crossing fingers here) but now she does it for my teenage daughter, which is worse because the poor kid is not inured yet.
” My husband gave me a soft seat for our main toilet.”
lol,wow, what a nice guy, ain’t that thoughtful,(sarc)
that takes the cake, on all i’ve read so far. you poor thing, what you get him? Hopefully,something as thoughtful as his gift?(smile)
myself can’t think of a bad christmas gift, guess im lucky.
The worst gift I've ever gotten?
An AOL free trail disk.
I've never been so insulted.
The dude was calling me an slack jawed moron with no clue aka AOLer.
LOL!!! THAT STUPID GAME ALMOST SINGLE-HANDEDLY TURNED ME OFF TO FOOTBALL FOREVER, AS A LITTLE KID!! It’s a great learning opportunity when you set it up, then all logic just went to hell when it was turned on. OPERATION also put the kabosh on my future surgical career.
(Today, I am just a scarred Bronco fan who has flashbacks of tiny sponge footballs. :-)
The worst Christmas gift I ever got was the Christmas gift I never got. Some Christmases come and go and I never receive a present. ***shrugs*** Thats the worst.
Second worst is a soap and a sponge.
Back when I was around 9 or 10 years old (somewhere around that age), one of my mother's best friends (along with her husband and their three daughters) lived way out in the suburbs, and several times a year we'd go out there to visit for the whole day (since they lived so far out).
However one day, mother brought us kids there just to pick up Christmas presents that my Mother's friend had thoughtfully got for us. I had no idea that we were going to get presents from my Mother's friend untill we got there.
When I heard that they had a present for me, I was so incredibly excited. The fact that these wonderful people that I truly loved had a Christmas present for me thrilled me beyond words. I wondered what they got me. For a couple of minutes my mind raced with the images of the thousands upon thousands of fun toys I have seen advertised on television commercials the whole year round, especially this close to Christmas.
Instead, they handed me a package that contained a soap and a sponge. Something that I've NEVER seen advertised on tv. It was probably something they bought off a rack at their local drugstore or something like that (It certainly didnt come from a well known toy store like Toys R Us, thats for sure). The soap was shaped like a baseball, with baseball stitching carved onto it, and the sponge was yellow colored, and shaped like a old type catchers glove. In fact, it you could slip it on your hand just like a glove. I hated sports (then and now), including baseball. I found sports to be quite boring.
No, I dont think they were trying to send me a hint about my personal hygiene, since unlike other kids my own age, I bathed regularly. And I liked it.
BUT, at the time, I really cherished these people who gave me this gift (still do in fact), and as a result, I cherished the gift as well. In fact, I cherished it so much, that I wouldn't get around to using the gift for months. Instead, I would carefully open the hard plastic packaging it was in, just to take it out, and hold my gift, sort of play with it, and then just as carefully put it back inside it's plastic packaging in order to preserve it.
I finally did get around to using the gift in the bathtub, but that was only out of necessity. In preparation for taking a bath one day, I found that we had no more soap left over in our apartment, except for my soap and sponge gift. So I had to use that reluctantly. It was a few more baths before the baseball shaped soap finally was used up, and I still used the sponge glove but I wound up wearing that out and it had to be thrown out.
Again, at the time, I REALLY cherished that gift, and I REALLY cherished the people who gave it to me (still do), but today I look back on it, and I shake my head. Out of all things, out of all the toys in the world, to give to a little kid as a Christmas gift. A soap and a sponge.
I got sock clips from my uncle when I was like 8.
No kidding. They were a set of six red rings that you could push pairs of socks through so they’d stay neat in your drawer.
To make it worse, my big brother was at that stage where he felt obliged to pass on manners, etc. on to me and he actually scolded me for looking ingrateful.
Politics and crummy presents aside, that uncle is a very good man... but he’ll never see this, given his politics. ;^)
A co-worker of mine gave his wife a lawnmower one year. She wound up being comitted in a mental hospital around a year later.
In hindsight: The trial built character as I was teased relentlessly. Maybe it made me a better man. Maybe but I know my bitter hatred towards anything polyester and 1970s stems from this present.
Worst gift I ever saw someone get was from my brother for his newly-wed wife. A chocolate bar acquired after a quick trip to the corner store. A Coffee Crisp to be exact. I tried to tell him that just saying he forgot was the wiser move.
I heard about that from my sister-in-law for years after. And yes, they are still married.
Whatever it was, I’ve forgotten it. :’)
Terror in Toyland: Santas freak out screaming toddlers
cnn
Posted on 12/14/2008 6:33:05 AM PST by JoeProBono
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2148549/posts
after all these years, that commercial is still engrained in my brain: "take out wrenched ankle."
nor can i think of a bad gift that i've received... one year i did get an engagement ring from my boyfriend, whom i had no intention of marrying... and he gave it to me in front of my family in the chaotic spectacle that takes place every year in my parent's living room... it was awkward...
also, one year another boyfriend got me every single thing i had asked for... exactly... while i was happy to have all these wonderful gifts, it was not quite as fun to receive everything exactly... i can't explain the feeling...
a few years back my husband and sons got me the Dyson vacuum cleaner... which i loved... and really wanted... they also got me other nice gifts, but it was my Dyson that made my heart leap with joy that year...
some of our friends gave my husband a hard time for that one, but i told my husband not to pay attention to them... last year i asked for a Cuisineart... hubby was reluctant to get it for me... he called my friends and asked what they thought... he did finally give in and get it for me... and i thought it was perfect..
this year all i want is a tub of red Swedish Fish... my favorite candy...
It was more of a “find” than a gift. It was a letter to my husband of 16 years from his new girlfriend, all about how she was looking forward to their wonderful new life together. When he arrived home that day the closest thing at hand was a claw hammer. If he hadn’t been so embarrassed I would have probably went to jail. But if he’d sent me to jail he wouldn’t have had anyone to babysit his handicapped daughter for him. I still hate the holidays. It’s been six years. He’s married to her now lots of festive drunken family fights for the holidays is what I hear.
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